HTML: 5B 1885-1886
Ernst Benary, Erfurt, Germany.
Jan. 6, 1885.
Dear Sir! Herewith I am sending you an order list and a money order for 19 Mk 89 pf. According to your catalog, the value of the seeds would be a little bit higher than the enclosed amount, but I suspect that you have adjusted your prices for present conditions. Here we are hardly able to get half the price of last year for most products: wheat was $1 per bushel, now it is less than 50 cts. Landneth in Philadelphia, the biggest seed trade store in America, offers "Select Early Dwarf Erfurt Cauliflower" for #3.25 or 13 Mk per ounce or 31 grams. Other seed traders are even cheaper but unreliable. If possible, I want to have only separate colors for my flower seeds, as almost all kinds that I ordered <T249> last year, although listed as a grand mixture, consisted of only two or three colors. Send the seeds again, as before, as "sample without value."
List of seeds …
Caroline Gerstenberg [b. Nov. 1859], 13 Oak Villas, Bradford, Yorkshire, England.
Jan. 6, 1885
Dear grand-daughter! I have received your letter of Dec. 21, 1884, and I want to thank you for your good wishes for my 80th birthday.
My health is still good enough so that I can do my usual chores. Unfortunately my wife has been lying in bed sick for five or six weeks, but she seems to be better now. Dora and the others return your wishes. We all wish you a Happy New Year and hope soon to be invited to your wedding. Your Grandfather.
August Schlomann, Corner Webster Ave & Franklin Str., Jersey City Heights, N.J.
Jan. 6, 1885.
Dear Children! We have received your letter of Dec. 28, and you will surely have received mine of Dec. 27 in the meantime. It was raining as I was writing to you then; on New Year we had a cold snap, followed by some pleasant days and then last night by a real snowstorm. The boys could do nothing today but shovel snow. The snow now lies three feet deep, and it will be several days before we can use the roads again. Mother is slowly getting better. We are glad that your business is doing well so far, and that all of you are well. We also received a short letter yesterday from Lina, but there was nothing in it except birthday and New Year’s greetings. She seems to be very reserved [taciturn; incommunicative]. It would make me and all of us happy if Emma would visit us next summer. It would not cost too much: children under five travel free. We return your good wishes for Christmas and the New Year, and send our regards. Your Grandfather.
<T250> Karoline Gerstenberg, Kummerfeld near Pinneberg near Hamburg, Germany.
Jan. 16, 1885.
Dear daughter. Yesterday I received your letter of Dec. 23, 84. I was very happy to hear from you once again, and I will answer you again while I still have the strength. Although I still feel quite well, I notice that my strength is decreasing. My wife has had to lie sick in bed for the past six weeks or more, but she seems to be getting better now. Our daughter Dora takes good care of her, and I enjoy seeing how well she gets along with her mother.
As I learned from your letter, death had rid my poor brother [Karl Friedrich Meissner, b. abt. 1809] of the burden of this life. He has had little happiness, not even a loving hand to close his eyes. His wife and children went before him.
My wife is only 48 years old, and is at the age when woman’s nature changes. If she gets over it, I hope she will then become very healthy again. It seems that women here in America have to suffer a lot in this regard; also old people die here very quickly.
Since the beginning of Dec. we have been having snow and tracks for sledding. Christmas and New Year were very cold, but now the snow is nearly three feet deep. Carl and August, the two youngest sons, who are still at home, are kept very busy. They chop wood and bring it home so that we can stay warm. We have two work horses, two colts, three cows, one calf, eight sheep, and two pigs; this means a lot of food for such a long winter. The hay has to be picked up from a meadow that is one hour away. The meadow is too wet in summer, and we can only drive there in winter. In summer the horses and cows go to a pasture that we fenced in with iron wire. We have a spring in our garden that forms a small creek. The water is so warm in winter that it never freezes, not even during the coldest weather; in summer it is ice cold.
