Twenty-third 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. It was here that her third child, a son, was born in February 1916. For more background, see here, and click on the tag “diary entries” to see all of the entries that I have posted.

April 26, 1916

I am looking for all of our things – putting them together and preparing for the road again, the way the birds went. The heart feels strange, when the moment to part is near, since Father’s house is so dear. Parting, I just want to kiss everything.