Loga, 19 November 1898

Dear Anna and Children;

Greetings from both of us from the bottom of our hearts.  We were
delighted by your last letter especially since it showed that you all
are well and about.  We hope you still are the same at this time and
both of us are also in good health.  But we are getting to be old.
Papa needs a walking cane now.  He goes to church only twice a year.
He will be 78 years old this coming spring but he looks as spry as a
young man.

But dear Anna you look so old, we could hardly recognize you. Your
hair is whiter than ours! Both little ones, Edward and Anna, are two
good looking children and Elizabeth is a big and beautiful girl.

It is our wish and hope that the other four sons turn out just as good
looking as these three.

Last fall Bernard and Friedrich received notice to report for military
duty in the German Armed Forces, but we told them that they were
American Citizens. They both had no interest in joining.

Dear Anna, your children are almost grown up so they should be able to
get a job and help to support your family.  We have no income and this
year we had no crop out of our garden that we could sell.  The entire
harvest was a disaster.  The feed for the pigs is in very short supply
and they slaughtered the pigs because of it. We also killed our
piglets a week ago.

The old man Mr. Graff Wedell died last summer and Baldor Kramer is
ill in bed for the last year or so.  We also like you to know that
Gerard's house burned to the ground last Sept. the 2nd.  Konrad with
wife and children made it out of the burning house at three a.m.
practically naked. Since then they built a big place (Mansion) but ran
out of bricks and doors. Now they live in the back of a barn and spend
a lot of time in the local pub which doesn't make matters any better.

Now I have to quit with greetings to all of you and to you dear Anna
the best wishes to your Birthday.

Your loving Mother,
M. Br"uggemann

And your loving Father,
C. Br"uggem

I can't write any more. Please write us some more.


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The above was an old handwritten letter sent to Anna (Brueggemann)
Tiedeken.  It was passed down through her daughter Elizabeth, then
through Elizabeth's son Peter B. Nicklaus, then through his son Gerard
Nicklaus, and currently (1997) to Gerard's son, Dennis Nicklaus.
Dennis had it translated in 1997.
The original is written in the old german script.  In the german text,
umlauted characters (i.e. a, o, or u with two dots above them) are
typed here as the two character sequence, "a, "o, "u.
Loga is the name of a town in northwest Germany adjacent to Leer.