Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958

WWP23027

1919 March 16

Letter from Jon Bouman to his family.

Gift of William C. and Evelina Suhler

Correspondence

Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920)

Rachel Dark

Denise Montgomery

Austin Shifflett

English

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.

Dearest,

    Your letters of the 9th (last Sunday) and the 12th reached me all right, and I would have written sooner but for the fact that we were one man short who had to go to Brest to meet the President. I am glad to find that you agree with me on the financial business also on the rental of our prospective house, and I know you will be a careful manager. I am trying to avoid all unnecessary expenses for clothes &c because I find clothing is just as expensive and poor in quality as in Holland, which rather surprised me. Shirts are also just as expensive but curiously socks are cheaper except all wool ones, and it is the same with underwear, so I want to avoid buying anything in that line here, but I think I shall need to restock my wardrobe just as soon as I get back to England.

    By the way, Berry has got his orders to return to Paris, which no doubt will please him immensely, and Holland will be left to stew in its own juice, Kaiser and all.

    It is good to read that you are so pleased with the children and that they are keeping so well and happy. Long may it continue! I am anxious to see their bobbed heads. Do get a few postcard pictures taken, and by the way, pay Dr. Alexander the 3s/6d we owe him. I wonder if the Natural Science mistress at the school, Mrs. Christine Pugh, is old Pugh’s sister, I have an idea she was a schoolmistress and the name Christine seems familiar to me. I am glad that with their two baths a day they are clean babies – their unfortunate father has one a week, for which he has to pay 3 francs.

    Life here continues in its kaleidoscopic variety. Last Sunday it was pouring here too, a warm rain. I was then among the Greeks, by invitation of the Hellenic Delegation to view pictures of Greece, and listen to a lecture by an eminent professor. All the beau monde was there, and the doors were guarded by young and good looking six footers in their picturesque Greek uniform with jeweled poniards in their belts. You would have been interested in a show of national costumes (women’s) of various parts of Greece, all embroidery and barbaric chains, and there was also a collection of dolls dressed up in different Greek costumes. There was a buffet where tea was served, and marvelous to state it was so good that I went back and had two helpings, and the pastries were excellent. So that was quite a treat for tea – less me. On Friday I had a long and earnest conversation on bolshevism with the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia at the Ritz Hotel, after which I dressed for a dinner with the Archbishop of the Philippine Islands where I found myself sitting opposite to the American Secretary of State Lansing and the famous American labour leader Sam Gompers, and generals to the right of me and generals to the left of me, so if that isn’t cosmopolitanism, demme, I don’t know what is!

    I was much surprised at getting a letter of congratulations from our New York office on a little story I had written about Baron von der Lancken, former civil governor of Brussels under German occupation, who fled to The Hague and had to stand in the queue for his bread ticket. This seems to have tickled the American appetite no end, and leading articles have been printed about it! Of course that is just what the AP would like. Frank L just came to show me that my story had also been printed in the NY Times, so that’s where I have put Mrs. Wilkie’s nose out of joint for the last time! I am sorry she has had all this trouble with her landlady, as her flat was so convenient and commodious – I shall write her a line to her new address.

    Sometime back Mrs. Pell (has she paid you those 25s/- or 20?) wrote and joked about me probably being “no end of a swell”. This is not difficult, as civilians here are decidedly not well dressed. France has suffered too much for attention to be paid to clothes, and the only well dressed people one sees – I mean, on ordinary occasions in the street – are unmistakably English or Americans. That overcoat I got cheaply at a sale in The Hague, with the belt, has unexpectedly turned out a roaring success – everybody envies me for it and I am often asked where I bought it, with awe struck accents as to how much such a coat would cost now! So whatever happens, I seem to be a toff!! This amuses me considerably.

    I got the letters from the children, addressed by Mary, all right. They seem to be very well and contented and happy at their school. Mary writes very nicely, and she is the only one who says how pleased she was at hearing I would be back in July and how she was looking forward to it. But no doubt the others will be just as pleased, bless them! I don’t mind if they forget to say so.

    I am glad dear to see that you are keeping well, and that your room is comfortable. I hope your landlady is of the good sort; they are rather scarce, perhaps. My hotel is run by two old maids, sisters I believe, who look like two wise little owls. The elder is rather a fierce little owl whose one affection is a little terrier which is as fat as a sheep, and follows her all about the place. The younger one is a subdued little owl, with a perpetual apologetic smile. It is a very quiet hotel, with no café attached, although there is a good sprinkling of military men – French, English, and American – among the guests. As I am rarely there, I don’t know any of them.

    The trees on the boulevards and along the Seine embankment are just bursting into buds, but the weather today is rather raw, with a cold wind; fortunately the rain has kept off. I went for a turn in the Luxembourg Gardens this morning. It is quite a pleasure to pass through these gardens and those of the Louvre and Tuileries with their statuary, each of which is a work of art, although, there is not so much of the greensward that makes English parks so attractive.

    Once more, good luck in the house – hunt, dearest; much love to yourself and the “offspringers” as Nurse Leaf used to say.

Kind regards to the Thomson Family, the Grundys, Aumomiers, and all others who ask for me.

I have paid Jones Bros up to March 16.

I hope it won’t have to come to this! [Text of newspaper clipping: "Wishing to get a house in the Wimbledon district, a discharged soldier dropped a typewritten appeal into house, asking if the occupant would tell him in the event of the home being vacated."]

[Text of newspaper clipping repeated on separate notebook page in Jon Bouman’s handwriting.]

Letter

Bouman Family