Source: Das Nordlicht, 19 May 1921 · 📰

From: Balmas, Bessarabia
17 April 1921

Dear Nordlicht:

We would like to petition the Nordlicht to do something about moneys being sent from America to Bessarabia. Many people here receive money from friends and relatives in America through other newspapers without having any connections with banks in Bessarabia. The money is sent from Bismarck, North Dakota to Leipzig, Germany to Mssrs. Knauth, Nachot and Kuehne, or the recipients are told to send their checks there for these gentlemen to forward to the Bessarabian postal stations for disbursement. Such transactions are not very practical, however. Most postal stations here are postal subdivisions not equipped for monetary transactions.

Perhaps a Bismarck bank could establish contact with a Bessarabian bank such as the Bank of Moldavia. Picking up money from old Rumania often costs more for the trip to get the money than there is money. (*Editor’s comment: Nordlicht has long since established ways to transmit funds directly to the postal stations near the residence of the recipient and so far moneies have been paid that way without any problems. The transaction still has to be handled through a foreign bank, as direct money mailing to Rumania is unavailable as of yet. So far, these money orders have been cashed at the foreign bank and forwarded to the postal stations without trouble as the recipient gets his/her money from the postal service.)

I recently sent a bank money order for Ludwig Schmalz, in the amount of 282 Lei, to the German bankers Knauth, Nachot and Kuehne, with the request to send the money in care of the postal station Kainari for the recipient. I should be able to report the results at a later date.

My wife Franziska nee Marthaller from Speier in the Odessa region is currently traveling to see relatives in Krasna in the Akkermann District. She will also visit our children in Tarutino. After she returns, I will be able to send you my report from that region as well. I am not getting much in terms of news, as I am always busy at school, which ties me down effectively. That will change in the near future.

I would also like to mention that Mr. Johann Moser, who was our mayor in Balmas in 1918, has been transferred to Kischinev prison for further investigation. If a man is guilty, one does not get terribly upset about such things. But when it concerns an innocent like the former mayor, a heart is deeply touched. I would like to tell more from the Cherson region and what is going on there and what the poor people are enduring, but the borders are still closed.

As I was writing this report, young Mrs. Kunigunda Wagner came by to ask whether I could ask in her behalf whether someone out there knows what happened to her sister Katharina nee Baumann, wife of Anselmus Schmalz. Kunigunda married Mr. Christian Wagner eight years ago. After she had been married for two years, she had a terrible accident during the threshing season. A youngster stood on the platform holding the horses, which shied all of a sudden and raced for the grain barn, where the oldest child of the couple was sitting. The mother realized the danger the child was in and grabbed it out of harm’s way. At the same time, the threshing stone pinned the woman’s skirt and spiraled her into the stone, flattening her arm in two places. The arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. If Katharine or her husband Anselmus Schmalz can be found, they should be given this message. They may write to Kunigunda at this address: Rumania, Bessarabia, Jnd. Thigina, Post Kainari, Cummuna Balmas, Christian Wagner.

On April 7, mercantile owner, Jankel Janovitz, lost a check for 2,000 Lei, which he had received from Syracuse, New York. He needs a replacement check or a copy of the original check in order to get his money; otherwise, the 2,000 Lei are gone.

Greetings to all friends and relatives over there. Especially my children Ignatz and Amalia Gross and my nephew Peter Januscheitis.

Romuald Dirk