77. March 26, 1923 Part 1

In this rather long letter, Jonas Victor is grateful for his children.  He writes about the economy in the country .   Roselyn


Randolph, March 26, 1923
Brother Albert with Family.  God's Peace!
     Thanks very much for the letter.  I learned so much.  It is nice to get a letter from Sweden, and especially from the place where my parents' house is and hear how you are.
     I am with my son, Alfred, and I feel well.  It is so quiet in the house.  They have no children.  They have a foster-daughter, but she is in school.  She is a teacher now and seldom at home.  How poor it is without children.  If I had no children it would be so boring to live.
     Nearly every week I get one or two letters, and also they visit me sometimes. I write to them.  There would not be as many letters if the postman did not come every day to the house both take and leave the mail.
     My health is good.  Thanks to God!  There have been changes for me.  On the farm I had much to do.  We had about 150 hens, which I cared for.  It was more work than I wanted.  Now I walk one mile every day if the weather is fine.  It keeps my nerves in order.  I was 87 years old the first of October last autumn.
     Albert gets about 15 dozen eggs a day from his hens.  They are cheap now.  We have not had snow this winter to amount to anything.
     I paid for the newspaper 2.50 this year.  I have proof of that.  I have written to Oskar about that.  They ought to have the newspaper.  Let me know if you get it.
     The workers here do not work more than 8 hours a day.  They have a big daily allowance.  There were 1 million bushels of potatoes that were not picked up in the northern states.  The work for doing it was too expensive.  The railway workers have a big daily allowance.  (Wages).  The result was that freight was expensive for the businessman, who would take the potatoes home and sell.  There was a big harvest so the potatoes were cheap.  The factories do not have enough workers, so nobody needs to be unemployed.
     The youth who go to school until they finish college or even longer, do not want to do heavy work.  So there are many vagrants.  The workers earn lots of money, but they use it to buy automobiles.  It is nearly impossible in the country for farmers to get help, so they trade between themselves.