Hannover, Germany

Sept. 28, 1889

or care of:  Bei Fraulein Zimmermann

My dear Mother & Father,

There are a few minutes before church tie Miss Swan and I are both writing.  I read your letter mailed the 17th yesterday and was very glad and thankful to hear from you.  You did not say how the hops were turning out, whether good and a good yield, only that the outlook for a good price is very discouraging.  What a hop picking it has been for you! I wonder if I could have helped you any if I h;ad been there.  It must have been very trying.  I do not know that any words of warning will make you take more care of yourselves, or work less hard.  I can not think that you will ever get your hop picking clearing done if you employ Indian girls- They have never proved good help- What, can you get no better?  Your letter made me very thoughtful, and wish I could carry you here away from all the care and burden of that dreadful farm life. Can nothing be done to make the work for you less.

_______

I was obliged this am to leave this for it was time to get ready for church and now the service is over- It has rained almost constantly for a week, and it’s still raining.  On account of the weather,  I’ve done very little sightseeing, but have been very devoted to German and letter writing this past week.  This am when we came to breakfast, after having had a delicious bath in warm water, and being arrayed in clean clothes.– I found there two letters awaiting me – one from Adele and one from Miss Cushing.  The entering class, so Adele said is 180 at the college and that _(?) Street has become a sort of annex to the college.  Miss C’s  letter gave 162 as the no. with more to come in later.  The new boarding house accommodates 60, and is where the President’s farm used to stand back of the President’s house and near the Dewey house.  The college is very crowded.  It would seem strange to go back there now with so many changes.

May P. and her brother are now,  I suppose in Cornell.  Adele said she weighed 130 and that all her dresses were slitting .  She says she is not pinning away away. Topsy, she says, is dead and seeks the sleep of the just under an apple tree in Hoekanum (?)  Miss Cushing is very busy at the College, and had time to write me only a few words.  Miss Swan yesterday read a letter from Mr. Lawrence, the principal of the grammar school where she taught for five years before coming here.  She had written him about her voyage, her visit to Amsterdam- and some thing about the sights here.  Hew begged her to forgive Him for allowing part of her letter to be published in the Transcript. I will be published there also for several times she mentioned my name in connection with her journey.  The article was headed “Holyokers in Europe.”  “An interesting letter from Miss Swan who is now in Germany.”  “Miss Abbie C. Swan…. etc. , who left Aug 18th with Miss Harriett E.  Risley, also an ex-teacher of the high School, writes and interesting and enthusiastic letter from Hannover, Germany, etc. So as further  on the letter states, we arrived Aug. 25, it makes our sail one of only six days, allowing one day for th;e land journer.  Holyokers must think we came over on the “City of Paris,” or by lightening express, as Miss Swan suggests.

Miss Bell wrote me again so that I rec’d another letter since I wrote you. She is well, she says.  She, in every letter advised me to speak and hear all the German I can and not speak English.  Miss S. and I got along so poorly making so many mistakes spoiling lour ears for better German that we concluded to wait a little longer until we could handle constructions to better advantage. We have company to-day- a Fraulein Meyer from Hildesheime, a teacher; I think she has a school and is visiting the frauleins’ school. They are very particular before her and we thought a little constrained. She is a very pleasant lady.  Miss Swan and I wish she were going to stay. if every day we were to have so elaborate dinners.  Perhaps you would like to know what we had.  First soup, then five small chickens;- beans – a kind we ho not have shelled to be eaten with butter, then two kinds of salads, lettuce, & bean & cucumber; cauliflower- delicious!  apple sauce,  luxury we don’t often have; potatoes; and for dessert, tutti fruitti.  It tasted very good.  We have a truly German taste – or else an excellent appetite.

Friday instead of taking out lesson at eleven as we usually do, we were released from reciting by Fraulein Munkemeyer and went with her sister and Miss Preston, an Eng. Lady, to the castle to visit the rooms which we heard were to be closed yesterday.  We paid a fee of five cents each.  We were not shown nearly all, only nine rooms – these of the Emperor and Empress. The private rooms of the Empress were of light blue brocaded satin and were decorated with guilded ornaments.  The wood part of the chairs etc. or what is generally in furniture is of wood was brass and very beautiful.  The first room we entered was the Empress’ private reception room. The second her sitting room.  The third the writing, the next the sleeping, and last the toilet room.  Each was beautifully furnished as I before said.

