Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Title
Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Creator
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958
Identifier
WWP23093
Date
1920 May 9
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
Berlin, Sunday evening,
May 9, ‘20
My dearest; -
I have two of your letters to answer; one of April 26 which got here – as I expected – last Monday. The day after I wrote – and one of May 4 which reached yesterday Saturday May 8. I have to look up dates, I am getting so mixed , doing night work since the middle of the week. You can picture me setting forth at 11 pm with a little bag with sandwiches, to our new offices in the Wolff building about 20 minutes’ walk from the hotel. We have two quite good rooms there on the second floor – funny we should always have to be second floor, Paris, London, & Berlin, plenty of room and all. I am there entirely alone during the night; there are no messengers and I have to get my news and hot water for my cocoa on the floor below, where the Wolff staff are working. They have of course a big night staff but neither Havas nor Reuter work nights as they do most of their service by telephone to Copenhagen and Mayence and one cannot telephone abroad after 10 pm. The newspapers are brought up to me; fortunately they come out early here: 1.30 a.m. and two or three at 2.30 a.m. I go home at 5.30 a.m. and tonight is my night off as no papers are printed here for Monday morning – excellent idea!
Before I forget, do not send me any more dividend warrants, in case they get lost in the post. Keep them for me in a safe place; they can be banked when
I come back; there is no hurry about those.
Tell David Thomson that business is as (?) here, even more so, as pictures seem to be had here at very advantageous prices owing to the low rate of the mark. I hear Dutch picture buyers have been here in great numbers buying all they could lay hands on. See enclosed clipping about a picture sale at Lepke’s the famous auction rooms. They talk about high prices! 2000 marks or so – about pound 10 present value, for a picture – I tell you fortunes have been made in this way. Dutch, Swedes, English,; Americans, Italians they have all been buying heavily land, property, anything, because see what you can get for a relatively small outlay.
I took a walk with a man named Russell who came over recently to relieve Edwin Wilcox who has gone to England for a holiday. I hadn’t see much of him, and we just chanced to go out together and in the course of conversation it came out his home was in Southwood Lane! He has gone through experiences somewhat similar to mine since 1914, so it was interesting to compare notes. He has a wife and 2 children.
Another telegram of congratulations from New York on one of my stories, that is the second I have had; poor Enderis hasn’t had one at all; he gets so steeped into the tortuous ways of German politics that he forgets live things often, I’m afraid. But he will do fine to explain all about the coming elections. He is a great authority on political lore.
So Miss Gent has met her mate – let us hope she will be content with her dip in the lucky bag; I like to hear about people coming to see you and am glad your friends keep coming. Let me know sometime how the Grants are now. I read in the papers about Prof. Bode the other day; he seems to be still in his usual, I shall probably see him some day. I have not yet been to any museums, or galleries, although I want to, but the weather has been so fine all the time that I am tempted into the Tiergarten. I climbed to the top of the Column of Victory – alas poor victory! –yesterday, hundreds of steps on a spiral staircase, my puff nearly gave out, but the view from the top was very fine, just below the great golden statue of Germania. You could see the golden roof of the Reichstag and the golden dome of the synagogue. To come back to a golden fountain at the hotel, with the gilt rosewood decorations, is trying to the eyes!
How is our garden looking now? Nobody tells me anything about the garden. The grass must be very tall now? And has Collins painted the front door yet?
Moyston has just come back from upper Silesia. A companion who went with him had to be deloused when he got back to Berlin! Vermin is awful there, he says. Brr!
Goodbye, dearie, with all my love.
Thine,
Jack.
Berlin, Sunday evening,
May 9, ‘20
My dearest; -
I have two of your letters to answer; one of April 26 which got here – as I expected – last Monday. The day after I wrote – and one of May 4 which reached yesterday Saturday May 8. I have to look up dates, I am getting so mixed , doing night work since the middle of the week. You can picture me setting forth at 11 pm with a little bag with sandwiches, to our new offices in the Wolff building about 20 minutes’ walk from the hotel. We have two quite good rooms there on the second floor – funny we should always have to be second floor, Paris, London, & Berlin, plenty of room and all. I am there entirely alone during the night; there are no messengers and I have to get my news and hot water for my cocoa on the floor below, where the Wolff staff are working. They have of course a big night staff but neither Havas nor Reuter work nights as they do most of their service by telephone to Copenhagen and Mayence and one cannot telephone abroad after 10 pm. The newspapers are brought up to me; fortunately they come out early here: 1.30 a.m. and two or three at 2.30 a.m. I go home at 5.30 a.m. and tonight is my night off as no papers are printed here for Monday morning – excellent idea!
Before I forget, do not send me any more dividend warrants, in case they get lost in the post. Keep them for me in a safe place; they can be banked when
I come back; there is no hurry about those.
Tell David Thomson that business is as (?) here, even more so, as pictures seem to be had here at very advantageous prices owing to the low rate of the mark. I hear Dutch picture buyers have been here in great numbers buying all they could lay hands on. See enclosed clipping about a picture sale at Lepke’s the famous auction rooms. They talk about high prices! 2000 marks or so – about pound 10 present value, for a picture – I tell you fortunes have been made in this way. Dutch, Swedes, English,; Americans, Italians they have all been buying heavily land, property, anything, because see what you can get for a relatively small outlay.
I took a walk with a man named Russell who came over recently to relieve Edwin Wilcox who has gone to England for a holiday. I hadn’t see much of him, and we just chanced to go out together and in the course of conversation it came out his home was in Southwood Lane! He has gone through experiences somewhat similar to mine since 1914, so it was interesting to compare notes. He has a wife and 2 children.
Another telegram of congratulations from New York on one of my stories, that is the second I have had; poor Enderis hasn’t had one at all; he gets so steeped into the tortuous ways of German politics that he forgets live things often, I’m afraid. But he will do fine to explain all about the coming elections. He is a great authority on political lore.
So Miss Gent has met her mate – let us hope she will be content with her dip in the lucky bag; I like to hear about people coming to see you and am glad your friends keep coming. Let me know sometime how the Grants are now. I read in the papers about Prof. Bode the other day; he seems to be still in his usual, I shall probably see him some day. I have not yet been to any museums, or galleries, although I want to, but the weather has been so fine all the time that I am tempted into the Tiergarten. I climbed to the top of the Column of Victory – alas poor victory! –yesterday, hundreds of steps on a spiral staircase, my puff nearly gave out, but the view from the top was very fine, just below the great golden statue of Germania. You could see the golden roof of the Reichstag and the golden dome of the synagogue. To come back to a golden fountain at the hotel, with the gilt rosewood decorations, is trying to the eyes!
How is our garden looking now? Nobody tells me anything about the garden. The grass must be very tall now? And has Collins painted the front door yet?
Moyston has just come back from upper Silesia. A companion who went with him had to be deloused when he got back to Berlin! Vermin is awful there, he says. Brr!
Goodbye, dearie, with all my love.
Thine,
Jack.
Original Format
Letter
To
Bouman Family
Files
Collection
Citation
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1920 May 9, WWP23093, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.