This collection includes two folders of correspondence (1945) from Brigadier General John L. Whitelaw to relatives in East Lansing, Michigan, when he was stationed in Germany during World War II. In his letters, Whitelaw describes the Ruhr Valley area and Berlin after the German surrender, and comments on the Russian soldiers, trains and the civilian food situation.

The collection also contains two scrapbooks. One (1883-1900) contains nineteenth-century pictorial advertisements, newspaper clippings, and early "Mutt and Jeff" comic strips. The second scrapbook is cloth and was compiled by Whitelaw as a child.