At the same time as your letter arrived, I also got one from Emma and Schlomann. They seem to be doing well. We write to each other often, and I believe that Schlomann is an industrious, decent man; also thrifty and a good businessman. <T251> You can be proud. I believe Emma has chosen well. I also had a letter from Lina a short time ago with greetings for my birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s; this was about all it contained. She seems to be very reserved [taciturn; incommunicative] and never speaks openly about her situation.
I hope that I may live long enough to receive another letter from you. I quite understand that you have been having difficulties. I, too, have to worry about how to make an honest living. Fried doves don’t fly into people’s mouths here either. Now farewell, and give my regards to your husband and children. Your Father and Grandfather.
<Written in English.> Emma Schlomann. [Or from E.D. M.?]
25 Jan 1885 [excerpt].
… The largest [longest] is for you, the one with the pink ribbons for Louise and the one with the blue ribbon for Clara …
<T251, cont.> August Schlomann.
Feb. 23, 1885.
Dear Schlomann! I made you wait a long time before answering your letter of Febr. 4, and I send you herewith 263 papers of flower seeds, all fresh seeds from last year and beautiful varieties. I bill you three cts. per paper and you sell them for five cts. There are several kinds that cost 20 to 25 cts. in the big seed stores.
I hope you will soon tell us whether you can come or not. We don’t know Uncle and Aunt in New Orleans. Grandmother does not feel much better yet, and we all have colds as well. The weather is still cold. More later—I don’t have time for any more if I want to get to the post office on time. Greetings from all of us. F.A.M.
Smith & Lytle, Viroqua.
April 13, 1885.
Dear Schlomann! I will send you today by express a package of seeds. It contains a package for you, as well as one for Mr. Graves, Mr. Lysne, and Mr. Hazen, which I ask you to distribute. F.A.M.
<T251, cont.> August Schlomann.
April 15, 1885.
Dear Children! Are you still alive, or are all of you dead? On Febr. 23, I sent you two packages of flower seeds by mail. More than six weeks have gone by, and I still don’t know whether you have received. them. Grandmother feels better; she is starting to do some kitchen chores again. The snow is all gone and I think we will be able to start <T252> working in the garden by next week. Greetings from all of us to all of you. Your Grandfather.
August Schlomann.
April 27, 1885.
Dear Children! I received your letter of the 16th, and would have answered sooner but I returned from a short trip only yesterday. We have not received your letter of March 13. That is the first time, to my knowledge, that a letter addressed to me got lost. We have had beautiful spring weather for the last eight or 10 days. We are all well except Grandmother, who is still ailing. Business is slow here, too; prices are very low. Butter sells for only 12 cts. per lb. all winter long; wheat is now a little bit better; the sale of seeds has started out pretty good. Stay healthy, and let us hear from you again soon.
Your Grandfather, F.A.M.
Ernest Gerstenberg, Emigration Depot, Castle Garden, N.Y. City (by the India from Hamburg).
May 19, 1885.
Dear Ernest! Yesterday I received your letter of May 1. If everything goes well, you will arrive in N.Y. at about the same time as this letter. First you surely want to visit your sister Emma and brother-in-law Schlomann who live close to N.Y. You will land at the east side of N.Y.; then you have to go to the west side. There you will find a steamboat to Jersey City, where they live on the hill. Their address is: A. Schl., Jersey City Heights, Corner of Webster A. & Franklin Street.
It is still a long trip from there to Wisconsin. You have to go by the Emigrant Train to Chicago; from there by the Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad to Sparta, Wisc. From Sparta to Cashton is 10 miles; you can either go by foot or again by train. Anyone in Cashton can tell you where we live. Above the depot in Sparta there is a German inn owned by P.M. Oster. I think you should write again from Jersey before you come.
August Schlomann, Corner Webster Ave & Franklin Str., Jersey City Heights, N.J.
<T253> May 19, 1885.
Dear Children! Yesterday I received a letter from Ernest Gerstenberg, dated Kummerfeld May 1, 1885. Ernest writes that he and his friend Herman Mayer will leave Hamburg for New York on the ship "India" on May 7. I answered his letter and addressed it to Castle Garden, N.Y., where they will probably have arrived by the time you get this letter.
