Malinta, 16 June 1932

Dear Mina and all,

dear Mina, in your last letter you wrote that I should write to you at least once a year. But this time I didn´t want to wait one year. Because I know you like to read letters as much from here as I do from over there. Specially from you dear Mina !

It is such a long time ago and so many years gone by , and so many tears flew since I said Good bye but I haven´t forgotten so many from my old home. Then you always think of your place of birth and those many wonderful years which we had there.

Dear Mina, it´s just 3 weeks that I traveled to Illinois because the wife of my brother Heinrich died. You may have known her. If not Karl Friedrich means.......did know her well....if you wouldn´t mind to tell him..............

But maybe he knows already, she was not sick for a long time and at the end she got a stroke and it went very fast. She died march 24. Now there are three in our family who lost their wives. Heinrich is now all by himself, he has two sons but both are married. The wife of the oldest one died also several months ago. He had two children, both are young. The oldest, a girl, is 10, the little boy 3 or4 years old. They have a maid because the children are too young to do the work. The second son has a wife from the city. She doesn´t like the life in the country.I don´t know what they plan to do, if they go to Heinrich or not. They didn´t know for themselves when I was out there.

Leopold, my brother-in-law, and his two sons traveled by car to Illinois. We left..... thursday morning at 2 and by 10 we were at brother Heinrich´s . It is something over 300 miles, but it was fast, wasn´t it ?

If I could come to you that fast I would try it tomorrow. The others went back to Ohio the next Monday but I stayed because my brothers and sisters and most of all Jules children wanted me to stay so much, because it was such a good opportunity to stay for two weeks. With Hunsicker, Karl Hunsickers son. They don´t live far away from here, just 5 miles. Hunsickers parents-in law live out there in Illinois, her father also died when I was out there. They live in a city where Lorenz and Karl Schneider, Karl and Anna Kindelberger live. We visited them all and were happy to have seen each other again. They are doing well. Just Lorenz´ wife was a bit ill. Best regards from all.

Oh dear Mina, how you write the matters (circumstances ?) are out there as bad as here. Many people over here lost lots of money, even farms and it looks like it´s getting worse. The people don´t have money and don´t get any. No income, and everything is so cheap and the salary is so down, just the half of that from three years ago. The farmers can´t pay much because they have to sell so cheap. Wheat for 42 Cents the bushel, oat for 18 cents the bushel, grain for 100 pounds 38 cents, pigs per 100 pounds 3 Thaler ( Dollars) 10 cents, little pigs 1 Thaler 50 to 2 Thaler, and so on. It looks like we also get little fruits. That means grain, oats, wheat, potatoes and little fruits. Because it didn´t rain much lately, just now we always used to have gut rain.

Dear Mina, we also thank you for the answer of our question we asked you....

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