Dear Folksies Home
Follow the Adventures of the 59th Evac.
Hospital with Dear Folksies
On April 11, 1942, René Bine Jr., MD — a 26-year-old resident from Stanford Hospital and newly-minted Army lieutenant — wrote the first of more than 230 letters to his family in San Francisco. René sent dispatches from several locations stateside, and then overseas in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France and Germany – every place the 59th Evacuation Hospital, his World War II M.A.S.H. unit, set up their tents and cared for the sick and wounded. Each single-spaced, typed letter began with the salutation, “Dear Folksies.”
On April 11, 2017, the Dear Folksies “blog” launched – featuring excerpts from René’s letters posted 75 years to the day after he wrote them, and illustrated with photographs from his historic 3-1/2 year adventure.
In December 2020, Dear Folksies morphed from a 524-post blog into this website. For tips on accessing the various features of the site, check out FAQs. For more background on René and Dear Folksies, visit About.
René's Letters Home - April 1942 to October 1945
April 11 – August 15, 1942
August 16 – December 14, 1942
December 15 – December 29, 1942
December 30, 1942 – June 19, 1943
June 20 – June 25, 1943
June 26 – August 5, 1943
August 6, 1943 – May 27, 1944
May 28 – August 10, 1944
August 11 – August 14, 1944
August 15, 1944 – March 28, 1945
March 29 – October 6, 1945
October 7 – October 17, 1945
DEAR FOLKSIES – CURATED SELECTIONS
Lois and René
René’s Jewish French Relatives
Dr. Philip Westdahl’s Journal
