Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Title
Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Creator
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958
Identifier
WWP23126
Date
1923 November 28
Description
Letter from Jon Bouman to his family.
Source
Gift of William C. and Evelina Suhler
Subject
Germany--History--1918-1933
Correspondence
Berlin, Germany
Contributor
Rachel Dark
Denise Montgomery
Language
English
Requires
PROOFREADING
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
Hotel Adlon
Unter den Linden
Berlin Nov. 28 ‘23
My dears;
Mother’s letter and Mary’s came in together; many thanks for all your news, glad to see everything is all right with you, although fear you are still the same feeblites as you were a fortnight ago. I am writing this at the office where I have gone after dinner (stuffed piglet and Rapunzel salad) for the sake of a walk although a miniature snowstorm is raging which I enjoyed. My winter coat I found very useful and cozy. The thermometer just outside my window has been going down gradually morning after morning and now dipped below zero (centigrade). Yesterday the first snow fell here and things were in an awful mess: the communists made a big demonstration and I heard revolver shooting from afar but nobody appears to have been killed and only a few wounded and 77 arrested. At the same time a big reception was being given at the Russian Soviet embassy and everybody gay and suave, while 500 yards away fighting was going on – the communists having admittedly acted under orders from Moscow! Strange life, eh? Smith went to the reception, he says the soviet embassy is by far the finest and best equipped of any he had ever seen, which is a good deal to say because he has been a visitor to so many embassies. It was a surprise to me too, as I thought it would be a place where people were free to spit on the ceiling! Saturday before last there was a ball at the Adlon for the benefit of the “suffering middle classes” and last Saturday a reception given by the foreign press association to the diplomatic corps, who all appeared. I didn’t go because I hadn’t my “glad rags” and Enderis didn’t because he was too lazy to shave. But I heard it was a great success. Tomorrow I am going to hear Kreisler play at the Philharmonic, we got a ticket at the office which no one seems to want so I bagged it.
One meets all sorts of queer folk here. Carl Vollmoller who wrote the “Miracle” came to our table to ask how he could get a passport to America; it seems he is an Austrian who has lost his citizenship and there was some trouble to fix him up as he wanted to join Reinhardt in America where the “Miracle” is to be produced. Then I was introduced to a “Merry Widow” with a whisky-and cigarette voice. She is an American who has lost her husband some months ago here and is now going to marry a German baron, which fact she trumpets around the whole hotel. They are going to go to America on their honeymoon, and the body of the dead husband is going across on the same boat, to make one job of it, she cheerfully confesses. Can you beat that?
It was announced in due season that Mrs. Brown was to have a holiday last Monday and everybody was bidden to a the dansant. It so happened that when I lunched with them the previous week, we were all wanting mustard, but there wasn’t any in the house, so I bought her a little glass and metal mustard pot and sent it anonymously with a piece of paper round it, on which I had written:
Ja, wy hadden geen mosterd
Maan we hebben nu mosterd vamdaag!
People are just as crazy over the “Banana” tune here as at home. I see Paris has also been infected! By the way, I hear that “Enid” (as Mrs. W.—of The Hague is called in our gang) went to America to get a divorce, as she wanted to get married again, but just at that time her husband was leaving the sanatorium cured, and now, they say, she can’t get her divorce!
One thing I don’t envy is the open fire with the cold draughts circling round your back! Once indoors no cold touches you – corridors, halls &c are as warm as the rooms themselves. In my bathroom there is a little radiator just alongside the throne – no danger of catching cold in the middle of the coldest night! When will people at home wake up to the solid comfort of the radiator?
I was dragged away from the office by Enderis who is like a flea in a bottle over this everlasting government crisis, and am finishing this letter at my luxurious writing table in my hotel room at 11 p.m. having in the manner of a grand seigneur decided to spend several billions on some tea; the first I have had here. I know it is no good anyway, but we must economize. Wine is beyond all reasonable figures nowadays and what there is, isn’t worth the money. I am costing the A.P. about pound 20 a week for expenses. My warm room costs 18/- (English money + 18,000,000,000,000 marks a day0 plus 80% municipal taxes which makes 32 shillings per day for the room alone! I was sorry to find I had to buy a new singlet; one I took with me I found was full of holes – I didn’t look before I put in my suitcase. So I chased around and bought one for 12 ½ billion marks = officially 12/6= with bootleggers money about 10s/- which would cost about 7/6 in London. Smith gave me a fright by telling me he had bought one at the same shop and he found afterwards it was full of moth holes whereupon I flew to my room, but hurrah! mine was all right.