I have not heard from you for quite a long time, and I hope that you are all still in good health. We are all in good health too, but have our hands full of work as it is a good spring. When you can, send the money for the flower seeds: Take an order for the post office at Sparta, or else for the American Express Co. at Cashton.
With my greetings. Your Grandfather, F.A.M.
== Sunday, June 7, 1885.
Dear Children! A week ago Saturday, Ernest Gerstenberg arrived here well and happy. He gave me your short letter and the money for the flower seeds. Already for the past week, Ernest has been working efficiently with my boys. The cleared out bushes and trees so as to cultivate more land. He seems to be an industrious, decent boy, and he seems to like it here very well, too. Ernest made the trip from N.Y. to Sparta in two days, and the whole trip here from Hamburg cost him only $8.50—that is surely cheap!
We have unusually warm and fruitful weather. Nature seems to want to make up for what it missed in early spring. We are all quite well, and were glad to hear the same from you. We would all be very happy if you could sell out, or if you could at least visit us this summer.
<Written in English.> to W.C. Wilson, Vernon Co. Leader.
7 Mar 1885 [excerpt].
… I import every year the newest and improved varieties of flower seeds, raise and acclimatize them here and sell them for a trifle what they cost elsewhere. … In Sparta I am known as the Seed man whose Seed are sure to grow …
<Written in English.> to Henry Crouse, Esq., Moab, Emery Co., Utah June 16, 1885 [excerpt].
… As soon as we can sell out we are going to Washington Territory …
<T253, cont.> August Schlomann, Corner Webster Ave & Franklin Str., Jersey City Heights, N.J.
July 12, 1885.
Dear Children! We received your letter of June 23. First, our congratulations to the young crown prince. We hope you are all still as well as we are, except mother who just won’t <T254> get well.
The weather was pretty dry until July 4; on the 5th the long awaited rain came, but just enough to freshen everything; then some hot humid days, and on the 8th a terrible rainstorm that destroyed many houses in Sparta and all around here. It knocked down some oak trees, but otherwise did little or no damage to us. The winter wheat harvest has just started. Most of the fruit around here is very good. Also everything in my garden is growing well.
Ernest has been working for three weeks for a farmer in Leon. For the first three weeks [after he arrived in WI] he worked with us. Ernest and my August cleared a piece of land. Everything went well the first week, but the longer they worked the slower progress they made. In the morning at 6:00 or 6:30 we had coffee, then they sharpened their axes, so they didn’t start work until seven or eight o’clock. At 9:30 we brought them breakfast, and we had dinner at 12:00 noon. Then they worked for two or even three hours; at 4:00 coffee and sandwiches, and then they worked till sunset and had supper. During work they often stopped to rest in the grass. I had hoped that Ernest, who was the oldest [b 1863] and who—as I thought—was used to working in Germany, would inspire my August [b 1866], but it was just the opposite. As long as Ernest stayed with us, he liked it quite well, but since he has been working in Leon he talks every Sunday when he visits us about going somewhere else. My Carl said to him, "What if you can’t find a better job?" [Ernest answered:] "Then I will walk as long as my soles last, and if they fall off I will go barefoot." The farmer in Leon where Ernest is working now has two other Germans and a Norwegian as helpers. They have to get up at 4:30; then the four of them milk 13 cows, often with the help of their master. Breakfast is at 6, then they go into the fields until 12 o’clock, then there is a one-hour noon break, then they work till six o’clock, then supper and milking afterwards. It is pretty hard for Ernest to find a job because he does not understand English, and the big farmers who want workers are all Americans. The Germans all manage their farms alone with their families.
Business is slack here, the same as everywhere: eggs sell for eight cts. per dozen; butter cannot be sold—a storekeeper who bought butter for eight cts. per lb. sold it in Chicago for five cts. after deducting his expenses.
