My dear Father, and dear Lotta and Erna:
I hope this letter finds you all well. Trudel worries anxiously when she does not get word from you. Sometimes we do not feel we get all the news.
We have been very happy and she has been very brave this past year. Many millions of people are out of work in this country and those who are employed are paid so little. Trudel works very hard.
Three thousand lawyers in Chicago are starving with no work and no office. We have 10,000 lawyers in Chicago alone. Our dollar is worth only 59 cents. Under Roosevelt and Democrats food and everything costs more and the taxes are so heavy that business has not started again since the depression, which makes it VERY HARD for lawyers to keep their offices and place in the profession.
By working 18 hours a day I have done 20% better in 1935 than in 1934, but everything cost more this year than before. I write you because you should know if we could we would do something to help some of you come here. But this is impossible now. And it breaks Trudel’s heart that she can not help and the man who loves her can not. Everything is uncertain. Election year is 1936.
Would you make me happy? Write oftener to dear Trudel. Every day she asks – any mail from Germany? And she looks so sad waiting so long for letters, she gets so few.
Her throat bothers her. She has had a BAD cold and fever. She is so true and beautiful. She does not know what I am writing. She has written nothing to worry you since coming here, but everything is not easy for her and to get started in a strange country is lonesome work and very hard.
If I have made it easier and pleasanter for her, I am glad because I love her.
With love to you all,
Leonard
This letter was written by Leonard J. Grossman, Trudel’s fiance and my father, to Trudel’s sisters and her father in the midst of the depression, as dark clouds were gathering over Europe.