Click here to read story from beginning.
Story
so far: Grandma Cecile had reached her relatives back in her home
village of Nieder-Mohrau, Czechoslovakia, after a trip across the
continental USA and the Atlantic Ocean. All the while that she visited with her old friends and siblings, back at home the date of her third son's wedding was drawing ever closer.
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One of the letters in Grandma's bag of mementos was one from the Weisers of Nebraska addressed to Grandpa. Dan Weiser was married to Grandpa Alois's oldest sister, Berta.
The letter was long, written in German, except for the last, short page. Sadly, the postage stamps were removed by "tiny stamp collectors", so I do not know how much an "Air Mail" letter cost in 1936. The question as to why people who wrote on scraps of paper to save money would send a letter via Air Mail was explained by page 5. Consider this - the postmark of the letter is June 25. The date of Gus and Ann's wedding was June 30 - only five days away! Page five was needed to fulfill requirements for the wedding to proceed!
Here is the letter:
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| the envelope - note the "Via Air Mail" stamp |
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| page 1 of the letter |
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| page 2 |
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| page 3 |
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| page4 |
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| page 5 - in English, except for Berta's signature |
My friend Al Haunold provided the translation:
Creston, Nebraska, June 24, 1936
Dear brother and family,
We received your letter and saw from it that the priest is not satisfied; Anna and Adam [Keimig] were at Florens’ [Florence Beitel's baptism] but not at August’s since Alois and Humphrey went to the priest and then they went to Pornelie (Vorlenelie ?) to Joe and Cecilia Partsch [cousins]. Emma was there two weeks earlier when Zielie [Cecile] was in bed and Zielie Pasch [Partsch] was with her and washed her knee, she said I and Papa were godparents and otherwise nobody knew it. We had almost forgotten; she dressed the child for baptism and it will be good ….second page
and we are also satisfied with that. Dear brother, you know that I am not so young anymore and I gave mother her (?? illegible) and that I give her all as I do and it is the same situation with Papa. I thought today a lot about that and the thought crossed my mind when we were the godparents and we drove that afternoon to the baptism and thus we are the godparents. Dear brother, when I received the letter from Zilie I was sick and I was in bed and could not go to Colubus [Columbus] and yesterday I received a letter from her saying that she did not go to Columbus when I ….
third page
would have been in your place I would not have let her go or I would have gone with her, nobody would have prevented me if I would have gone by myself, I was the second one in the church and we had to see the priest and he asked whether I knew a person by the name Josef Alois Beitel and I said no. And then he re-read the letter from the priest and then he said it was August Josef and he wanted to get married and the baptismal certificate at the priest’s was so old and (illegible, probably “damaged”) and quickly something could happen and now for August we wish good luck and blessing in his state of matrimony and Zielie and…
fourth page
they should stay there. When their first son got married and she wrote about it and that is nice and that she feels good. I felt I should write to her but I feel bad about my posture and my knees can’t carry me anymore and I can hardly get up from the chair when I cannot hold onto something and I also cannot sleep well, Papa is in much better shape what that concerns, he sleeps thought the whole night without waking up , we have accepted that and then they had to get out of the Poster ?? (Pester ??) and for the sheep. When it does not rain in a week or so we have to sell the young life-stock,
Best greetings to all of you, Berta
fifth page
We as sponsors to August Joseph Beitel send our signature that he was baptized at St. Marys Catholic church near Humphrey.
What a letter! Al had a hard time with it and I can see why. It was written, all but the 5th page, by Berta Beitel Weiser, Grandpa's oldest sister. Her handwriting is poor and so is her grammar and spelling. She seems to write in a stream of consciousness, jumping from one thought to another, addressing thoughts without much detail. It would have been a little easier if we had the letter that Grandpa must have written to her.
I can make an educated guess as to more of what it meant to convey:
Grandpa Alois had written that the priest needed more evidence that Gus had been baptized as a Catholic and qualified to be married in the church. Anna, one of Berta & Dan's daughters, was married to Adam Keimig before either Gus or Florence were born, so they would have been old enough to be a baptismal sponsor for either. Emma Weiser, another daughter of Berta's, must have been with Grandma Cecile before she gave birth. Not sure about what the statement "washed her knee" is about. Something must have been lost in the translation. Emma must have helped dress Gus for Baptism and reminded Berta that she and Dan were the godparents/sponsors. The other names mentioned were similar to those of cousins in Nebraska.
On page two, Berta is talking about her poor health - she is 70 already, but as she rambles, she remembers Dan driving with her to the baptism and that they were the godparents for certain and he was most definitely baptized. She remembers being sick when Grandma Cecile's letter said she wanted to meet her in Columbus on her train trip. (Grandma mentioned this near the end of her first diary entry, it turned out the train went nowhere near Columbus.)
On page three, she sympathizes with Grandpa - he should have either gone with her to Europe or told her she could not go. Then she switches subjects back to the wedding and how the priest in Nebraska asked if she knew the person getting married - he had the name confused at first.
Page four is more discussion of their aches and pains. The last sentence about needing "to sell the young livestock" if it doesn't rain is notable, since Nebraska, along with the central region of the United States of America was suffering from a terrible drought known as the Dust Bowl at that time.
Page five is the signatures needed for the priest. Obviously they did not need to leave it with him, as it was still with the letter - no scanners or copy machines back then. Maybe the letter was late and they went ahead without it, we don't know. A couple of interesting notes - Dan signs his name in English script, Berta signs in German script. Also, they attest that Gus was baptized at St Mary near Humphrey, which is where several of the young Beitels were baptized. However, family history stories say that Gus was baptized at St Bonaventure in Columbus because the family lived in Columbus after returning from a move to Salem, Oregon. When I was in Nebraska in 1996 on a family trip, we did not search for his baptismal record with the St Mary records because we were not expecting it to be there.
It would have been interesting to know when this letter arrived and how close it came to holding up the wedding, waiting for documentation! I recently asked my cousin Robert, the oldest son of Gus and Ann, but he had never heard of this before.
To see any of the letters up close, click on the image and you will be able to scroll through all of them.
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Story to be continued......
To read Post - "50 - Diary Entry - 26 June 1936" - Click here
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