Growing up, we were afraid of dad. He was a harsh disciplinarian, but he was not unfair. He did give us the strap, but rarely, and as I said, with formality, not in sudden control. He did abuse animals, but did not use physical force on people. His was mental, psychological cruelty and abuse. He ruined mum’s life, not letting her do any of her art or writing, was jealous and paranoid of any independence that she might have, from friends to professional associations. It was extreme.

This is a comment from an email from Ruta Mūsiņš (Alīse’s daughter, I met her in 2013 and 2017 — Alīse corresponded a lot with her sister Anna, who corresponded a bit with dad. Ruta is judging dad from the letters her mother and her aunt exchanged, where sometimes Anna also sent one of dad’s letters on to her sister Alise):  4.4.2015. “Your father was a strange man, basically unhappy, in fact actually sick. If I reflect on my relatively short life with the German, there are some similarities.” (Ruta was married to a German man for a while.)

Dzidra and I sided completely with mum, we were in her “camp”. I am sure that that did not help matters at all. I remember once saying to mum, when I was about 14, that I knew “what would save dad: if we showed him some love and affection”. She was surprised at my assessment. However, none of us was capable of doing that. We submitted and hated.

And, although I did not understand it at the time, I do not think that mum was entirely innocent. Their marriage was not for “love”. She had had other replies to her ad — that sort of way of meeting was not unusual, especially but not only during war time, when a lot of men were away and life in general was uncertain. I suppose current online dating services are a new, somewhat similar version, without the problems of war! For whatever reason, she chose him — and yes, he was charming, good looking, well-dressed, etc. He has always been careful in dress, elegant, with a good physique and posture, charming in manners, never coarse — a ladies’ [plural intentional!] man. She was despairing of ever getting married, she was already 35 — but more than anything, she was despairing of ever having children, and at that time, 35 was already getting to be quite late — it still is a bit late these days too.

However, when she had me, dad accused her of using him just to have a child — and to some degree she agrees in her account of their argument over me and the song, where he left and did not come home that night and she felt that she did not care if he never came home. I am sure that in most of their disagreements, she probably made sure that Dzid and I were “on her side.

I remember an argument they had in Fellbach, where he accused her of never having appreciated any gift he gave her, of throwing them back in his face at the beginning of their relationship. I can imagine that as true, can imagine that she expected him to know what she might like and being contemptuous of his “lack of insight or taste”… I do not think she had a very realistic idea of men/marriage, etc., perhaps understandable, since her father was shot when she was not yet 13 years old and her mother did not remarry. She had a few old fashioned ideas about the behaviour of women in romantic situations, such as the “right” to slap a man’s face, if he insults her, a woman’s “right” to play the coquette and flirt in the company of men, etc. etc. Apart from all these quirks, I do think they were seriously mismatched — but to my shock (naive! I thought they both hated each other too much) I discovered from her diaries later, that they had sex to the end of the time together, reluctant on her part, but to be endured because of the man’s “right” in a marriage.  However, there was never any physical force involved. They apparently had sex in the afternoon, when we were in school. Mum, Dzid and I shared the one bigger bedroom in the house, dad slept in a small converted veranda room — he went there for a “nap” after lunch and left the door partly open when he was in the “mood” — mum would mostly go to him, but sometimes did not.

He did sometimes spank us, usually with his belt on our bare bottoms — but very rarely (I remember only 2 occasions, but there may have been more) — and, as I said before, they were very formal procedures. However, he was very strict, critical, demanding complete obedience with no argument, furious when disobeyed or when we did not manage to do something “correctly” and made mistakes — totally terrifying to us. However, mum did say that she respected him as a parent, that she found his basic values as a parent to be sound.

We hated him because we were afraid of him and because he was nasty to mum — he always insulted her, told her she was worthless, criticized and humiliated her, etc., etc., But the worst part of that was that he was so paranoid about her having any bit of life that he did not control that he destroyed her as a person — she became ill, we encouraged her to leave, she left secretly one afternoon, with a small suitcase, walking a mile to the bus stop to catch a bus to town to catch a train to Sydney, with not enough money in her pocket to even catch a cab to somewhere. She did not have anywhere to go, but managed to get a room at a charity hostel… Dzid and I were terrified that he would come home and find her gone and go after her before she got to the bus. Mum had tried to stay on the farm until Dzid finished school (I was already away at university) but when her health failed, her doctor told her to get out of there or she would be dead. So, poor Dzid was left alone to cope and cook and do her schoolwork and milk the cow and… and… and… Later, he got a housekeeper — there were several of them — they kept changing, since they were not prepared to put up with his demands and rages. Dzid did not have a happy time of all that.

One of dad’s methods of control over mum was to never let her have any money for herself. He also tried to control her correspondence, so she had to get a secret mailbox in town — where I collected her mail on the way home from high school. She used a pseudonym for her bits of writing that were published in the Latvian paper, because she was afraid that dad would find out that she had something published — he read the paper.

Although he did not beat her, we were afraid that one day he would get mad enough and start. When he later bought a shotgun — he said it was because foxes and goanas (a big Australian lizard) that were stealing eggs and hens from the sheds, I was terrified that I would come home from school one day and find that he had shot her. I even told one of the teachers who knew our family…

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Some other extracts from Ruta’s emails to Inese:

22.12.17. [I gave her my book about mum.] “Thank you for the letter and pictures of your mom’s work. That way I can get to know her better and I will always be horrified at how crazy her life has been with Jānis. For such an artist to become a farmer, in circumstances like that, in a strange land, etc. How much did you, both daughters, have to suffer. Yes, sometimes things are so complicated.

