A proper country loaf (Kristaps and Zinaida Jaunzemis)

In a letter held in the collection of the museum Latvians Abroad, Kristaps Jaunzemis writes from Latvia to his wife Zinaīda in Nebraska on July 18, 1959:

It may sound strange, but what if during my leave in the countryside I could get hold of one “proper” country loaf of bread—dried and sent to you? It seems so hard to believe that for a full fifteen years you haven’t been able to taste rye bread! I think I myself would have become quite weak if I had had to live on white bread alone!

The family was separated during the Second World War. Legionnaire Kristaps Jaunzemis, after deportation to Siberia, returned to Latvia, where Latvian rye bread was readily available to him. Meanwhile, Kristaps’s wife Zinaīda and their children had fled Latvia as refugees during the war and ended up in the United States. Although contact between husband and wife was re-established through correspondence, they never met again in their lifetime.