| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 12 November 1890 |
TO ADOLF RIEFER[1] IN SAARBURG, LORRAINE
London, 12 November 1890
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
To Mr Adolf Riefer in Saarburg, Lorraine
I write today to inform you of the sad news that your aunt, Miss Helene Demuth, my friend of many years who had lived in my house for the last seven, passed away peacefully and without pain on the 4th of this month after a short illness. We had been friends since 1845 and when, after the death of my friend Karl Marx, she did me the honour and pleasure of taking charge of my household, it marked for me the beginning of many years of calm and contentment, indeed, of domestic happiness such as had not been vouchsafed me since the death of my wife in 1878. But all that has now gone and gone for ever. We laid her to rest on Friday, 7 November in the same grave as that in which Marx and Mrs Marx are buried. Together with myself and Marx's daughters, thousands of friends from every nation mourn her loss, in the prairies of America as in the political prisons of Siberia and in all the countries of Europe.
The deceased made a will in which she named as her sole heir Frederick Lewis, the son of a deceased friend, whom she had adopted when he was still quite small and whom she gradually brought up to be a good and industrious mechanic. The latter, out of gratitude and with her permission, assumed the name Demuth a long time ago and he is also so named in the will. This is in the hands of the solicitor who attended to the legal formalities and who has, in addition, declared it to be fully valid, so that towards the end of this week it will be my duty to hand over the entire estate to the heir. After deduction of all expenses it will amount in money to about forty pounds sterling, on top of which there are clothes etc. of comparatively little value. Should you or any other relatives wish to have a small memento, perhaps you would be so good as to inform me, whereupon I shall lose no time in attending to the matter.
Enclosed in translation is a copy of the will.
Yours very truly,
Fr. Engels
Copy of the will
I Helen Demuth of 122 Regent's Park Road declare this to be my last will. I leave all my monies, effects and other property to Frederick Lewis Demuth of 25 Gransden Avenue, London Lane, Hackney, E., and being too weak bodily to affix my name have affixed hereto my mark in the presence of the undersigned witnesses. At 122 Regent's Park Road this fourth day of November 1890, the above having been read to me and perfectly understood by me
Helen Demuth
In the presence of Frederick Engels of 122 Regent's Park Road
Eleanor Marx Aveling, 65 Chancery Lane
Edward Aveling, 65 Chancery Lane[2]