Twenty-fourth installment from the diary of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise, written during the First World War. When the diary starts, she is living just a few miles from the front lines of the Eastern Front, and is then forced to flee with her husband and two young daughters to her family’s house near Limbaži as the war moves even closer. Her third child, a son, was born in February 1916. Now, the family has relocated to a home near Valmiera. For more background, see here, and click on the tag “diary entries” to see all of the entries that I have posted.

April 28, 1916

We have arrived happily at our new homey home, near Valmiera, at the Anna estate. Everything, everything just feels like a story, like an El Dorado land, we are satisfied without end and full of energy for our new work. The day we were travelling was very nice. Both of th egirls were up early, because we needed to hurry to the train, which went from Ozoli to Valmiera. Little OlÄ£erts’ first trip in the world! He is a good boy. A carriage with two horses awaited us at the station. We arrived at the Anna estate, where lunch was already prepared for us, just like in a story: “table, set yourself!” All of the rooms are nicely furnished, all we need is our clothes and laundry. All of the rooms (?) are very comfortable, living here is so nice, it is so easy to breathe. We don’t need to get anything, everything is here for us. All of the granaries are full, the manger full of cows, pigs, piglets. Chickens that lay so many eggs that we can live off them, also cupboards full of sugar, tea, coffee, and so on to all of the little things. And even nicer is that we live in the country from where we can see the whole town, the railroad, where we see trains moving, and on Sunday mornings we hear the church bells ringing. And my little dears have a big fruit orchard, strawberry patches, trees with bees, etc. Praise the Father, oh soul of mine!! And don’t forget, what good He has done you, Amen!!

WW1 Diary – April 28, 1916
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