<T255> We haven’t received any letters from Germany or England either, for a long time. I was very surprised that Ernest did not bring along a letter from his mother. Our Ernest who was in Mormon country went to Oregon with his wife and child and a wagon and two horses to look for a farm. With many wishes for Emma and the baby from my wife and Dora, I remain your Grandfather.
Karoline Gerstenberg, Kummerfeld near Pinneberg near Hamburg, Germany.
Aug 17, 1885.
Dear daughter. I received your very short letter on Aug. 10. I informed Ernest, who has been working for about two months in Leon (10 miles or two hours away from here) that there are letters here for him. He came yesterday, Sunday, to pick them up, and will return again this evening. He said that he likes it well. I asked him how he stands the high temperature; "Oh, a little heat doesn’t hurt me." He seems to have very good health. We told him not to sleep on the ground in the grass. "Oh, that won’t hurt me." So you see, there can be no question of giving him advice—he is smarter than we are. What language do you speak now in Kummerfeld? Ernest had already learned to say words like "Yes" and "No" instead of "Ja" and "Joh."
With greetings to all, your father F.A.M.
August Schlomann, Corner Webster Ave & Franklin Str., Jersey City Heights, N.J.
Aug. 17, 1885.
Dear Children! I have received your friendly letter of July 23. Ernest has not visited us since my last letter to you (6 weeks ago). We did not know whether he was still in Leon or went somewhere else. Last week I received a short letter from Kummerfeld containing several letters for Ernest. I wrote to Leon, and yesterday, Sunday, Ernest came. He is now sitting there and writing letters. He will come back here this evening. Ernest says that he likes it quite well in Leon. To my question how he stood the high temperature he said, "Oh, a little heat doesn’t hurt me." He seems to be <T256> very cheerful.
I am very glad that your business is going so well. I think it is impractical to send butter and eggs from here. After a very hot spell, we had two weeks of rain that did lots of harm during harvest time. Last week we had good weather again, and last night a severe thunderstorm.
We all hope and wish that you, the children, and your young son are all well and we greet you very warmly. Your Grandfather, F.A.M.
P.S. Ernest got the news from Kummerfeld that they sold the horse [house?] for 90 [?] and five Mk, and a 10 week old calf for 80 Mk. If we could get prices like that here, farming would be a great job. Here $40 for a cow with calf is quite a good price, and a 10 week old fat calf would not bring more than $10. That is exactly half of what they got. I have heard many people say that I have the most beautiful flower garden in the state. Ernest tells us right now that they have still much nicer flowers in Kummerfeld—Kummerfeld must have changed tremendously.
<Written in English.> to Adolph F. Meissner, North La Crosse, Wis.
Sep 1885 [excerpt].
… [concerning houses available for rent in Cashton] …
<T256, cont.> August Schlomann, Corner Webster Ave & Franklin Str., Jersey City Heights, N.J.
Oct. 21 [1885].
Dear Children. We have not yet received an answer to my last letter of Aug. 17th. Are you still alive? Or maybe you have become so rich that you no longer remember your poor relations. We are all still quite well, but the frost has done a lot of damage this autumn.
Ernest has worked for three months for a farmer for $15 a month. He now has a grubbing job with a farmer two miles from here and visits us every Sunday. Ernest agreed to clear seven acres and he will get $7 per acre plus food. He says he can grub an acre in seven to eight days.
We are having very beautiful autumn weather right now with frost at night. A few days ago we had our first snowfall but it has all thawed. Our oldest son, Ernest Meissner, who lived in Utah, emigrated with his wife and child to Oregon, and has claimed a piece of land there for a farm [under Homestead law?]. Adolph, our second son, works in a shingle mill in La Crosse, about 30 miles from here. He has a wife and two children; the youngest—a boy [Albert William Meissner, b. 14 Aug 1885]—is about nine weeks old. Dora, Carl, and August are still at home.
<T257> August Schlomann, Corner Webster Ave & Franklin Str., Jersey City Heights, N.J.
Nov. 8, 1885.
Dear Children! On Oct. 21, I wrote a letter to you asking whether you are still alive, as you had not yet answered my letter of August 17. Now another 18 days have passed and we still have no answer. Why? Your Grandfather.
