Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Title
Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Creator
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958
Identifier
WWP23068
Date
1919 September 25
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, Sept. 25, 1919
My dear little Cabbage,
Do you mind being called a cabbage? Because that is what I would always call you, if I were a Frenchman – (mon petit chou). On the other hand, you can’t call me a turnip or a carrot. That would be offensive, and a pear would be worst of all! That is one of the funny things of foreign languages. Well, dear cabbage, many happy returns of your birthday, and lots of presents; unfortunately I cannot send you anything from here; but mother will look after you alright, and I haven't seen your verlanglystje, but I heard it was a long one. Well, if you don’t get all you would like now, there’s Xmas to come.
I hope you will have a little party, and a lovely day. I remember when I was about 12 I had a bad toothache, so you must be taking after me. My mother gave me some cherry brandy to hold in the sore half of my mouth; ; and after I had swallowed it, I thought it wasn’t such nasty medicine as I feared.
I forgot to tell mother in my last letter that on my day off, which was spoiled by the rain in the morning, I went into some churches, the British Embassy church and some French churches. In one of them two weddings were being celebrated, and I watched the service which was very nice with the organ playing and sweet voiced choirboys singing hymns. Afterwards I went for a walk along the boulevards and came to a stationers shop, where a young lady was sitting in the window, working a typewriter. As I was coming along, she smiled and nodded at me violently. So I thought: what a forward young person, and on getting nearer, I found she was a life size wax doll; awfully real; she blinked her eyes and ran her eyes along the line as one does reading a book, and every time she had typed three lines she looked up and smiled and nodded like a real person. When I came quite close I found she was not really tapping the keys of the machine, only very nearly, and the sliding carriage was worked by clockwork – awfully clever, was it not? But the next thing I saw in another shop was even cleverer; the whole window was a sort of stage, on a pivot, it swung round and you saw three different scenes. The figures here were only the size of a pretty long lead pencil. And this was an advertisement for so-and-so’s soap. First, you saw a room with a lady at a washtub and a lady friend took up a (real) bit of linen out of the tub which the first lady had been scrubbing, and they nodded and pointed at it. And there was a little boy pointing to it and a little girl writing on a little slate and every few seconds she turned the slate around so you could see what she had written: “Mother always uses so-and-so’s soap.”
Rrrrt! next scene.
Here you see a kindergarten schoolroom, just like Miss Ruhig’s, and babies playing all sorts of things: everthing, mind you, going by machinery, and the schoolmistress telling the children there was nothing like so-and-so soap to keep clean.
Whoosh! next scene.
This was a children’s hospital, most likely a children’s hospital like where poor Bill once was. There was the nurse fussing around going from cot to cot, and in each cot lay a little baby wriggling and kicking up with little bare legs most funny! And all clamouring to be washed with so-and-and-so’s soap.
So you can understand that there are always crowds of children in front of this shop.
Well, cabbage, I do hope you won’t have toothache on your birthday; that would be too cruel! Have a nice time, and with lots of kisses, from
Your affectionate
Dad
Paris, Sept. 25, 1919
My dear little Cabbage,
Do you mind being called a cabbage? Because that is what I would always call you, if I were a Frenchman – (mon petit chou). On the other hand, you can’t call me a turnip or a carrot. That would be offensive, and a pear would be worst of all! That is one of the funny things of foreign languages. Well, dear cabbage, many happy returns of your birthday, and lots of presents; unfortunately I cannot send you anything from here; but mother will look after you alright, and I haven't seen your verlanglystje, but I heard it was a long one. Well, if you don’t get all you would like now, there’s Xmas to come.
I hope you will have a little party, and a lovely day. I remember when I was about 12 I had a bad toothache, so you must be taking after me. My mother gave me some cherry brandy to hold in the sore half of my mouth; ; and after I had swallowed it, I thought it wasn’t such nasty medicine as I feared.
I forgot to tell mother in my last letter that on my day off, which was spoiled by the rain in the morning, I went into some churches, the British Embassy church and some French churches. In one of them two weddings were being celebrated, and I watched the service which was very nice with the organ playing and sweet voiced choirboys singing hymns. Afterwards I went for a walk along the boulevards and came to a stationers shop, where a young lady was sitting in the window, working a typewriter. As I was coming along, she smiled and nodded at me violently. So I thought: what a forward young person, and on getting nearer, I found she was a life size wax doll; awfully real; she blinked her eyes and ran her eyes along the line as one does reading a book, and every time she had typed three lines she looked up and smiled and nodded like a real person. When I came quite close I found she was not really tapping the keys of the machine, only very nearly, and the sliding carriage was worked by clockwork – awfully clever, was it not? But the next thing I saw in another shop was even cleverer; the whole window was a sort of stage, on a pivot, it swung round and you saw three different scenes. The figures here were only the size of a pretty long lead pencil. And this was an advertisement for so-and-so’s soap. First, you saw a room with a lady at a washtub and a lady friend took up a (real) bit of linen out of the tub which the first lady had been scrubbing, and they nodded and pointed at it. And there was a little boy pointing to it and a little girl writing on a little slate and every few seconds she turned the slate around so you could see what she had written: “Mother always uses so-and-so’s soap.”
Rrrrt! next scene.
Here you see a kindergarten schoolroom, just like Miss Ruhig’s, and babies playing all sorts of things: everthing, mind you, going by machinery, and the schoolmistress telling the children there was nothing like so-and-so soap to keep clean.
Whoosh! next scene.
This was a children’s hospital, most likely a children’s hospital like where poor Bill once was. There was the nurse fussing around going from cot to cot, and in each cot lay a little baby wriggling and kicking up with little bare legs most funny! And all clamouring to be washed with so-and-and-so’s soap.
So you can understand that there are always crowds of children in front of this shop.
Well, cabbage, I do hope you won’t have toothache on your birthday; that would be too cruel! Have a nice time, and with lots of kisses, from
Your affectionate
Dad
Original Format
Letter
To
Bouman Family
Files
Collection
Citation
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1919 September 25, WWP23068, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.