The home Henry was building in Evansville in 1950 was on land partitioned from the family farm on Denzer Road, in Posey County, actually abutting the county line. I don't know who lived in it first, but his sister Caroline was in it when I first met Henry in the mid 1970s. Several people have owned it since. Henry lived in the old farmhouse. Underneath the exterior siding was a log home, the original structure dating back to the 1860s. The massive barn stood between the two houses. It is still there, the last time I drove down, and the 1950 house is still there, but the old farmhouse was sold after Henry died in 2010 to someone who wanted to dismantle the logs and reassemble them, I was told, in a park of some kind in the plain states.
23 de mayo de 1950
Querido Heni:
Tuve un gran gusto cuando recibí tu carta. ¡Hacía tánto tiempo que no escribías! Pensé que ya estarías tomando preciosas vistas a colores en la linda España cuyo pueblo se muere de hambre y sufre a Franco. Asi pues, ha sido una magnífica noticia saber que en lugar de eso, estás entre tus gentes y trabajando en algo tan útil y satisfactorio como es el construir un hogar. Yo se que ese trabajo te hará mucho bien.
Dale un abrazo a la esposa de Wally, dáselo de me parte por la hijita que acaba de tener. Es curioso, tu papá, también se casó con una muchacha holandesa ¿tu mamá es holandesa, verdad? y criaron una numerosa familia como la que seguramente tendrán Wally y Katie; Tu kid brother Ed. se casará y “aterrizará” fuertemente también. Son las gentes reposadas y sensatas como Wally y Katy y Edy y Caroline, las que nos ofrecen una idea de lo buena y agradable que es la vida sencilla y laboriosa; pero no todos somos iguales, Tú, Marie y yo, ni somos reposados ni somos sensatos; tenemos que vivir explorando el mundo si no prácticamente, aunque sea con la mente y con la imaginación; somos viajeros constantes y cuando las circunstancias nos condenan a la quietud obligada (como a mí durante los largos meses de mi enfermedad) nos sentimos pobres y desdichados. En cambio, nosotros vivimos nuestras vidas más intensamente, yo no creo en forma alguna haber desaprovechado mi juventud ¡claro que no! La aproveché ¡y como! hay en ella capítulos apasionados, turbulentos y alguna que otra página tierna; días muy felices pasados contigo, días amargos separada de tí durante la guerra; el recuerdo de nuestras grandes peleas y de las muchísimas horas felíces que pasamos juntos. Yo te he hecho sufrir y tú me has hecho sufrir; pero al mismo tiempo tu me has hecho felíz y yo te he hecho felíz. Si hemos discutido y peleado también es cierto que hemos reído y nos hemos besado y hemos cantado y nos hemos sentido los dueños del mundo sabiendo que nos teníamos el uno al otro. ¿A eso lo llamas desperdiciar la juventud? No querido, a eso le llamo yo vivir la juventud y vivirla apasionadamente.
Hablas como un viejo venerable diciendo “en septiembre cumplo cuarenta años” Gabriel ha cumplido ya 43 y se siente más jóven que Edy, tánto que se casará pronto con una linda muchacha de 23 años.
Si las cosas salen como las tengo planeadas, cosa que es difícil porque el diablo anda siempre metiendo la pata en mis asuntos, iré a Evansville el día menos pensado siempre que me prometas no pelear,.. cosa que también es difícil porque tú y yo no podemos estar juntos sin pelearnos y sin querernos.
Dile a Marie, que como el trabajo de que le hablé en mi última carta exigía antes que nada rapidez extraordinaria, tuve que hacerlo sin su ayuda, debido a las razones que ella me dió.
Reciban todos me cariño y tú “viejo venerable”, un beso en cada uno de tus lindos ojos.
Esperanza
May 23, 1950
Dear Heni:
I was very pleased when I received your letter. It has been so long since you wrote! I thought you were already taking beautiful color views in beautiful Spain whose people are starving and suffering under Franco. So, it has been wonderful news to know that instead of that, you are among your people and working at something as useful and satisfying as building a home. I know that this work will do you a lot of good.
Give Wally's wife a hug from me for the little daughter she just had. It's funny, your dad, he also married a Dutch girl, your mother is Dutch, isn't she, and they raised a large family just like Wally and Katie are sure to have; your kid brother Ed will marry and "land" hard too. It is calm, sensible people like Wally and Katy and Edy and Caroline, who give us an idea of how good and pleasant the simple, hard-working life is; but we are not all the same, You, Marie and I, we are neither calm nor sensible; we have to live exploring the world if not practically, if only with our mind and imagination; we are constant travelers and when circumstances condemn us to enforced stillness (as they did me during the long months of my illness) we feel poor and wretched. On the other hand, we live our lives more intensely, I do not believe in any way that I have wasted my youth, of course not! I took advantage of it and how! there are passionate, turbulent chapters in it and some tender pages; very happy days spent with you, bitter days separated from you during the war; the memory of our great fights and the many happy hours we spent together. I have made you suffer and you have made me suffer; but at the same time you have made me happy and I have made you happy. If we have argued and fought, it is also true that we have laughed and we have kissed and we have sung and we have felt that we were the masters of the world knowing that we had each other. You call that wasting youth? No dear, that's what I call living youth and living it passionately.
You sound like a venerable old man saying "I'll be forty in September." Gabriel has already turned 43 and feels younger than Edy, so much so that he will soon marry a pretty 23-year-old girl.
If things go as I have planned, which is difficult because the devil is always messing up my affairs, I will go to Evansville the day I least expect it as long as you promise not to fight,... which is also difficult because you and I can't be together without fighting and loving each other.
Tell Marie that since the job I told her about in my last letter demanded first of all extraordinary speed, I had to do it without her help, due to the reasons she gave me.
Everyone receive my love and you "venerable old man", a kiss on each of your beautiful eyes.
Esperanza
