From: Emmental, Bessarabia
30 April 1920
Worthy Editorship!
It has already been quite some time since I have written my last report to the Staats-Anzeiger and now I believe the time has come to once again write something.
On 25 March, I received a letter from my brother Joseph in Canada, in which he writes, that he had ordered the Staats-Anzeiger for me, but only a week ago I received the first edition, namely #71. However I think that this one is not the first that was mailed to me. Many newspapers do not arrive here. Mr. R. [Romuald] Dirk in Larga also complains that he doesn’t receive many editions. This is not the fault of the editor. Hopefully, it will get better in this respect. I wrote to my brother in my last letter that every letter to America is going to cost 5 lei. This is not the case. The postage still is 25 bani.
The government is now drafting young people for the military service. Tomorrow, 1 May, they have to report to Bendery. Where they will be sent from there no one knows. The soldiers are: David Kopp, son of Johannes; Adam Seifert, son of Anton; Johannes Seifert, son of Wendelin; Zachäus Moldenhauer, son of Jakob; Johannes Seifert, son of Joseph; Alexander Blotzky, son of Telesfor. On 9 May another group will be mustered and drafted in Taraklia. When these will be on active duty nobody knows. It could probably be in the fall.
It is very dry here. April passed without any rain and if the month of May should also be dry, it will be very sad here. Last week it rained and in some areas very hard. Krasna had a good rain, while it rained very little here. May God protect us from a poor harvest this year. Don’t know what will become of mankind. The prices for grain have already gone up. The wheat costs 30 rubles per pud, barley and oats are 12 rubles and hay costs 6 rubles per pud.
Stanislaus Wagner is sending a greeting to his brother Thomas in America and is asking him to send him $50, which he will gratefully return to him later. He certainly is not the poorest in the village, but he has 3 grown sons, of which the oldest was married last fall. Now he should have built a little house for him and bought something for the farm, but all of that is very expensive here. $50 is not much for you over there and here it would bring almost 5,000 rubles or lei. That would be a big help to him.
Karl Maas died on 4 April. This should serve as a notice to his siblings Lorenz and Elisabetha in Canada.
In closing, I am greeting my old mother in Fox Valley, Canada as well as all my siblings and brother-in-law Barnabas and remain respectfully,
Zachäus Kopp