Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Title
Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family
Creator
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958
Identifier
WWP23188
Date
1928 June 20
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
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
June 20, '20
Dearest;
I am always mixing up Lichtenberg and Lichterfelde which are two districts entirely apart and there are also streets of that name. Now I am worrying lest I gave you the wrong road in my letter of yesterday. Our address will be:
Lichterfelderstrasse, No. 4, and the rest of it. It is Berlin S.W. but the addition “Kreuzberg” is sufficient for postal purposes and so on.
I forgot to tell you that I have achieved the “dignity” of an “Associated Press Staff Writer.” Small tittle-tattle is signed on the printed mail sheets we get from New York with mere initials; more important stories have the full name, but the summit of ambition is to get a special headline with name and initials displayed underneath, and this is now what has happened to me. I am in the august company, on the same sheet, of Elmer Roberts, Associated Press Staff Writer, Paris, and Salvatore Cortesi, Associated Press Staff Writer, Rome. But this is all poppycock, because this was a story, about some fooshing subject – “The Unitary State” – which I mailed them last January (!) and some fool in New York probably laid it aside and forgot all about it until quite recently. Fortunately the story was still good, but it would have been better if it had been put out in January. So I do not feel unduly elated over it.
Folks here are all excited about the return of their flyers from America. No end of receptions, lunches, and dinners. I am to go to the great spread of the Automobile Club of Germany, tomorrow evening, in their honour. They ought to do ‘em well; it was formerly the Imperial AC.
Lochner brought back quite a good yarn from Doorn; he walked behind the imperial dachshund which always accompanies his master, and an armed private detective behind him. Great sport!
Love from
Jack
Dearest;
I am always mixing up Lichtenberg and Lichterfelde which are two districts entirely apart and there are also streets of that name. Now I am worrying lest I gave you the wrong road in my letter of yesterday. Our address will be:
Lichterfelderstrasse, No. 4, and the rest of it. It is Berlin S.W. but the addition “Kreuzberg” is sufficient for postal purposes and so on.
I forgot to tell you that I have achieved the “dignity” of an “Associated Press Staff Writer.” Small tittle-tattle is signed on the printed mail sheets we get from New York with mere initials; more important stories have the full name, but the summit of ambition is to get a special headline with name and initials displayed underneath, and this is now what has happened to me. I am in the august company, on the same sheet, of Elmer Roberts, Associated Press Staff Writer, Paris, and Salvatore Cortesi, Associated Press Staff Writer, Rome. But this is all poppycock, because this was a story, about some fooshing subject – “The Unitary State” – which I mailed them last January (!) and some fool in New York probably laid it aside and forgot all about it until quite recently. Fortunately the story was still good, but it would have been better if it had been put out in January. So I do not feel unduly elated over it.
Folks here are all excited about the return of their flyers from America. No end of receptions, lunches, and dinners. I am to go to the great spread of the Automobile Club of Germany, tomorrow evening, in their honour. They ought to do ‘em well; it was formerly the Imperial AC.
Lochner brought back quite a good yarn from Doorn; he walked behind the imperial dachshund which always accompanies his master, and an armed private detective behind him. Great sport!
Love from
Jack
Original Format
Letter
To
Bouman Family
Files
Collection
Citation
Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958, “Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family,” 1928 June 20, WWP23188, Jon Anthony Bouman Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.