Tomorrow American Thanksgiving Day, the Browns are giving a grand party, dinner, and dance to last till 4 a.m. But I am side stepping on that party!
With love to all,
Thine,
Jack
Unter den Linden
Berlin Nov. 28 ‘23
My dears;
Mother’s letter and Mary’s came in together; many thanks for all your news, glad to see everything is all right with you, although fear you are still the same feeblites as you were a fortnight ago. I am writing this at the office where I have gone after dinner (stuffed piglet and Rapunzel salad) for the sake of a walk although a miniature snowstorm is raging which I enjoyed. My winter coat I found very useful and cozy. The thermometer just outside my window has been going down gradually morning after morning and now dipped below zero (centigrade). Yesterday the first snow fell here and things were in an awful mess: the communists made a big demonstration and I heard revolver shooting from afar but nobody appears to have been killed and only a few wounded and 77 arrested. At the same time a big reception was being given at the Russian Soviet embassy and everybody gay and suave, while 500 yards away fighting was going on – the communists having admittedly acted under orders from Moscow! Strange life, eh? Smith went to the reception, he says the soviet embassy is by far the finest and best equipped of any he had ever seen, which is a good deal to say because he has been a visitor to so many embassies. It was a surprise to me too, as I thought it would be a place where people were free to spit on the ceiling! Saturday before last there was a ball at the Adlon for the benefit of the “suffering middle classes” and last Saturday a reception given by the foreign press association to the diplomatic corps, who all appeared. I didn’t go because I hadn’t my “glad rags” and Enderis didn’t because he was too lazy to shave. But I heard it was a great success. Tomorrow I am going to hear Kreisler play at the Philharmonic, we got a ticket at the office which no one seems to want so I bagged it.
One meets all sorts of queer folk here. Carl Vollmoller who wrote the “Miracle” came to our table to ask how he could get a passport to America; it seems he is an Austrian who has lost his citizenship and there was some trouble to fix him up as he wanted to join Reinhardt in America where the “Miracle” is to be produced. Then I was introduced to a “Merry Widow” with a whisky-and cigarette voice. She is an American who has lost her husband some months ago here and is now going to marry a German baron, which fact she trumpets around the whole hotel. They are going to go to America on their honeymoon, and the body of the dead husband is going across on the same boat, to make one job of it, she cheerfully confesses. Can you beat that?
It was announced in due season that Mrs. Brown was to have a holiday last Monday and everybody was bidden to a the dansant. It so happened that when I lunched with them the previous week, we were all wanting mustard, but there wasn’t any in the house, so I bought her a little glass and metal mustard pot and sent it anonymously with a piece of paper round it, on which I had written:
Ja, wy hadden geen mosterd
Maan we hebben nu mosterd vamdaag!
People are just as crazy over the “Banana” tune here as at home. I see Paris has also been infected! By the way, I hear that “Enid” (as Mrs. W.—of The Hague is called in our gang) went to America to get a divorce, as she wanted to get married again, but just at that time her husband was leaving the sanatorium cured, and now, they say, she can’t get her divorce!
One thing I don’t envy is the open fire with the cold draughts circling round your back! Once indoors no cold touches you – corridors, halls &c are as warm as the rooms themselves. In my bathroom there is a little radiator just alongside the throne – no danger of catching cold in the middle of the coldest night! When will people at home wake up to the solid comfort of the radiator?
I was dragged away from the office by Enderis who is like a flea in a bottle over this everlasting government crisis, and am finishing this letter at my luxurious writing table in my hotel room at 11 p.m. having in the manner of a grand seigneur decided to spend several billions on some tea; the first I have had here. I know it is no good anyway, but we must economize. Wine is beyond all reasonable figures nowadays and what there is, isn’t worth the money. I am costing the A.P. about pound 20 a week for expenses. My warm room costs 18/- (English money + 18,000,000,000,000 marks a day0 plus 80% municipal taxes which makes 32 shillings per day for the room alone! I was sorry to find I had to buy a new singlet; one I took with me I found was full of holes – I didn’t look before I put in my suitcase. So I chased around and bought one for 12 ½ billion marks = officially 12/6= with bootleggers money about 10s/- which would cost about 7/6 in London. Smith gave me a fright by telling me he had bought one at the same shop and he found afterwards it was full of moth holes whereupon I flew to my room, but hurrah! mine was all right.
Tomorrow American Thanksgiving Day, the Browns are giving a grand party, dinner, and dance to last till 4 a.m. But I am side stepping on that party!
With love to all,
Thine,
Jack
Original Format
Letter
To
Bouman Family
Files
Collection
Citation
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1923 November 28, WWP23126, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.