A picture in one room, her sitting, or bedroom covered one whole side of the room and was very beautiful.  It was a picture of Dutch faces-  we saw many similar paintings in Amsterdam-  men with the full ruffs,- knee brbreeches, etc. The subject of many of the paintings in the Empress as well as the Emperors apartments were biblical.   Over the wash stand was “Moses in the Bullrushes.”  It was lovely.  I admired everything but the carpets which were all alike- a dark red velvet, very soft but not so beautiful as one would expect.  It looked in places as though spoiled, but it due to the light and the way the ____ was turned(?) as in velvet.

The Emperor’s apartments were of lark blue  and not so elegant as those of the Empress.  Her writing desk was of ebony and gold.  We saw a lovely ebony table inlaid with mother of pearls forming patterns.  We saw only these rooms.  We could not be admitted to the rest of the castle.  Why, I do not know nor do the frauleins understand.

Yesterday afternoon we went to walk and Miss Swan indulged in some pictures of the Emperor’s family, and I, a half a pound of washing soap– soap which cost all of three cents.  Miss Swan thinks the soap here takes out dirt better than any we have in America.  I wrote a letter to Aunt Susie yesterday, and the day before one to  _____ and one to Leo hoping the letters would reach them on their birthdays.  Probably you will receive this on mine.  You may imagine ;me as eating German birthday cake, if the frauleins find out my birthday.  They know it already,having innocently told them when I first came there.  They may remember it, but I hope they will make no cake or take any trouble.  I already feel they have done too much.  We even have our shoes blacked for us, if we put them outside the door before retiring.  I wrote yesterday a letter to Mrs. Gaule, the lady who married the German professor in Zurich.  I can not tell anything about the time  I s;hall go there until I hear from her.

I have told you nothing about the decorations in front of the theatre which is in the Theatre Platz and is one of t;he finest in Germany with seats for 1,800 spectators. The principal facade toward George Street is adorned with a handsome portice under which there is a broad carriage approach.  On t;he balcony above are placed statues of twelve celebrated poets and composers.  In front of the building rises a monument designed by Hartzer of Celle erected in 1877 to the composer “Marschuer, who, till within a few years  of his death, was conductor of the royal orchestra.  In front is also a monument in white marble to the famous surgeon Stromeyer, and with a bronze statue of the technologist, Karmasek, the founder and director of the Polytechnic Academy at Hannover.  Soth statues are by Rassau of Dresden.  I didn’t get the above out of my own memory but from a guide. Miss Swan has.  It is something I wish to keep – and as I send you my diary it is, I hope, interesting to you also.

Fraulein Munkemeyerhas given me a list of names of German books good to read- not heavy,  but interesting and the kind I could take up and read in when tired studying.  One is the “Bride of Nile” by George Ebers, which you read last spring just before I went to Kentucky, and which I was unable to finish.  Iwent to price these books here, but find them very expensive- much more so I think than in America.  Here there’ s a copyright on them, perhaps also in America. I think most books here are much cheaper. Faulein Munkemeyer advised me to take them from the loan library.  I could have a book out for as long as I wished for a small sum per month.  I think I shall do a little translating in German on Wednesdays and Saturdays when I have no lesson.

We have just been to coffee drinking – there was a strange gentlemen there beside the frauleins Meyer. We sat and sat until I feared I wouldn’t have time to finish your letter before going to church.  I wish to mail it on my way.  It is not raining now.

You said in your letter you wondered if what you wrote could be interesting.  How can you ask such a question?  Everything the slightest, most trivial thing that concerns you is of interest. Do write me often and all you can find time to.  Have you any good books to read now?  It is very sad about Miss Main.  I am glad she sent for you as she did.

I hope you will not think of leaving the farm to keep house elsewhere, but I do wish you could board in Waterville.  I think Carl and Rena might take you and gather as boarded, surely you have many times made them comfortable in your home;  still even then I think it would be better for you to board where you would have less care of the children.  Do you think you shall be pleased to board with Mrs. Anderson- to eat the same food as they could afford to give to the men.  My dears, I do not feel at all satisfied with your winter arrangements. Why need you take the men to board?  It seems to me all the hard things and uncomfortable things are given to you to bear.  Sometimes, perhaps, there will be sheets of my letter that you think may interest Rena.  I know my letters to you are not for critical eyes- are written very hastily without regard to much else except rapidly and the amt I can say in short space and time as my letters testifyl

My love to her always Miss Swan wished me to rememer her to you- write soon.  Very much love to you both, and a farewell kiss.

Your loving daughter,

Harriett E> R.

kisses for the children and love for Carl to me