Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Jon Bouman to the Bouman Family

Bouman, Jon Anthony, 1873-1958

WWP23026

1919 March 7

Letter from Jon Bouman to his family.

Gift of William C. and Evelina Suhler

Correspondence

Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920)

Rachel Dark

Denise Montgomery

Austin Shifflett

English

Evelina Suhler is the granddaughter of Jon Anthony Bouman and inherited the family collection of his letters from the years of World War I. She and her husband gave the letters to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum in 2013.

 Dearest –

    I have yours of the 4th and 5th. Let us plunge at once into this rent question, which is a knotty problem for both of us.

    Assuming that my salary in London is to be £10 without any further war allowance -- at all events, it wouldn’t be safe to bank on more – I don’t just know how the present cost of housekeeping compares with pre – war prices, but it is safe to assume, I suppose, that a sovereign will not buy now anything like it used to buy then.

    As you know, on the old basis of pound £7.10.—(which was £6 plus £1.10.—from La Nacion) we found it pretty difficult to make both ends meet; holiday expenses generally proved the last straw.

    If the cost of living had remained on the same level, we could now well afford a £75 a year house, but now it seems to me that we ought not to go beyond £60. Rates & taxes are bound to be heavy – I don’t know whether it’s still safe to calculate on one third of the rental for that – you might consult a householder on that point.

    I don’t remember what the Farmers used to pay for their flat at Eton Houses, Eton Avenue; - those were large houses converted into maisonettes, but they may all be taken or be beyond our reach.

    I propose to send you every month a cheque for £35 to cover everything, except of course insurance premiums which I take care of from here. That leaves me with roughly £8 a month to spend here; I may not spend all, lord knows I don’t want to! But as the soling and heeling of a pair of boots costs 17 francs, I think I ought to have that margin.

    If you can save anything on the £35, so much the better, I know you will try. Just as first you will have all sorts of extra expenses that would not recur in the ordinary settled down life. Those of course would have to be met out of my balance at the Bank, but I suggest the above as some kind of a working plan. You won’t know yourself for certain what it costs to run a house until you find your bearings again by practice.

    I suggest you calculate what you will need until the end of March, and use your last blank cheque to cover that, and then I can start at the end of March sending you £35 for April, and so on. I think that will be best until I get home, when we shall have to revise our budget again.

    I have sent Jones Bros a cheque for £2.5. - which pays them up to March 16.

    What was it you made the 3rd check for, £30? It was not quite distinct in your letter.

    I have lots of much more frivolous things to write you about, but am anxious to get this off to you. So now (in Betty’s words) “I think I must stop”.

    Love to yourself and the babies. I shall write again soon.

Letter

Bouman Family