Thirty-sixth 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 there in February 1916. The family has now 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.

February 15, 1917

Trūtiņa is already six years old. Yesterday we celebrated her birthday. So many nice presents and greetings, one marvels. The servant girls had decorated the door and a chair, and after that woke Trūtiņa with some nice songs. The table of presents was rich and decorated with six candles. After that, aunts and friends came to give congratulations, everyone bringing a little something. Several cards had also arrived at the post office and 10 rubles from her godmother. We immediately put those in savings at the post office in Valmiera. They will come in handy later.

TrÅ«tiņa is a good and proper child, that’s why everyone loves her. May God keep her! I feel sorry for Dagmāriņa, she is so small, but must wear glasses, and she is a mischievious one, but still we must heal her eyes so that she can grow to be a good and educated person. I could fall to my knees, take on everything, so that I could give all that I have not been able to provide. However, things have gone well for me in life, I cannot complain. At the moment we live very well, we don’t feel the high prices or famine, that is felt in many places. Right now the battlefields are again preparing for horrible battles, peace is not yet in sight.