Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Title
Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Creator
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958
Identifier
WWP23059
Date
1919 August 21
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 21, 1919
Dearest;
Herewith cheque for £40 of my August salary which will enable you to carry on in September. On or about the same date in September, I will send you £40 more, which ought to pay rent, school fees, and other liabilities. Then at the end of September, and everything being --if possible – paid off, we will revise the situation again. There will be our share of the gardening to pay; but of course we don’t know how much that may be.
The weather seems to have broken at last; I woke up this morning to wet pavements. Paris from all accounts has been hotter than London but the heat hasn’t bothered me much, as our office never gets a ray of sunlight which is rather miserable in the cold season but makes it a haven of recuperation for those who have to be chasing about in the sun-baked streets. I have little outside work just now, so was able to keep as cool as anybody could expect to be, working in my shirtsleeves. The worst thing is travelling, even half an hour in a trainful of people is something awful, the few times I have been getting out of town on my day off.
I am returning the school prospectus which looks allright to me, only it says that an entrance examination is necessary. Do you suppose Bill would pass that?
Berry has not shown up here yet, but I suppose he is in London now – at any rate I see by cable copies that the new man Rennick has started in with a lot of old tosh that is undoubtedly new to him, but not to Berry or me.
Poor little Mrs. Hiatt got no end of a shock when she called for news of her husband the other day, because he has been ordered to go to Constantinople to meet an American mission there which is going across the Black Sea to the Caucasus and the Armenian territories. To get out of Budapest, where he was, he had to use a flying machine to Vienna. So when he comes back, no one knows. But it is some life for Hiatt, eh?
I am sending you a Times cutting about the “Importance of Being Ernest”. What a tactless ass he is to drag in the King about changing his name –that would put any Englishman’s back up, and yet he doesn’t see it. Poor old potbellied Ernst, he is never out of trouble!
Very many thanks to Bolshie and Betty for their last letters which came with yours. I was much interested in the blackberries being ripe and I should like to see a sketch of Mary in the bath, with all that hair growing on her legs. I have no doubt that the spider was just as frightened of her as she was of the spider!
With much love and kisses to all you dear ones,
Ever thine,
Jack.
[Enclosure: Undated newspaper clipping from the Times (London) titled: “From ‘Ernst’ to ‘Ernest’. Homeopathic Doctor’s Brass Plate.” The story is referred to in this letter.]
Paris, Aug 21, 1919
Dearest;
Herewith cheque for £40 of my August salary which will enable you to carry on in September. On or about the same date in September, I will send you £40 more, which ought to pay rent, school fees, and other liabilities. Then at the end of September, and everything being --if possible – paid off, we will revise the situation again. There will be our share of the gardening to pay; but of course we don’t know how much that may be.
The weather seems to have broken at last; I woke up this morning to wet pavements. Paris from all accounts has been hotter than London but the heat hasn’t bothered me much, as our office never gets a ray of sunlight which is rather miserable in the cold season but makes it a haven of recuperation for those who have to be chasing about in the sun-baked streets. I have little outside work just now, so was able to keep as cool as anybody could expect to be, working in my shirtsleeves. The worst thing is travelling, even half an hour in a trainful of people is something awful, the few times I have been getting out of town on my day off.
I am returning the school prospectus which looks allright to me, only it says that an entrance examination is necessary. Do you suppose Bill would pass that?
Berry has not shown up here yet, but I suppose he is in London now – at any rate I see by cable copies that the new man Rennick has started in with a lot of old tosh that is undoubtedly new to him, but not to Berry or me.
Poor little Mrs. Hiatt got no end of a shock when she called for news of her husband the other day, because he has been ordered to go to Constantinople to meet an American mission there which is going across the Black Sea to the Caucasus and the Armenian territories. To get out of Budapest, where he was, he had to use a flying machine to Vienna. So when he comes back, no one knows. But it is some life for Hiatt, eh?
I am sending you a Times cutting about the “Importance of Being Ernest”. What a tactless ass he is to drag in the King about changing his name –that would put any Englishman’s back up, and yet he doesn’t see it. Poor old potbellied Ernst, he is never out of trouble!
Very many thanks to Bolshie and Betty for their last letters which came with yours. I was much interested in the blackberries being ripe and I should like to see a sketch of Mary in the bath, with all that hair growing on her legs. I have no doubt that the spider was just as frightened of her as she was of the spider!
With much love and kisses to all you dear ones,
Ever thine,
Jack.
[Enclosure: Undated newspaper clipping from the Times (London) titled: “From ‘Ernst’ to ‘Ernest’. Homeopathic Doctor’s Brass Plate.” The story is referred to in this letter.]
Original Format
Letter
To
Bouman Family
Files
Collection
Citation
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1919 August 21, WWP23059, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.