Letters from Louis: September 1908

Letters from Louis Margutti to his mother in France, immediately following the death of his brother Victor. Three years after his burial in California, Victor's remains were returned to France to be reburied there.

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Berkeley, 18 September 1908

Darling Mama,

It is to Jacques and to Lizzie that I have confided the sad and painful mission of the announcement of the death of our little Victor. I am still under the terrible blow of being before the broken body of my little brother, my wife is sick from it and is delirious, for she loved Victor and lavished on him all the tender care of a mother and a sister. Only Victor II, too young, cannot understand the reasons hidden under the tears. I have not yet come back from the poignant sorrow of the first blow, which struck me with the brutal announcement. Someone ringing the electric bell telling me, Your brother has been crushed by a train, he is dead. Then running to the station, seeing a crowd around a broken piece and then, but no, darling mother, I suffer from too much to be able to continue.

I immediately telephoned my Uncle Raoul, who in this trial showed that beneath his rough exterior he has the heart of a man and a Christian, I owe respect to him and honor to his character to the end of my days and do not know enough words for the admiration that I have for this man; he has put aside all our resentments and has treated me like his son.

Victor will have a Christian funeral from the church of St. Joseph in Berkeley and from there to the Catholic cemetery, and his body will have respect.

He was beginning to make himself here, his boss Eugene Dimmier [sp?] liked him a lot, as did his brother Jules, and both of them held our Totor in high esteem.

He had a quiet personality, but he was not the less loved. Perhaps we did not understand each other well, but darling mother he was well treated and in the bottom of my heart I followed him step by step, he lacked for nothing.

He was getting along in English and had made arrangements with Uncle to go to the city to evening school.

Nobody seems to know yet how the accident happened. It was as dark as in an oven, and maybe he passed between two cars and nobody seems to know anything.

I only know to tell you darling mother that I know you are suffering, but I also am suffering like a miserable person, it is frightful, all this. My mother-in-law, whom Victor saw often, loved him very much, and my sister-in-law who was the first to recognize him is half crazy with grief.

Whatever you wish, it is the divine law, before which we must all submit ourselves, for on this earth the pleasures are nothing compared to the pain and suffering, we are here to suffer and to be prepared to appear before the All Powerful Creator when he calls us.

In this hour of infinite pain and sadness, where this terrible sorrow at the bottom of our hearts overcomes us, my darling mother take courage, I suffer from not being able to be near you to lavish upon you all my love, and to show you how much I loved my little Totor. We are equal in sorrow, and the God who sees us ought to hear it, and give to our Victor the place that is due him. I will write you tomorrow at greater length, for I cannot do any more. Grief has overcome me.

--- Louis

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San Francisco, 22 September 1908

Darling Mama,

Yesterday, Monday morning at 10:30, the funeral of our little Totor took place at the Catholic church of Berkeley, St. Joseph. It was a very simple ceremony, but impressive in its simplicity, a friend of my uncle played the funeral march of Chopin on the big organ.

All the friends of Victor were there and his boss Eugene Dimmier [sp?] spoke out about his deep sorrow in a beautiful way. Certainly the greatest respect was shown him and the flowers were in profusion. I enclose the cards of all those who sent their respects and I have already thanked them in your name. It is a dreadful thing to see the coffin lid cover Victor's face forever. "Adieu, mon petit Victor." Then to go to the cemetery and see him buried. The material part is forever departed, now the spiritual part, elevated and sublime, is the one we must think about. He is happy, his sufferings are finished and he sees the place he has left behind him.

How many bitter tears have I poured out, darling mother, especially in thinking of the grief that the shock is going to cause you. I am only half of what I was previously, I have an insurmountable disgust for all material things. I fear that my letter may be very little consolation to you, I regret that the circumstances do not permit me to put my arms around your neck, to embrace you with warm caresses, and to prove that the loss of your darling has been as poignant a grief for your eldest as for yourself.

The priest who spoke the last prayers over the tomb said them in French, in respectful witness to the memory of our Victor and in respect to his mother who suffers so much by this loss.

Courage, darling mother, Victor, our little darling, is now to continue the memory of Victor my little brother. Do you not believe you would be happy to see this little darling, who only wants to love you, and if not make you entirely forget this grief, at least attenuate it.

Come here, darling mother, I am earning enough to support you well, and both of us, I mean to say all four of us will be happy. I mean by that all that the material life can give as happiness.

I will write to you often darling mother, Daisy will write to you as soon as she is better, for she is so grief-stricken than she does not want to listen to anything and is inconsolable.

Love and kisses from everyone darling mother, when one suffers one has few words to console an equal suffering.

--- Louis

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Berkeley 23 September 1908

Darling mother:

Faithful to my word, I do not want to let more than a few days pass without writing to you. Although my letter may be very sad, it is only the echo of a heart in grief through a terrible loss. I lack the words to console you and I can only express to you how much I suffer, realizing that it is your suffering. Today the inquest took place which established the cause of death as accidental.

The house seems very empty to us and neither Daisy nor I have had the courage to touch anything among the things belonging to Victor, that we consider as sacred. As I have expressed to you in my last letter, do you not think that you should get rid of your house, pack up your things, and come to join me. Be assured that it would be my happiness and that of Daisy, I earn enough to be able to give back to you in a very small way what you have done for me, but it will be with all my heart that I will share all that I have with you. Do not believe that you will be a burden to me, far from it; it will be my comfort and happiness and then you will be proud of your second Victor who by his gentleness and his love will make you a very proud grandmama.

I cannot insist too much for perhaps you have a horror of this country where our little Totor was taken from us, but think and raise a thought towards a higher sphere from where our Victor looks at us, for him sufferings are finished. His pure and noble soul has finally its well-earned place. He had a martyr's end, and towards him I raise my prayer as a penitent brother. Mother darling, answer me, take courage, Victor has not left us, he has only gone on before, where one of these days we will rejoin him, it is thus that we will know the perfect happiness that this earth cannot give us.

Love and kisses from all three,

Baby Victor, Daisy & Louis