August Schlomann, 45 South St., Corner of Webster Ave., Jersey City Heights, N.J.
Nov. 15, 1885.
Dear Children. Yesterday we received your letter dated the 9th and mailed on the 11th. You say that you are all well and business is going fine. Apparently you did not receive my letter of Oct. 21st. Why don’t you inquire at the post office? I read your letter to Ernest, who visits us every Sunday. He will write today also. He says that he also wrote some time ago. We have not heard from Lina nor from Kummerfeld for a long time. If business is going so well, we surely have to put off the pleasure of seeing you here with us, unless you should have a great love for farm life.
We are all well. Carl was 21 years old on Nov. 5, and August was 19 yesterday the 14th. How is the young Master Schlomann doing? What did you name him?
Emma Schlomann.
Dec. 8, 1885.
Dear Emma! We have received your letter of Nov. 23, and just as your husband has to write in English for you, my father will write in German for me. (I can actually speak and understand German but I cannot write it.) Ernest is still here with us, but he intends to go to the Pine Woods in a week or two, and to come back and work here during winter. Ernest received a letter from your mother a few days ago. They were all well, and Lina from England and Wilhelm from Berlin went home and visited them. When you come to visit us next summer with your children, how they will roll around in the grass and pick flowers! Tell your husband that eggs are now expensive here, too, and that the butter is only bad in winter when the cows live on dry food. Dear Emma, you can certainly answer me in German. We will all be glad to hear from you again, and will be even happier to see you here with us. <T258> I would surely like to visit you, but my mother’s health is so unreliable that it is hard for her to get along without me. We had the nicest autumn weather till Dec. 3, only mild frost and hardly any rain at all. But on Dec. 4 we had a regular Dakota blizzard—that is a storm where the wind blows the snow in the air so nobody can open their eyes. Here in the valley we did not feel it so much, but Father came home that day from La Crosse with the horses and wagon, where he had to drive about 20 miles over the "ridge." He says that it was the worst snowstorm he ever experienced in his whole life.
Now dear Emma, kiss the children for me. Mother and Father send their regards, and so do I, to all.
Your Dora Meissner
Ernst Benary, Erfurt, Germany.
Jan. 4, 1886.
I have received your bill, according to which I still owe you 4 Mk and 40 Pf. I would rectify this trifle with pleasure except that so many kinds of seeds were the wrong ones …
I don’t plant my flowers simply for pleasure, but also to raise seeds for sale from them. For example, if I were to raise only enough seeds of each variety for 10 portions and sell them for 10 cts. each, I would make $4. Besides, if the Chinese Carnations had been as good as those that I received two years ago from you under the same name, I would certainly win first prize for it at the fair. You will therefore understand that I am not in your debt, but that you are in my debt.
As compensation, you can send me the following seeds: …
Mr. E.C. K. Wrede in Brunswick, Ger.
Cashton (formerly Mt. Pisgah) [Jan 1886].
Dear Sir! I thank you for the kindness that you show by sending me your seed catalog. I would surely like to make use of it if we did not have to pay a 20% custom duty, and that is not the worst of it. The manager’s fee for clearing merchandise through the Customs House is still much higher, but I hope that Congress will put seeds on the free list this year. If so, then we might be able to do business together. Seed samples in packages up to 12 oz. can be sent by mail and imported duty free. If you wish, you can send me some samples, about 20 grains each, from the following varieties of seeds: … <T259> Write on the package, "Sample without value," and don’t seal it nor put a letter in it. The postage is very little. With my best wishes, F.A.M.
Mr. K.G. Wünsche, Schönbach near Löbau in Saxony.
Jan. 24, 1886.
With the arrival of the new year, I had been expecting a letter from you, dearest friend, but my expectations were not fulfilled so I got out your previous letter of last January. Suddenly it dawns on me that I did not answer it! I don’t know how this happened.
