Letter 22

Date:           January 9, 1882

Sender:        Harmen Jan te Selle

Addressee:   Mrs. Dela ten Damme - te Selle
Derk Willem te Selle

---

Firth, January 9, 1882

Dear Respected Mother, Brother, and Children

By means of pen and ink, I want to let you know that we are very healthy and hope for you the same. We would regret it very much if it were different. From your letter which you wrote us on December 17, and which we received on January 5, we understand that you all are doing well, despite that you and Tobias had a cold. And that is how it is here, many have a cold and several children of G.J. have whooping cough. Also Jan Hendrik’s children keep on coughing. Up till now we don’t have this problem.

The fact that this winter is mild and soft will not help us much with all this sickness. Except for a few cold days, we have barely had a winter. Our cattle are out for full days and do not have to be fed much, which suits the farmers well.  

There was not quite a lot of straw this year, but there was a lot of hay, so straw is not as expensive as where you are. For 2 dollars we can buy a thousand pounds of hay, despite the fact that everything is more expensive than other years. Butter has been  up to 25 cents per pound, which has not happened for a long time! Eggs are at 2½ cents each, some time before you could buy them for ½ cent each. Corn or Turkish wheat costs 43 cents per bushel, which was in other years not more than 22 to 25 cents. Hogs are 5.00 to 5.20 a hundred (live) and from the newspapers it is clear that not much has been grown in other places. Even here we had half of other years and that's why everything is so expensive.

You wrote me about that newspaper. Sometimes when I read it, I lose it immediately, the little ones tear them to pieces and then you don't get it regularly any more and I can't help it, but I will see what I can do.

I would like to get you familiar with America and what happens there. So I would like to get you familiar by means of the newspaper. I myself even read 3 newspapers. Two Dutch and one English newspaper. I like reading pretty much and for one newspaper I am the correspondent so they don't cost me too much.

Possibly you have seen the articles from Nebraska in the weekly magazines: they sometimes are signed Te. S. and sometimes T.S.  They are written by me. The newspaper editor likes to hear some news from Nebraska and Holland, so every week I sent him something. In no 52 the news of two weeks is printed.  No's 1 and 2 will be published soon. lt is possible that there are things in there that you don't know such as "turkeys" (those are 'kalkoenen") and we write it the English way.

Today I got the sad message from Wisconsin that my first wife’s mother died. In the evening she went to bed healthy and the next morning she was dead in bed.

So death calls everybody, nobody is spared. I’ve got to finish now, it is 9 'o clock and time to go to bed.

This is the second letter I wrote tonight and on top of it I had visitors, so please excuse my poor writing,

H.J. te Selle