1870.11.19 English
copenhagen november nineteen eighteen hundred and seventy
my dear brother
thank you so very much from my kathrine and myself to dear sweet mother and to you for your letters and another thank you to mother for the lamp tray[1] which[2] shall be arranged as mother wishes and it will look very nice in our rooms we were very pleased that mother could write letters but we hope it hasn’t caused her too much strain thank you for delivering the letter to the deaf-mute[3] he has already sent me his reply, and mentions in his letter to me his joy of accompanying you on your excursion to the oak house brother have you seen that the great post at lyngby[4] is vacant i learned this a short while ago and immediately wrote to kathrine’s uncle[5] the vicar in lyngby to hear whether it is any idea for you to apply it is an alluring thought to picture you and dear mother being installed in lyngby the bishop bestows this calling but i suppose the parish council will make its recommendation father-in-law will also take action[6] in this matter i wish to god it may succeed i will of course let you know as soon as i know more i have considered you, of course, as the eldest otherwise it is a calling that both of you could apply for but i take it the two of you will agree that you are the one to make the attempt alas, the prospects may be rather bleak there are of course teachers in the parish itself and they would probably have local support from many people my beloved kathrine is continuing in good health thanks to god the smallest of the toddlers is also very well fondest greetings from all of us to dear sweet mother to dear brother iohn and and to you dear brother
your deeply devoted brother
R. Malling Hansen
[1] CB: Presumably a tray on which to place a petroleum or paraffin lamp
[2] CB: Important: When reading this text, it appears odd that the lines end in the middle of a word, with the following letter of the word appearing in the next line. See the photo of the letter on the website. HOWEVER: This is due to the design of the writing ball in this first version, where the paper comes wrapped around a cylinder, hidden under the wooden lid. Hence, the typing was done in one extended strip without any consideration to line shift, which is of course the order of the day nowadays. The typist simply wrote the letter in one long text strand winding itself around the cylinder. This detail occurs to me only now – on August 1st, 2007!
[3] JMC: This first version of the writing ball does not include the hyphen (-) or the sign (‘) , however the translation uses it for the sake of linguistic correctness.
[4] CB: This must be a vacant teaching position – since both of RMH’s brothers were trained as a teacher, as far as I remember. But whatever may the “greatest post” be? And why does he label it “a calling”? Wouldn’t that be a term used for clergymen rather than teachers?
SA: I think that RMH’s brother was thinking about becoming a clergyman instead of a teacher. According to a later letter, Thomas Jørgen Hansen also considered applying for work as a clergyman I Chicago, and RMH recommended him to contact his brother-in-law, Johan Heiberg, who worked as a clergyman in Chicago for some years.
[5] CB: Sverre – would you know who he is – and why RMH writes to him? SA: I think this must be Cathrines uncle, Peter Rørdam, the brother of her mother and stepmother. He had the position as vicar in Lyngby.
[6] RMH’s father-in-law who five years earlier – in 1865 – had left the position of Director of the Royal Institute for the Deaf-Mute, taking up a position as vicar in the island of Møn, leaving the director’s chair to his son-in-law – the 30 year old RMH!
- Cathrine Hansen's uncle, Peter Rørdam, 1806-1883, the brother of her mother, Engelke Marie, and stepmother and aunt, Emma Rørdam. Photo. The Royal Library
- Peter Rørdam's wife, Jutta born Carlsen, 1815-1866. Photo: The Royal Library
- Cathrine's father, Søren Johan Heiberg, 1810-1871. Photo: The Heiberg Museum in Norway
- Søren Johan Heiberg's second wife, Emma Heiberg, 1812-1897. He was first married to her sister, Engelke Marie, who died in 1855. Scanning from "The Heiberg family"