We have survived for another year, and I still feel as cheerful as last New Year, and I hope and wish that it might be the same with you. For the past four years we have been fortunate that the frost did not destroy the fruit blossoms in the spring and we got a pretty good fruit crop. The summer was unusually good, too good in fact: everything grew well but made no seeds. Suddenly on Sept. 5 a severe frost came and ruined all our hopes. The cause was surely the eclipses of the sun and the moon that preceded. Afterward, we had beautiful autumn weather again, and we have not had very cold weather or very much snow until the past two weeks.
There is not much to say about the political horizon. We farmers want free trade so the prices of things we need will be lower, and the manufacturers want high tariffs so that they can sell their goods for twice the price. The manufacturers grow rich and the farmers poor. Now our Senators fight about this topic in Congress, but Fott [Taft?] seems to be on top and so we will probably lose the battle.
To familiarize you with conditions here, I enclose some excerpts from a local Socialist paper, but you must not believe that they represent my own views, even though they contain a lot of truth. Wishing you and your family well for the New Year, I remain in friendship your F.A.M.
<T260> Mr. A. Spies, 107 Fifth Avenue, Chicago, Ill.
Jan. 24, 1886.
Dear Sir! Some time ago I read in the "Inter Ocean" a report about your meeting with the parsons of Chicago. This was the first I had heard about the existence of you and your paper. I have surely often heard about the Socialists, but I had not found out what they were. The article in the "Inter Ocean" didn’t enlighten me much, either, so I am asking you to send me a sample issue of your paper. I read the report about your meeting with parsons with great interest, and—judging from the report—I think you must be an educated man. I am only a common farmer with nothing but a healthy mind. As a result, I don’t believe in heaven and hell, but I am a so-called Freethinker. I am an old man, and it took me a long time to rid myself of the prejudices that I sucked in with my mother’s mild, but I believe that I am finally rid of them.
The workers who you have for this purpose, Germans and Irishmen, all brought their prejudices along from the Old Country, and surely only a few of them are at the same educational level as you; and you want to try great things with such unreliable helpers? And by force? You can surely make a big blood bath, but you cannot force your convictions on anybody. Your opponents are too powerful. When a war comes, everybody takes up arms, even only to receive a pension afterward. People are still too stupid—I don’t mean you neighborhood, but mine. In the next village there are two Catholic parishes. They send tribute to the Pope, and have masses said for their dead, etc., while their children go barefoot. They don’t vote intelligently, but the way some leader tells them, who has perhaps been bribed. Socialism has already partly begun, but they need more training.
The soil belongs to the people. Every family is allowed to receive 160 acres—that’s social. But the people, through their representatives, give away millions of acres to railroads; and other millions were sold to big capitalists. That is unsocial, according to your principles. Would it be right to take these millions of acres back by force? I would rather try another way. Let the people make a law by <T261> their representatives, that every family can manage their 160 acres tax free, and that all who own more than 160 acres, or who own land that they don’t manage and live on, have to pay a certain tax for every acre. Make the capitalists pay the taxes, instead of the workers. We farmers are nearly all in debt. Just for example, my farm is "assessed" at $1,000, but I am $500 in debt. Nevertheless, I have to pay taxes on the whole $1,000, and I have to pay 10% interest on the $500 besides. Now let me pay taxes on $500 and make the capitalist pay taxes on the other $500. You could say, nobody will lend any more money. What will the rich man do with his money? He cannot eat it.
You seem to be for the protective tariff, so that your factory workers will be paid better. Who has to pay the tariffs? The consumers; the farmers. But we are workers too. We must earn all we have by working, and fried doves don’t fly into our mouths.
If the manufacturers have their work done by machines, so that they don’t need so many workers, why don’t the others go to the country, take up a Homestead, and grow their own food? But there they will have no beer houses, singing clubs, theaters, or dances. There they will find out what work is. eight hours? A farmer has to work 12 or 14 hours. We farmers are socialists. The father works along with his children, eats with them, and dresses like them; and when interest and taxes are paid, nothing is left, and sometimes there is not even enough to meet our obligations.
