Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Title

Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Creator

Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958

Identifier

WWP23057

Date

1919 August 13

Description

Letter from Jon Bouman to his family.

Source

Gift of William C. and Evelina Suhler

Subject

Correspondence
Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920)

Contributor

Rachel Dark
Denise Montgomery

Language

English

Provenance

Evelina Suhler is the granddaughter of Jon Anthony Bouman and inherited the family collection of his letters from the years of World War I. She and her husband gave the letters to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum in 2013.

Text

13 Place de la Bourse
                                                                      Paris Aug 13, 1919

My dear Bairns,

You have been so industrious lately (I got another letter today from Mary and Betty) that I will no longer put off writing you a letter all to yourselves. First there is Bill, who writes a very good letter but doesn’t know how to spell bananas. However, he is the only one who spells Barbara Collins’s name correctly; both the girls write Barbra. So that’s one up for you, Master Bill. But as for that book you got the loan of from Aunty Minnie, I don’t know whether it’s called The Young Vipers or The Young Spiders or The Young Sisters. Try another pen the next time you write, boy. You wished me a nice Bank holiday but they don’t keep the August Bank holiday in Paris, so it was just like an ordinary day. Last week I went to the Paris Zoo where I had never been although I had written something in the American papers about it many months ago. Exactly one hundred animals have died there, some died of fright during the war, because bombs fell in that part, and then the river Seine overflowed in the winter and the monkeys caught cold and died and the snakes too. Then the pride of the Zoo, the baby hippopotamus named Coco died, they say because he was lonely and no one came to see him. Now that the war is over, there are more people in the Gardens again, but I was quite disappointed in them; there are so few animals left and the place is not so well kept as in London or Amsterdam. Still there are some fine polar bears which seemed in very good health with their coats so smooth and clean, and all the French children crowded around the bear pit. The French call all bears “Martin” and there was one that had been taught to salute with one paw; he knew he gets bits of bread or biscuit then. So they were all shouting: --“Salue Martin!!” and the big bear kept on saluting with his great paw up to his ear. Then there was a cage full of brown bears, one had a trick of moaning like a person in pain when he wanted anything, you could hear it a long way off: -- Ah –ah – ah! It sounded quite alarming.

Phew! Isn’t it hot? Bill will have to take a bit of ice in a pail next time mother sends him out for butter. Swimming baths are fine places just now, eh? I am eating lots of peaches just now, they seem quite plentiful of course they are grown a great deal in France. Not those small hard things they sell in London greengrocers shops but big lovely luscious things full of lovely juice that drips down your chin. Ah! don’t I make you wish, now, eh Betty? Raisins too are very plentiful and sweet. And melons! They don’t need any sugar, so sweet are they.

Yes Mary, I often wish I could have a peep at you all too, or that I could have you and Mother with me on one of the days I have off. I couldn’t promise you any tea, but lots of other good things. Keep on training Bill to play the piano: I shall expect great things when I come home, so you must all practise hard. I am always glad to hear about doesjes, Betty, so you must tell me again when he comes into the garden. Last evening I was having dinner in the office as I was too busy to go out, and and a black doesje came from the courtyard and I gave it some fish bones which it ate greedily so I hope it will come again tonight.

Here is a joke you must tell mother who always enjoys funny names. In Los Angeles, California there is a firm of undertakers called Chase and Ketchum. And I came across another odd name: Vernal Showers. As you have been reading a book by a little girl of 8, here is some poetry by another little girl of the same age. How do you like it? Something for you, Betty!

[Enclosure: Undated newspaper clipping, titled: “A Little Girl’s Songs” (Hilda Conkling, aged 8, in Poetry)]

I am writing this letter in my shirtsleeves because it is so hot. I suppose mother revels in it. This is me (notice bits of hair sticking up as usual)

[Below is drawing of writer hunched over his desk, in shirt sleeves, writing this letter.]

                                                          With many XXXXXXXXX etc.
                                                               Your loving
                                                                     Dad

Don’t forget to hug mother. How’s Hugh?

Original Format

Letter

To

Bouman Family

Files

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1919-08-13.pdf

Citation

Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1919 August 13, WWP23057, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.