From: Larga, Bessarabia
12 December 1919

Esteemed Staats-Anzeiger!

My dear friends, if I have as much paper today as I have had bread in earlier times, then my pen would really be put to work. But paper nowadays is more expensive than bread used to be. To top if off, there is none to be had. Previously a sheet of paper cost ½ kopek (not even ½ cent) where today you have to pay 30 kopeks. Everything you look at is extremely expensive.

Previously, you could buy a cow for 50 rubles, now you have to pay 3,000 rubles or more. The price for horses, sheep, hogs and everything is also extraordinarily high. Liquor and wine play a big role here lately. Whoever wants to enjoy these as in bygone times has to have a very large pocketbook, and yet despite it all, one takes a little pleasure now and then in having a drink. It lifts one’s heart and soul. You bygone times, where are you? Only the hope for the better prevents our despair. One is of the opinion that where water once used to be, water will be there again. That’s how we pass one day after another hoping for better times. Five years ago, I was offered the opportunity to visit my children in America, namely Ignatz and Amalia Gross near Brisbane, North Dakota, as well as my brothers-in-law Jakob Marthaller and his wife in Emporia, Kansas and Georg Mastio and his wife in Wathena, Kansas. By means of the Staats-Anzeiger, I had been commissioned by a gentleman to buy 6 sheep here in Bessarabia and deliver them personally in America. The changes in the world destroyed this plan. Should my children read these lines, then I ask them please write me at the above listed *address.

Respectfully,
Romuald Dirk

*The address is listed in the portion of the article that was not translated due to irrelevant content. Rumania, Bessarabia, Post Office Kainari, Village Larga, Romuald Dirk

From: Larga, Bessarabia
12 December 1919

Worthy Editorship!

In happiness about the news that the dear Staats-Anzeiger will soon be greeting us, I congratulate the editorship and hope, as mentioned, to soon have the paper in my hand. It is true, I did not receive the paper by spending my own money, but I received it as a present from my son Johannes Keller in Sedley, Saskatchewan, Canada. Still today I am thanking him very much for the paper and I am hoping that he will again order the newspaper for me, because it is hard to live without the dear paper.

All of Larga came to life again since teacher Dirk received the news that the dear paper will make a showing here again.

I am greeting my son Johannes heartily. We would like to let him know that all of us are still healthy. We wish that he would let us know in the Staats-Anzeiger where his stepsister is living over there and everything else that we would like to know about.

A friendly greeting to the editorship and the reader’s circle.

Joseph Keller

From: Emmental, Bessarabia
12 December 1919

Dear Staats-Anzeiger!

I have heard that Romuald Dirk in Larga has received a letter from the Staats-Anzeiger. The letter supposedly stated that your newspaper is being sent to Bessarabia again. If this is true then I would be very happy, and I would like to ask you, dear Staats-Anzeiger, to please not forget me and send me the newspaper. Don’t forget your old friend “A Farmer”.

During the time in which I did not read the dear paper, I felt completely dead.

It could also be a lie. However, a man who happened to drive past us, told me about it on the street, and that it was the honest truth that Romuald Dirk had received such a letter from the editorship in America. That’s when I went home right away and told my wife about it. She was so shocked that she beat her hands together over her head and said, “Husband, if that is so, then sit down at once and write to the newspaper so that we will get it again to read. At the same time you can also write about how it went with us for almost six years during the war. Then our folks over there in the New World will also beat their hands together over their heads when they find out how many never returned home and how many at home were carried to the cemetery. Thank God, that the sun is shining upon us again, else one would not have any life left within because of the grief and misery one had to endure.”

Right now I would like to write about what all happened in our village during the duration of the war. But first I want to look into the dear paper and find out what our dear people over there would like to know.

Dear readers, your old correspondent “A Farmer” is still alive and so is his wife. She has shed many a tear while I was a soldier, but now she is overjoyed that I have returned home in good health. To the contrary, when we were deployed in the field, no one at home believed that anyone would return. I myself didn’t believe it.

Maybe someone in the New World is familiar with the village Emmental. Those are also our people and things have changed there over the years. In the war many died and at home even more. Among the men the following died: Chrischtian [Christian] Miller, the old (Sr.) Deichert, the old (Sr.) Peter Lös, Närus Plotzki, Mat Miller’s son Chrischtian [Christian], Hannes [Johannes] Maas, Eljas [Elias] Ruscheinski, Dominik Nagel, the old (Sr.) Peter Paul, Milcher [Melchior] Dirk, Telesfor Plotzki. Among the women the following died: Theres [Theresa] Wagner, Appoloni [Appolonia] Dirk, Marjan [Marianna] Arnold, Anna Arnold, Philomen [Philomena] Dirk, the old (Sr.) Deicherte [Deichert], the old (Sr.) Chrischtian’s [Christian’s] Juljan [Juliane] Deichert and many girls and boys.

I am short on paper. I will write more next time. I am greeting the entire reader’s circle.

A Farmer