Saturday, Jan 26, 1963

Monday, April 15, 1963

Transcription of Gene’s letter from Bogotá to his parents on Monday, April 15, 1963

Bogota, Colombia

April 15, 1963

Hi Mom - Pop:

Thank you very much for selling the car. As I understand it you will take your expenses from the money received from canceling the car insurance. I also understand that you have handled the notification of cancellation to the insurance company. In view of Freddy’s help with the car please give him five dollars of the insurance money and thank him for me. You did a real good job and selling the car.

We are all very well adjusted to Columbia. We all speak enough Spanish now to handle our respective needs Alberta can talk to the maid and chauffeur and do her shopping. Pat can also and Bob is learning. I am able to handle many of the problems at the factory speaking Spanish.

Fishing is my name mean recreation and I go fishing almost every weekend. Yesterday I went with Alberta to a lake about 40 miles from Bogota. I caught 15 trout, on a fly rod fly casting, and Alberta cut too. They varied from one to one and a half pounds apiece. We probably have 100 or more trout in our freezer. A couple of weeks ago we spent the weekend at a lake about 150 miles from Bogotá and cut several trout weighing 2 to 3 pounds apiece.

We have all had short illnesses from local bugs but nothing serious. The violence in the country continues to be a source of some concern although fortunately the centers of the violence are quite some distance from Bogotá. Every day there are articles in the paper about the dreadful things done by the bandits. These bandits operate as gangs and live in the mountain areas where it is very difficult to find or capture them. They sell “protection “ to the farmers and murder them if they don’t pay. Otherwise they stop cars and buses on the highways and murder all of the passengers. Their favorite method is to cut off the heads of the victims. Literally thousands of people are murdered by these bandits every year. One bandit recently killed is claimed to have personally murdered over 500 people.

Another disturbing thing is the number of children kidnapped. Every day in the paper there are lists of children who have disappeared. Because of this we keep Mike under very close watch it all the time.

Our German police dog is almost full grown now, a beautiful dog. He is still very much a puppy and behavior and jumps up on us when we go into the garden where he stays. She is too much for Mike. She knocks him over in her attempts to be friendly.

As you requested we plan to take pictures of the house and some of the country and send them to you. So far we have not taken any pictures at all.

The weather continues to be like April weather at home. Some days are delightful pleasantly warm, never hot. Other days are cold and rainy. At night the temperature sometimes goes into the low 30s.

Sometimes we light a fire in the fireplace which burns coal. We hardly use our electric heaters.

We eat a lot of local fruit, papaya, pineapples and bananas particularly. Apples and peaches are scarce and very poor in appearance and taste. All in all the food is good and there is nothing that any of us miss as food. Vegetables are poor in quality and not to be eaten unless cooked or washed in a germicide.

This is the reason that we eat so much fruit. We all look forward to receiving your letters and enjoy reading them.
Love
Gene

Transcription of Gene’s letter from Bogotá to his parents on January 4, 1964

Tuesday, Jan 14, 1964

Transcription of Gene’s letter from Bogotá to his parents on January 4, 1964

Bogotá

January 14, 1964

Dear Folks:

I have just been reading stories in Spanish to Mike. In our own language the learning process of a child seems so natural that one gives little thought about how the learning is accomplished. Mike just listened to me read three long stories over a period of almost an hour and he was absorbed in his attention to the stories the whole time. He can not possibly have known many of the words yet he answered questions about the stories and made comments about them to Pat and Alberta. I can understand how Pat and I are learning the language. By plain hard work. Mike of course does not work and study yet he seems to learn faster than we do.

We had a pleasant Christmas at home with a green fir tree, gifts for each other, toys for Mike, Christmas music on the record player and chicken with noodles for dinner.

I took the cure for my amoebas which consists of taking arsenic pills for 10 days - Very unpleasant. I had a reaction from the medicine and broke out all over my body and ran a fever of about 103 for 2 or 3 days. I am feeeling better now but won’t know if the amoebas are gone until tests are made over a period of time. The rest of the family is in good health.

Tentatively we are planning to have our “home leave” during August this year. So far I have heard nothing about my next assignment what it will be or where.

Bill Blake is telling everyone here that I will be the next Vice President of International Division Manufacturing. Bill is the General Manager here. From my viewpoint the recent appointment of a new President of the division makes anything possible.

I still go fishing quite often and learn a little more each time about how to catch trout. I am now undisputed champion in the group I go fishing with and always catch more than my buddies sometimes two or three times as many.

The violence here continues. Very little gets into the papers but Alvaro my chauffeur just returned from vacation in an area about 100 miles from here. He said that four or five people are killed every day by the bandits in the area where he spent his vacation. We had a dinner party at the main hotel in Bogotá the other night and during the time that we were at the party 14 bombs were thrown in the downtown Bogotá area. Many of them we could hear explode and three of them were within one block of the hotel. It was a strange feeling to be eating, laughing + joking, listening to music and watching a floor show while the bombs were exploding all around.

Eight families, my immediate neighbors and I have pooled some money to maintain a 24 hour police guard for our houses. We had an army officer for a neighbor who rated a 24 hour guard and we could feel the benefit of the guard service he had. Unfortunately he got transferred to Europe.

Love, Gene