Enter Dutch Translation of Summary here (copy from Summary)……..
More than a year has passed since the last letter we have from Harmen Jan te Selle. (He may have written others, but none are preserved in our collection.) During that year, Harmen Jan has moved his family from Wisconsin to Lancaster County, Nebraska, near his brother Jan Hendrik. He doesn’t mention any details of the move, which suggests that he may have described it in an earlier missing letter. In addition to moving to Nebraska, Harmen Jan and Berendina Aleida have a new young son, William, born 23 September, 1871.
Apparently the crops were good, except for wheat. However, Harmen Jan’s crops did not yield as much as other farmers, since he planted late. This suggests that he may have moved to Nebraska too late to prepare the ground and get his crops in as early as he should have. As always, when the crops do very well, the prices fall. As Harmen Jan says, “We have here an overabundance of life supplies, but making money is not the best.”
Harmen Jan alludes to the precarious conditions in the new Nebraska territory, where good health and prosperity can never be taken for granted. He tells the story of his neighbor, Niklaas Vandervelde, who lost his house, crops, livestock, and worst of all his oldest daughter to a sudden prairie fire!