I could go on, but will stop for now. I would surely like to subscribe to your weekly paper, but money is scarce and I already take the "Inter Ocean," which costs only $1. Why are all the German papers so expensive?
Respectfully, … F.A.M.
Schlomann.
[Jan. or Feb. 1886].
Dear Children: We received your letter of Jan. 16th, and were glad to hear that you are all still well and haven’t forgotten us. In your business, you probably cannot avoid lending things, and so some losses are also unavoidable. I would advise Schlomann to be come a citizen—the sooner the better. We don’t want <T262> to be Germans here any more; we want to be Americans. If I am to be your son’s Godfather, you can certainly give him my name, Adolph Friedrich, but call him Hans if you like this name better. None of my children have been baptized but they are still alive. Unfortunately, my wife has been sick again for several weeks and has to stay in bed. Dora and the rest of us are still well. Do you want me to send you flower seeds again, or do you have some left from last year? Ernest has been in the Pinery four weeks but has not written. We have three feet of snow and have had some very cold days, but now it is milder again.
Ernest Gerstenberg, Philips, Price Co., Wis.
Febr. 24, 1886.
Dear Ernest! Yesterday we received your letter (unsigned!) and were glad to hear that you are still alive and doing well. Everything is still the same here, and as you will soon be finished with your work and coming to us, we will discuss it all when you get here. Best wishes from all … F.A.M.
August Schlomann
March 30, 1886.
Dear Children! We received your letter of the 16th, and were glad to hear that you are all well. It is still the same around here, only Mother is better again. We had a letter from Ernest about four weeks ago. He writes, "I have found a very good job; there is enough food to eat. We will be finished with our work in two weeks." We haven’t heard from him again since then. We still have good sledding tracks, and it still snows every day but it is not too cold.
Best wishes to Emma and the children. Your Grandfather.
Mr. K.G. Wünsche, Schönbach near Löbau in Saxony.
March 29, 1886.
Dearest Friend! First I want to thank you for your friendly letter. In spite of my heretical beliefs, you have not expelled me from your friendship; but Friend Jähring seems to be angry with me. In your last letter, you gave me a look at your work and your thinking. I will try to respond by enclosing a copy of my letter to the editor of the Socialist newspaper in Chicago. If I might make another request of you—I would like to have a picture of you. After I die, it will stand next to mine as a witness of our spiritual friendship.
Which of <T263> the playmates of my youth are still living? Volkmar Jähnichen, the soap maker, or his sister Julie, the minister’s wife? [See <T111>: Juliane Ficker in Spremberg near Neusalz.] The Friedler family lived next to the parsonage, and their daughter Christel was my daily playmate. The Meissner family has almost completely died out in Germany (my brother Karl is dead, too), but they seem to be growing new roots in America. I have four boys. The two oldest each have a girl and a boy [?? But oldest son Ernest has two boys: Ernest b. Jul 1884 and Frederick b. Jan 1886. Adolph has daughter Thalia Dorothea (Dillie) b. may 1884 and son Albert b Aug 1885].
Like the artisan guilds that have existed in Germany, America now has workers’ unions that are all joined together in a big union called "Knights of Labor." On orders from their leaders, thousands of workers lay down their work—here this is called a "strike." There are a few strikes right now. Several thousand miners are striking because the mine owners wanted to cut their pay. A whole railroad network is shut down for the same reason.
Our farming machines are now improved so that they bind the wheat right away [as it is cut]. While plowing, the farmer no longer walks behind, but sits on the plow. The hay is raked by horses while the driver sits on the rake. In the barn, the hay is unloaded from the wagon by a horse. Big factories are heated by burning air (gas!) instead of coal. This air comes out of the ground and is transported by pipelines hundreds of miles long. But maybe you have all these things in Germany too.
== April, 1886.
Today’s paper brings me the news that Grand Worker Powderly [Terence V. Powderly, Grand Master Workman] of the "Knights of Labor" is negotiating with Jay Gould, president of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, to put an end to the strike, but they were unable to reach an agreement. The newspaper states that 51,000 workers stopped working, causing 450,000 people ...
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