From: Karamurat, Romania
7 February 1914
I am not a registered reader of the paper, but my husband is. Since both of us are avid readers, I am allowing myself to write a report because my husband is not home. He generally busies himself with hunting during the winter.
Recently Magdalena Söhn, the wife of Peter Söhn, died. She left him 10 children, seven of them are married and three are still single.
So far the winter here has been pleasant. My in-laws arrived back home again from Krasna in South Russia healthy and happy.
I am a little out of practice in writing and the pen doesn’t want to glide. On top of it, it is very late at night. How late I don’t know, since the clock has stopped. In other words a clock repairman is needed to whom it should be given for repair. Then again it could perhaps happen to us like it happened to my Uncle Joseph Bolitzky. He had two pocket watches of which none was working anymore. A master clockmaker happened to come to town and asked for anyone who might need clocks and watches repaired. Mr. Bolitzky heard about this and went to the master and gave him the two watches to check what was wrong with them. The master took them and went to the tavern where he had his tools.
After two days the clockmaker returned and had the two watches wrapped in a handkerchief. He said, “Take the watches and hang them some place where nobody can reach them since I took the watches apart. I have to drive to the City Konstanza and get a little cogwheel since one is missing and I don’t have any of those here.” “Very well,” said Uncle Joseph, “no one may touch the watches.” Thus the clockmaker drove off.
One day passed then two, then three and even 10 days, but the clockmaker did not return. “Damn it,” said the uncle to his wife Kathrin, “I believe he won’t return. I have to look and see what is in the handkerchief.” When he looked he screamed; “Double damn it, there is nothing here but the covers from the watches. There isn’t any clockwork to be seen! That certainly was no dumb clockmaker!”
I greet my friends in the New World and all readers of the paper and the editorship.
Agatha Bogalofsky,
Wife of Romanus
From: Krasna, Bessarabia
9 February 1914
At the wedding of my cousin Edmund Ruscheinsky, son of the deceased Peter Ruscheinsky, I happened to catch sight of the Staats-Anzeiger, Edition #27. Curiously, I looked through this American newspaper when my attention was drawn to an article written by Mr. Nikolaus Leintz in Esmond, North Dakota. Hardly believing my eyes, I stood there stupefied.
In Mr. Leintz’s correspondence I read something about my Uncle Anton Haag. He has been living in America for more than twenty years, and we have not had one sign of life from him during all that time in order to find out how he is faring in the new homeland. We had already given up hope many years ago of hearing from him, and now I have to find out about him by chance through the Staats-Anzeiger. I thank my cousin Nikolaus Leintz for the delightful message. Now I know at least that my Uncle Anton is still alive.
I am asking Nikolaus to report more about Uncle Anton, at whose place he attended a wedding. But it was not reported which of his children was married and who the groom was. It would be of interest to many people here and to me, to find out about all of that.
I would also like to ask Cousin Nikolaus Leintz to have the Staats-Anzeiger sent to us. I then would write more often from his old country to the Staats-Anzeiger, which also must have very many readers in Krasna.
My parents and I are greeting all friends in America.
Cyrillus Haag,
Son of Joseph