Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Title
Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Creator
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958
Identifier
WWP23147
Date
1927 September 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
My dear daughter Mary,
I am sorry, dear, that this letter will get to you after your birthday but I have been too busy the last few days showing visitors round the town that I haven’t had a moment.
Very many happy returns! You have reached the age when, according to Schiller:
“Das Auge sieht Himmel offen;
Es schwilgt das Herzin Seligkeit.”
That was in the romantic times when it was the fashion to moon about at your age. Now it is the anxiety to get a job that besets one. I suppose young people are happy nowadays in different ways.
I was much interested in what mother wrote about that idea of a year in Germany with a German family. If they are the right sort of people, it wouldn’t be a bad notion, and we must look into it, or similar propositions. I hope to be with you in another month, and we shall ? find plenty to talk about.
I have just come back to the hotel from a concert which I had to attend in a professional capacity as my may see by the programme. We are simply smothered with tickets for all sorts of shows and functions -- we throw them at each other. Very often I have two tickets hurled at me, and no one to take with me, so I have to tear one up. This office season ticket is for twelve(!) picture theaters all over the town, entitling to two seats each time (the best seats of course) so it is used pretty well every day, by Mrs. Enderis’ maid and the office boy included!
I shall be writing to mother tomorrow to tell her what I have been doing recently.
There is now some talk about changing around with the evening editor in which case I would have to work from 7.30 pm till 230 a.m. Getting to bed at 3 in the morning I don’t like very much but I will try it on and see. This would be on alternate weeks. It would enable get about a bit in the day time anyway.
It is turning quite chilly already and by the time and by the time I get to London I shall be ready for winter clothes. The leaves are beginning to fall in Tiergarten and an army of women wearing shawls round their heads are assiduously brushing them up. We are now getting ready for Old Man Hindenburg’s birthday on Oct. 2 when he will be 80 and there are to be great rejoicings with wonderful fireworks and all sorts of processions and deputations. The communists have threatened counter demonstrations which are forbidden by the police, so there may be some scrapping going on that day. Everything turns to politics in this country and then they are like lots of angry dogs snapping and snarling at each other. What a world, and what a life! I am longing to be in some quiet spot for awhile, away from the racket of the town.
Well, having been up very late the last few days I am off to bed; it’s midnight anyway.
Kiss your dear little baby sister for me, likewise the Doodle and Bill.
Your loving,
Jac.
I am sorry, dear, that this letter will get to you after your birthday but I have been too busy the last few days showing visitors round the town that I haven’t had a moment.
Very many happy returns! You have reached the age when, according to Schiller:
“Das Auge sieht Himmel offen;
Es schwilgt das Herzin Seligkeit.”
That was in the romantic times when it was the fashion to moon about at your age. Now it is the anxiety to get a job that besets one. I suppose young people are happy nowadays in different ways.
I was much interested in what mother wrote about that idea of a year in Germany with a German family. If they are the right sort of people, it wouldn’t be a bad notion, and we must look into it, or similar propositions. I hope to be with you in another month, and we shall ? find plenty to talk about.
I have just come back to the hotel from a concert which I had to attend in a professional capacity as my may see by the programme. We are simply smothered with tickets for all sorts of shows and functions -- we throw them at each other. Very often I have two tickets hurled at me, and no one to take with me, so I have to tear one up. This office season ticket is for twelve(!) picture theaters all over the town, entitling to two seats each time (the best seats of course) so it is used pretty well every day, by Mrs. Enderis’ maid and the office boy included!
I shall be writing to mother tomorrow to tell her what I have been doing recently.
There is now some talk about changing around with the evening editor in which case I would have to work from 7.30 pm till 230 a.m. Getting to bed at 3 in the morning I don’t like very much but I will try it on and see. This would be on alternate weeks. It would enable get about a bit in the day time anyway.
It is turning quite chilly already and by the time and by the time I get to London I shall be ready for winter clothes. The leaves are beginning to fall in Tiergarten and an army of women wearing shawls round their heads are assiduously brushing them up. We are now getting ready for Old Man Hindenburg’s birthday on Oct. 2 when he will be 80 and there are to be great rejoicings with wonderful fireworks and all sorts of processions and deputations. The communists have threatened counter demonstrations which are forbidden by the police, so there may be some scrapping going on that day. Everything turns to politics in this country and then they are like lots of angry dogs snapping and snarling at each other. What a world, and what a life! I am longing to be in some quiet spot for awhile, away from the racket of the town.
Well, having been up very late the last few days I am off to bed; it’s midnight anyway.
Kiss your dear little baby sister for me, likewise the Doodle and Bill.
Your loving,
Jac.
Original Format
Letter
To
Bouman Family
Files
Collection
Citation
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1927 September 28, WWP23147, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.