No date. no place

To my dearly beloved wife, Taube Kretzmar, be well and live in happiness. And to my dear children, sons David and Noah, and daughters Leah and Freda, may they live in wealth and comfort.

Dearest wife, I have received your letter this week, but as I am keen to send you a longer letter, I am writing now when I have more time. It is Saturday night, and in addition it is raining, so we cannot go out into the streets. That means that we have more time and patience in my room. I am in my room and I am all alone, because altogether we are three people in this place. I and Meishe Sebentseke and a young man whose name is Yankel Yehuda Hirsch Uzilliner, a brother-in-law, and they are both at Lipman Rubin’s, so I am alone and I have no one to talk to. Usually we like to spend our free time with blood relations chatting, but alas what can you do? you have to be satisfied with what you have. I’m sorting out your letters that have accumulated until God will reunite us. It will be a good memento of the times that we have been through as the letter is a real diary, and if you write a reply it takes up the time that you are not occupied with nothing. I can inform you that I am TG well, may God grant to hear the same from you and the children.

Further, I can tell you that I have given up my profession and have started a business. I became a partner with Meishe, and we have taken another partner, a brother-in-law of Yankel, who is with us in the room, and we buy poultry and eggs and other goods we are getting from farms in the country to sell. And all this is being sold resale and wholesale as we can, and TG we earn something. At the outset it was poor because of our inexperience, but now we are more experienced. We handle more goods and we hope that God will send more business. Money we need more than our joint capital, and nevertheless we manage to scrape enough together. A little from Lipman, and a little from another, so it comes right. May the Lord just give health and success. I would have greatly loved to send money, as much as possible, to redeem the debt, but you can yourself understand that you need money to do business, without it you cannot do any business.