Dear Cousin,
We received your worthy letter, we were very delighted= that you are still safe and sound[1] until we were in mourning abou= t the parting[2] of your dear wife. We would have= been very happy to hear that the two of you are still living within the circle of your beloved family[3], but= it is bitter what a man has to persist and we have to submit to God’s wi= ll and consider the beneficial things He[4] gave us. That is how also you= , dear cousin, have to think.
Concerning ourselves, we are all safe and sound
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And we hope that you, dear cousin, and your children w= ith our Paul […][5]
And we hope that our Paul will meet you all safe and s= ound1 and with the next opportunity we will write more and you, dear cousin, I ask you to take care of Paul. For that he is still young and doesn’t know much of the world. Hoping that everything will happen with best Hoffnung[6], we close [this letter].
Your beloved relatives,
Joseph Huth
And Agathe Huth, nee […]
Thousand Greetings.
[1] Alternatives are: alive and kicking, hale and hearty
[2] Mean= ing ‘death’
[3] Lite= ral translation.
[4] God<= /p>
[5] This line is not readable in the original letter.
[6] I as= sume that ‘Hoffnung” =3D ‘hope’ was used with a different meaning in 1899. My mother th= inks this sentence means: “We hope that everything will happen as good as = we hope for.” Which sounds very redundant to me!