Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Title
Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Creator
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958
Identifier
WWP23141
Date
1927 August 28
Description
Letter from Jon Bouman to his family.
Source
Gift of William C. and Evelina Suhler
Subject
Germany--History--1918-1933
Correspondence
Transatlantic flights
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
Sunday evening
Dearest;
I was so pleased to hear that you got away comfortably to W. and that you find it no less attractive than last year. I hope you will all be very happy again and that all may go well, including the weather. We have had terrific rain storms here but today it has been fine, I got a short walk in the Tiergarten: I have been here now six weeks without a single day off; this wretched flying business makes it impossible, now another machine has got as far as Croydon from America and is going to inflict itself on us – you can imagine what a lot of worry and trouble it makes for us – everyone’s nerves are on edge, and then Germans haven’t gone off yet; it is going to be the bane of our lives.
It means constant watching and always at such impossible hours but we are all in the same boat, and it can’t be helped. Then to crown it all we have all sorts of visiting delegations from America that have to be looked after, including the mayor of New York, a most objectionable bounder, looks like a fifth rate Soho waiter, but he has the gift of the gab and being Irish, he is rather amusing. I had to go to a dinner in his honor, and he was as drunk as an owl, and kept us all in roars of laughter, with a speech full of blarney in which he said he would have sat down long ago if he knew where his chair was!
I hadn’t seen the death of George Smith, thanks for telling me. Sad about motor accident. Our Moscow correspondent Walter Whiffen also died the other day, after an operation for intestinal cancer his wife is in New York; I suppose she doesn’t worry. It is awkward for us for the job isn’t an easy one to fill and there will be few candidates. It must be an American, I presume.
Did I tell you about a “speaking choir” at the celebration of Constitution Day at the Reichstag? This was quite new to me. It is a choir, male and female who don’t sing but recite in unison. They spoke some verses of Goethe, very highbrow stuff, now the men, then women, and sometimes blended together, with a perfectly wonderful effect. Of course the elocution was perfect, and coming, as it did, from a hidden corner, it was mysteriously beautiful. I wish you could have heard it.
Another thing I discovered going home last night. A crowd of people staring up at a wall which I found was specially prepared for film projection, showing the effects of sunlight on the organism. First flowers &c. opening up in sunlight, and then on human beings, and then came the application of artificial sunlight to prevent rickets in children, both before and after treatment, showing the lamp in action and every detail with explanatory inscriptions, saying that the treatment was open to all classes and calling upon mothers to take afflicted children to the clinics. I have never seen a more excellent and instructive film and there it was shown for nothing in the public street! There’s something that the Health Authorities in London ought to imitate!
The longer the flying orgy lasts, the longer my abscess (that’s how you wrote it oh, fie!) is likely to last and then Lochner is to have his holiday, which he deserves for he is having a hard time. When the fliers started from Dessau, we were told by New York we had been beaten. This was due to the opposition, misunderstanding a signal from one of their men, giving the news prematurely. They tried to stop the message, but in vain. After a quarter of an hour, the aviators did go up, and so they beat us. How can you explain that to New York? This is the sort of thing that drives one crazy.
I have just been eating a fried pike with potato salad. Very good it is!
Love to all,
Jac.
Dearest;
I was so pleased to hear that you got away comfortably to W. and that you find it no less attractive than last year. I hope you will all be very happy again and that all may go well, including the weather. We have had terrific rain storms here but today it has been fine, I got a short walk in the Tiergarten: I have been here now six weeks without a single day off; this wretched flying business makes it impossible, now another machine has got as far as Croydon from America and is going to inflict itself on us – you can imagine what a lot of worry and trouble it makes for us – everyone’s nerves are on edge, and then Germans haven’t gone off yet; it is going to be the bane of our lives.
It means constant watching and always at such impossible hours but we are all in the same boat, and it can’t be helped. Then to crown it all we have all sorts of visiting delegations from America that have to be looked after, including the mayor of New York, a most objectionable bounder, looks like a fifth rate Soho waiter, but he has the gift of the gab and being Irish, he is rather amusing. I had to go to a dinner in his honor, and he was as drunk as an owl, and kept us all in roars of laughter, with a speech full of blarney in which he said he would have sat down long ago if he knew where his chair was!
I hadn’t seen the death of George Smith, thanks for telling me. Sad about motor accident. Our Moscow correspondent Walter Whiffen also died the other day, after an operation for intestinal cancer his wife is in New York; I suppose she doesn’t worry. It is awkward for us for the job isn’t an easy one to fill and there will be few candidates. It must be an American, I presume.
Did I tell you about a “speaking choir” at the celebration of Constitution Day at the Reichstag? This was quite new to me. It is a choir, male and female who don’t sing but recite in unison. They spoke some verses of Goethe, very highbrow stuff, now the men, then women, and sometimes blended together, with a perfectly wonderful effect. Of course the elocution was perfect, and coming, as it did, from a hidden corner, it was mysteriously beautiful. I wish you could have heard it.
Another thing I discovered going home last night. A crowd of people staring up at a wall which I found was specially prepared for film projection, showing the effects of sunlight on the organism. First flowers &c. opening up in sunlight, and then on human beings, and then came the application of artificial sunlight to prevent rickets in children, both before and after treatment, showing the lamp in action and every detail with explanatory inscriptions, saying that the treatment was open to all classes and calling upon mothers to take afflicted children to the clinics. I have never seen a more excellent and instructive film and there it was shown for nothing in the public street! There’s something that the Health Authorities in London ought to imitate!
The longer the flying orgy lasts, the longer my abscess (that’s how you wrote it oh, fie!) is likely to last and then Lochner is to have his holiday, which he deserves for he is having a hard time. When the fliers started from Dessau, we were told by New York we had been beaten. This was due to the opposition, misunderstanding a signal from one of their men, giving the news prematurely. They tried to stop the message, but in vain. After a quarter of an hour, the aviators did go up, and so they beat us. How can you explain that to New York? This is the sort of thing that drives one crazy.
I have just been eating a fried pike with potato salad. Very good it is!
Love to all,
Jac.
Original Format
Letter
To
Bouman Family
Files
Collection
Citation
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1927 August 28, WWP23141, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.