Cape Town, March (?), 1901

To my dearest and precious 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.

My dearest wife – your writing of this week I have not yet received, but I hope it will still come, because I can’t imagine that you would be so bad as not to write. If you write and post it, it will arrive. I can inform you that I am TG well and in good spirits. May God grant that I should hear the same from you and the children. At the moment, I have nothing much to write. There is no change in business. Everything goes very slowly. Cape Town does not worry much about the visitors from Johannesburg who are suffering here in Cape Town.

At this second Pesach, we arrivals from Russia would like to see that we are nearer on the road to success, but we must hope that better times will come. In the meantime, we are only yawning and not earning, and one kind of business is connected with another, and so it is no good to anybody. But nobody can foresee what God might do. There is nothing we can plan, whatever was and what is today and what can happen in the future. Because it means ‘uncompleted work’ so we know that it has no form or shape, and we can derive no encouragement from this. We must be courageous and continue forwards,and be brave and don’t lose hope – with God’s help, everything will come right. Keep well, as is the wish of your ever loving husband, who is waiting for your reply, Tuvye Kretzmar

I greet heartily my dear parents, my brother Yaacov and my sisters Hinda and Chana, please send me the address of Eliayu Zalman – I have no letters from him and I don’t know his address so I cannot write to him. Keep well and happy and have naches from the children. As is the wish of your son, Tuvye Kretzmar

I greet heartily my dear mother-in-law, the chaste Neche, and my brother-in-law, Moishe Shohet, and his wife, my sister, and the children, and my sister-in-law, Chana Reza, and my brother-in-law, Aaron Morris. I wish you all the best. I will send money, as much as possible, and if I don’t send it, it is simply because there is nothing to send and there is no other reason. Keep well, as is the wish of your relative (freind), Tuvye Kretzmar

From the depth of my heart, I wish to greet my dear friend Yisrael Yaacov Greentug and his wife – I wish them all the blessings and success. From me, your friend, Tuvye Kretzmar