20.2.2015. “The brother, Peter, lived most of his life in the house of his mother-in-law in Cesis. While still in Riga he was drinking a lot, his wife Elza was a nurse. They had no children. At one time when Peter was working in a marsh, or somewhere similar, he was injured in an accident and from then on he was disabled.  I can remember what an effort it was for him to raise his glass to his lips. I remember that they kept arguing even when I was there visiting. HOW SAD ALL THAT IS, isn’t it?

I do not know much about my grandfather, except that he was a farmer’s son, he drank, but my grandmother was a proud woman, she did not make friends with relatives. She had a very difficult life.
My mom was a teenager when she learned about her father’s death. Their life took place in Smiltene, around Smiltene. I once tried to understand in which cemetery in Smiltene he was buried, but in vain.”

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Anna’s letters to her sister Alīse — [I do not have most of the dates, so I do not know exactly when they were written or in what order. I have numbered them just to separate one letter from another.]

1. My dear sister you ask how is Erna, I don’t know. Inese has already said that Erna’s health is not very good. She lives with Dzidra. Inese says she had to divorce because John always told Erna that she was stupid and called her all kinds of other names in the presence of the children. Inese said she couldn’t bear to see her mother suffer. She said she had already started hating her father, and for Inese’s wedding, Inese had seated them together at the table at the restaurant. As soon as John arrived, he took his table card and swapped it with another and didn’t sit next to Erna. I forgot to ask if they had already been divorced, I suppose yes. Inese said that Erna had become so insecure that she could not open her mouth, the daughters couldn’t watch and that was the only solution – divorce. I told Inese that I would correspond with John and try to persuade him to take Erna back. Inese was happy about it but I not so much.

2. I cannot get anywhere with John. He just tells me not to mix in things that I don’t know anything about, it’s totally useless to try achieve something with John, I feel sorry, dear sister, about this thing with Erna.

3. My dear sister, I don’t think I’ve sent you a letter from John. I will put it in this letter. I don’t often write to John, if there is a letter, it’s like I don’t feel like replying. I’ll write to you the contents of the letter he wrote to me on 7/12/64 for Christmas: I wish you a Merry Christmas. I wish God would enlighten your mind as much as possible and help you manage your days. Janis. Sister, what would you reply to such a letter. I don’t believe he was trying to achieve anything bad with such a letter, maybe his thoughts weren’t bad, but on paper, such words sound bad, insulting. That’s why I just didn’t answer. When you read the letter I am sending you, you will understand me, my actions. I hope that you will receive this letter, write if you receive it, so that I know. Dear sister, what else can I write to you about our brothers. We get no great pleasure. John is frustrated with his life and does not admit his mistakes, only looking for blame with others. And Peter’s drinking has ruined his life and that of Elza [Peter’s wife]. Peter has a very serious illness, like opium, which consumes a person … in a mental and corporeal state with Peter …

4. … and is Peter not improving a little, or is he still carrying on with drinking. Poor Elza, and what does dear Janis do? Does he have a decent job and is he a decent person? How difficult it is for children who have to grow up and fight without the help of their father, without the advice of their father. How terrible it is for parents to have children and then divorce and ruin their children’s lives and take away their family life, a real warm family home, one really has to have heartfelt pity for them.

5. My dear sister, do not worry about our brother, who knows nothing about [your?] present life and circumstances…….
Inese just now said herself that she used to cry and suffer because of her father’s sternness, but now says her father was right and she is grateful.

6. Dear sister, what you write to me about Peter greatly pleased me. May God grant that he will get better and God will help him. You can write to John, though. However, I have not yet replied to the two letters I sent you. Sister, I think John is not aware that he is doing anything wrong. He thinks and feels differently – he lives by calculation and we sisters with heart and feelings.

7. My sister, I haven’t heard from John for a long time, I think it’s more than a year that I have no news. I have not written myself, it is difficult to keep in touch from such a distance, because everyone has their own life, their own interests. I have a bad conscience, but from that distance, giving advice to John is impossible and hard to do in a letter, and I’m a lazy writer, you already see that, dear sister.

8. … and that medicine from the big bottle is something Peter needs to drink every day, it strengthens his nerves, and Peter really needs it so much.
…
Don’t worry and don’t freak out about Peter, he is truly is a poor thing with all his pain and suffering, a real bundle of nerves, dear sister, don’t hold it against him. Sister, such is the fate of both of us, we both have already suffered and worried a lot because of our brothers, both Peter and John. Just think of all that Peter has already ….

9. Dear little sister, I will send you a letter from John so you can read it yourself. I am sorry for him, but I cannot help, because how can I look for a woman for him, pull her away form her family, relatives and friends, and send her to an unknown foreign place. I can’t do it so irresponsibility, I just don’t want to and I can’t and it’s against my heart’s conviction. [The “woman” he is looking for is someone to be a housekeeper for him and Dzid after mum left — he must have asked, if she knew anyone who would want to come to Australia from Germany.]

10. …. and try to live it as much as possible, as our mum always said, what you don’t want you to be done to you, don’t do it to others. My dear sister, what can I tell you. John hasn’t written a letter to me, I don’t know why. Maybe I have offended him somehow, I don’t know. I’m not a great writer myself. In any case I will write again and if he does not answer me then I will see further. Perhaps because John holds it against me that I didn’t let him take much part in my sorrow. He tried to give me advice and I took it badly and felt hurt. [I don’t know what “sorrow” she is referring to, but perhaps it is the death of her husband — I do not know when that was.] I once wrote to him to write to me about the difficulties he had to deal with, or his daughters, instead of just boasting with the whole letter filled with songs of praise. Maybe it offended John.