Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Title

Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Creator

Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958

Identifier

WWP23058

Date

1919 September 16

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

Hi, Hi, some of you!

First I am asked to hug myself, and then to remember all the names of the newspapers, past and present, if you please. What do you take me for? a contortionist? of the London Directory? Well, I've made a shot at it; not at the hugging, for I've given up trying, but at the newspapers. There was once a paper called the MAJORITY, but it only lasted a week. And the WEEKLY DISPATCH may be the Weekly Times, or any other weekly paper. Ask mother if she doesn't think so too. She may think of some other papers. I have almost forgotten what London papers look like.

So you have seen your first fire, eh? I well remember my first fire, it was frightfully exciting, it happened in our street; it was a little oil and color shop and it blazed fiercely. I remember the shopman, a little hunchbacked man with spectacles. And mother would not let me go out to see it, because she thought the crowd was dangerous. And the people stood on our window sill to see the sight, with their dirty boots, much to mother's annoyance. And I was very angry too because I wanted to stand on the window sill and I wasn't allowed and saw next to nothing of the fire. Heigho! That is forty years ago. I am really getting an old man, but I don't admit it to mother, oh no! I'm never getting old, I always say.

Last Sunday I took a stroll through the bird market; there were hundreds of dicky bydies in cages all chirping away and cockatoos screeching, and there were also dogs and cats for sale. Baskets full of tiny katzenbuckels and the dearest little puppies all snuggling together, with the mother-dog standing over them, looking so mournful as though she knew that her puppies were going to be sold away from her. One fox terrier wanted very much to make friends with me; he all but said: "Buy me, master." But what should I do with a dog?

I was just marching along, humming to myself:

Heerlyk, heerlyk, niemand weet
Dat ik Repelsteeltje heet,

when all of a sudden who do you think I saw? My KABOUTERTJE! He was sitting on the pavement with his back against the wall, and a great bunch of that canary weed stuff beside him; I've forgotten the name of it. Oh he was BUZZY, and MELLY, for it had been very hot for days and I bet he had never washed himself since I met him in the woods.

I wonder what that little girl downstairs is like and also the people. You must tell me. Don't you ever see Ozzif nowadays? I wonder how her little baby is getting on.

Now mind you let Betty and Bill read this letter or otherwise I shall visit you with my high displeasure. As for mother, I don't know whether it is suitable for her to read, Hahahah she will think I have been in the sun. I have just been eating some rooftiles, you don't know what they are but they are very nice. I suppose that's whats making me feel so IMPY today.

Goodbye, with love to mother and all, and XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXthis is easy XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

You loving
Dad

Original Format

Letter

To

Bouman Family

Files

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1919-08-16b.pdf

Citation

Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1919 September 16, WWP23058, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.