Köngen, 29 December 1867.

God's mercy and peace as a greeting. We feel obliged to write you, because it has been a long time since we got a letter from you and we sent you the last one from Chatarine Sohn from Oberensingen. Therefore we have been waiting for a response ever since and have constantly been waiting for a letter, which has not happened yet. We don't know what went wrong. While we were at Chatarine's we have learned that your house had burnt down. In January we heard about this horrible accident that struck you, and we would like to know how the accident happened and how the fire started.

We for our part are, thank God, healthy and well, except for our dear mother; she died. Although she had constantly been losing her strength for some years,

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she had never been in poor health. She had still been able to do her duties in the household, and the Lord had given her health until the last Sunday of her life, the 3th of December 1867. On that day she went to bed in the afternoon and said she did not feel well, which made us sad because already on the first evening we felt this would be the illness leading to her death. She laid down peacefully and quietly and spent most of the time in a light slumber, and whenever we asked her if she was in pain she would not complain but quietly surrendered to the will of God. And when we said to her: "Mother, we think you might die now," she replied: "Whatever God does is well done." and so on. And her main worry and concern was about Georg and Chatarine, how things would be for them after her death, and we promised her on her deathbed that we would not

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mistreat them and that we would happily take care of them and do for them everything within our power as long as we live. And so she passed away very peacefully and quietly on the second day of her illness, the 10th of December 1867. Especially for our old father this was a painful parting, being separated from each other so suddenly, but it was a comfort to us that we can truly say and testify that our mother secured herself a nice place in heaven while she was still healthy. How often did she deal with death? In fact, she often told us that she thought about dying every day. She also said if she were to die that day she would have a certain hope for eternal life. She had built up a good supply for eternal life, and so we want to let her rest in peace, however hard it may seem to us, because we believe and do not doubt at all that she went home to her Lord's joy.

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She lived 61 years, 6 months, and 15 days. We also want to tell you how things are going for us besides that. Christiane and her husband are in father's house. They want to handle the household and the business together. Our father cannot give it up yet because of our younger brother and sister; it is still better for them to be allowed to stay with their father. We also want to write you how the harvest went this year. There was enough hay and aftermath,[1] but very little grain and barley, you could say only half of what we usually had in other years. But we got the chance to experience a special blessing. Most people had enough fruit, more than they needed, and also potatoes in abundance. So we want to thank God for the blessing he brought us this year. Everything here is expensive, crops as well as meat. One bushel[2] grain costs 8 to 9 Gulden, one bushel barley 13 to 14 Gulden, pork per pound 18 Kreuzer, beef 15 Kreuzer, a bottle of juice 4 Kreuzer.[3] We don't know what else to write other than best regards from all of us, your father, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances. Please write us as soon as possible, because we wait for a letter from America every day, since we have already written you two letters without getting a response.

Wilhelm Zimmerman in Köngen 1867

[1] "Öhmd" in the original, probably a misspelling of "Öhmt," a term for what was left over after the first harvest of a hayfield.

[2] "Sch." in the original = "Scheffel," or bushel.

[3] Gulden and Kreuzer (abbr. "Kr.") were coins in use in Wurttemberg at the time; 60 Kreuzer equaled 1 Gulden. 1 Gulden was roughly equivalent to 50 cents in U.S. currency in 1867.
"Buttelle" in the original is assumed to be a variation on the slang word "Buddel," from the French word "bouteille" ("bottle").