Philip Carret was a well-known investor and founder of one of the U.S.’s original mutual funds; he died in 1998 at the age of 101. Before his financial career, Phil Carret was a motivated, eager, and often homesick 21-year-old pilot-in-training in France during World War I. From September 1917 to February 1919, Carret wrote over 200 letters to his family in Cambridge.

 

Carret’s letters convey a fascinating mix of concern for his family and friends, frustration with military rules and the slow pace of aviation training, his friendships with other cadets, instructions to his parents on how to invest his pay, interactions with the local townspeople, and his thrill at learning to fly. His letters provide a firsthand timeline of the training for WWI aviation cadets.

 

Carret’s writing is full of personality, humor, and keen observations, offering an unfiltered perspective on military life, cultural differences, and the war itself.

 

Anne Borg has been researching her family history for over 30 years. She holds the BU Certificate in Genealogical Research, has completed ProGen, GenProof, and numerous genealogy institute courses, and is a member of several genealogical and historical organizations. Anne is a former editor of MSOG’s Past Times newsletter.

 

Anne is her family’s archivist, with a collection of five generations of letters, photographs, diaries, scrapbooks, and other documents and ephemera, some going back to the early 1800s. She will share highlights of her grandfather’s WWI experiences through excerpts of his letters, cablegrams, and postcards to his family. Anne will describe her experiences using AI to transcribe the letters. She will also talk about she used these family letters as a tool to further her family history research.