Savannah, August 25 1938
Dear Marie and Valdemar,
Many thanks for the last letter and please excuse that this is pushed out a little long. The reason is that in the last time we have not really known what we should do and furthermore, we still don’t know. We had decided to find a steamer that could bring the most important 4/5 of the Dohm family to Europe but so far we have only found one steamer directly from Savannah to Copenhagen but that will cost 220$ for all of us and that’s a lot of money especially when you know there is a possibility to sail on one that only wants two and a half Crowns per day if you otherwise could be so lucky to find it. The motor on board is somewhat weak on account of the heat for one thing but also because some of the Americans are for us un-sympatric people who think it’s a silly idea to sail a sailboat when you can come the same distance 40 times as far with an airplane and still we are forced to stay here a couple of months more since it’s hurricane season and its’s expensive here. We eat bread for 90 øre a day so instead of earning Dollars we have soon reached the bottom of all the nice Dollars be brought from the West Indies, and to be sure that we don’t starve to death you better send us 50$ but don’t address them to us but to the consul Mr. A. S. Anderson, 218 Oameau Building West Palm Beach, Florida. then he can open the letter and we have a checking account with him which we can direct wherever we happen to be and have use for it. Otherwise everybody on board is healthy, all right from the young good-looking Copenhagener Peter to the even better-looking baby Per Alton. Thanks for all the newspaper clippings, they are nice and beautiful. We just they should rather have taken our private pictures. That worked fine with Mr. Schmutz, he will probably send the 5$. Poor Marie with the arthritis. I myself have had something like that in the shoulder last month and it’s terrible but now it has disappeared. Today it’s boiling hot, 93 degrees in the cabin but it’s Fahrenheit. In Jacksonville we had a nice Danish farmer who sent us milk every day while we were there visiting one day and were invited for a longer stay but we had to leave so we could talk with the steamer here so we missed out on them. Otherwise I could have got an education as a milkmaid and Peter as a milk boy. Could we just in case we all of a sudden get a steamer get some type of a paper written so we eventually can get the trip on credit until I come to Copenhagen? If this is the case then go ahead and send it. I’m afraid this has become a long letter of complaints which you will have to excuse but the mood is complaining so what can I do. Keep smiling, the American says, but of course they are crazy.
Now many loving greetings from Lars, Peter, Anne, Else and Baby