18 February 1881, Letter from Johann Peter Frautschi to his brother Christian Frautschi


University of Wisconsin-Madison. Max Kade Institute. Frautschi Letters (MKI/Frautschi3/JP1881E)

Electronic version: http://frautschi-letters.mki.wisc.edu/let/JP1881/JohannPeter1881.html


 

Elisabeth, February 18, 1881

Dear Brother,

I received your letter and was happy to hear that you and your family are healthy and doing well. I also thank you for the news from Peter Jakobs; I often thought about them too, what they are doing and whether the old father is still alive. I am not very surprised that their circumstances are not the best; there are enough such people here, who, after getting their land, 160 acres of land free under the Homestead Act, now have many debts and are still poor and have to mortgage the land to pay the debts.To be sure, for many it is the result of the locusts of the past years or they lack good fortune. Some also lack a love of work, but are instead proud, wasteful and prone to drink and so on. Then there are also those who make headway, particularly the Norwegians and Pomeranians.I have also had no news from Brother Johannes in Sa. for a year, but have heard from my father-in-law. He wrote us that Christian Schozser was basically quite rich and also married a rich party; Böbeli Sem married Johan Jakob Frautschi's daughter, and also Johannes Häfti and several others came to America with wife and children: the first two because of debts, but now I do not know in which town they live.As for us, I can write to you that we are doing well. We had a rich harvest and enough food, clothes, but also work, and at the present we are also healthy, but during the last year we were often reminded of the saying (Without me you can do nothing). And how easily we are whisked away from the living. Last summer I had to help dig a grave and fill it up. The deceased was a young man of 35 years. And, as you wrote, our children are already taking the place we just recently had, and we are becoming old without noticing it. Our children went to the English school last spring and fall for about four months; they have to walk for an hour. In the winter it is too far and too cold and in the summer there is no school. So their schooling will be insufficient.Last year we got the train, so it now stops two hours [from here?] I do not know what else to write to you.

Everyone here sends you warm greetings.

Johann Peter Frautschi