Malinta, April 8, 1920

Dear All,

since the document of authority came back, I will send it to you immediately since you must have been waiting for it for a long time. But it doesn´t work always as you think. I think that somebody here in the county could prepare it. A man..... and said we have to mail it and it could take two weeks from today until it comes back.

I hope the result will be okay.

Dear Mina,

you´re writing about the farmland. You can ask the Rubypetter (Ruby the godfather) about it. He can buy it and keep the money which belongs to my daughters , or.......

Dear Mina and all, now I want to write to you how things are going over here. If you are healthy you can say things are going well. And things are going well. I want to write you about my brothers and sisters too. My brother Leopold has two daughters but his wife passed away. They have 80 acres but returned to Illinois. Brother Heinrich is there too. Brother Karl is there too and has 80 acres of land. Sister Jule is there too and has 80 acres of land. Sister Sophie is there too and is still not married. Sister Karlie is here, they have 240 acres land, we have 59 acres. Farmland is very expensive, 350-400 Dollars per acre. We have 3 horses, 3 cows, 2 cattle and 195 chicken. The chicken produce 50-70 eggs a day, a dozen eggs are 36 cents. That's a good price for eggs.

In general everything's expensive. Grain (or how you say "Welsch" grain) is $2,30, 100 oats is $100 per bushel, potatoes $4 per bushel, meat between 20 and 20 cents, butter 50 to 60 cents, but we don't need to buy all that, since we have enough of it. He sold grain and oats for $1656,88. We sold 8 pigs for $289 and slaughtered 2 pigs. Enough of this. The lad here is very good. It produced 50-80 bushels of grain, oat 50-60 bushels per acre. The landscape here is very flat, you can see many miles. The people don't live so close together as in Germany. Nevertheless we have two families pretty close. When we call they can hear us. It's 3 3/4 miles to church that we have to drive every Sunday. We love to go to church and we have a good Reverend. One should like to go to church since the only place where you hear something good. My daughter doesn't know anything about Germany any more. I asked her very often if she knew this or that but she always says "No!". I bought her a self playing piano which only costs 5.50 $. I wish you could stay with us for a few days or weeks. Then we could play it for you and ... Ha Ha, everything is different and better over here. I would like to be in Germany for ever. But I would like to come over for a visit and everyone likes it. Mein father often said t´hat we could be happy to be here. Everything is nice and better and you don't need to work so hard because everyone uses horses or machines. I can not write every detail about what and how work is done. You can come over for a while and have a look yourselves. I believe you would like it here too. But you do and believe what you want. We are now plowing and seeding oats.

We had a very cold winter and always snow. It is still a bit cold, my father is still with us and he is 87 years old. He is still healthy and vigorous. He still wants to work, but he will soon have to give up. You also write about old shepard Jakob whose wife died and who wants to marry again. I would have had opportunity as well, but, dear Mina, there is no other Karli. You know how I use to be, either the Karli or none from Rumbach. You know, it's not that she owned something, but she was so beautiful. We were married for only 11 years and Oh I would loved to have her for longer. But you have to obey God's wishes. Oh what had I to go through, but I do not despair, since I trust the good Lord!

When someone needs help trust in God, if nobody helps He will. I think I wrote everything and if not you can ask me in your next letter. I hope this letter reaches you in best healthy like it leaves us. Best regards from all of us to all of you including the father and Jakob. Greeting to everybody who asks for us. Please pass this letter to the father and Jakob as well, since I still owe them a letter. But writing is a hard task for me, which means that I do not like to write. But I would like to read. Please answer soon.

Your loving son, brother-in-law and friend Lui

So good night and good morning at the same time. I would love to stand behind you when you read this letter.