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January 30, 1960

Hi folks- I have finally found the time to send some excerpts from
George's several letters to you. He has written at least once a
week (to us that is) and they are long and detailed letters and he
has asked me to send copies to different ones. So I will try and
pick out the highlights and let you take his trip with him. And, there
will be more coming later.

December 31, 1959

The area about Stuttgart (including the city itself) is quite hilly,
and trees are everywhere, On the sides of many of the hills out side
of town. It is not a forest but not bare foothills either as are more
common in the US. In the city itself (we pass only through the
outskirts- mostly residential with local shopping areas) the buildings
are pretty close together with the bare spaces being only soil, not
lawn (a feature as yet not seen here). There are many cobblestone
streets almost all having sidewalks paved and a few more than 2 lanes
wide. Only very rarely does on see bombed out buildings. (we saw only
2 or 3 small ones on our ride) and there is much architecutre (especially
apartment houses) which look less than 10 years old. These look more
Americanized with little balconies off the rooms etc. Among the older
looking houses there are a variety of finishes and details but a similar
basic shape. They are often 3 stories high with fairly steep roofs usually
in some shade of red, very often tile. The finishes are mostly stucco, occassionally
stone or brick - never wood. Some of the stucco seems to be original
over wood frame; other appears perhaps to be over stone- perhaps re-fin-
ished since the war. Mostly dull greys or browns in color, big and square
in shape (never wings or frills in shape or design.) Most are large enough
that I suspect they are far more than one family- maybe one to each floor
or at least several branches of one family.

In Stuttgart we walked around some, stopped to look into the old church
for a minute, stooped at the post-office to buy stamps. By this time it was
too late to get back to the burg for lunch so we decided to look for the
bakery to buy bread or cake to hold us until dinner. We met a couple of
young boys about 8 or 9 years old, one named Hans, who talked eagerly
with us, mentioned their friends in previous Stanford groups and guided
us to the bakery. We bought them each a sweet roll and ourselves a large
loaf of delicious bread. As we left them we met the mayor of Beutelsbach-
a vigorous man of about 45, a business man of some kind. He was very
cordial and we had about a 15 minute chat, all in German of course, about
our trip, the weather, mutual friends in earlier groups etc. His wife and
little boy came by and joined in the end of the conversation. As we left
them and headed for the footpath to the burg, we met two more young boys
who walked with us to the edge of town and mentioned, among other things,
having recieved an electric train and a game of Monopoly for Xmas.

The people of Beutelsbach are very friendly, being well accustomed by now
to Stanfordites and they all look well fed and very rosy cheeked, especially
the children and handsome. The town is less picturesque than I had
expected but certainly no less interesting because of this.

From our window we have an unobstructed and absolutely breath taking
view of Remstal Valley- farm land and several small villages- quite close
together, often less than a mile apart. Such a view would be worth plenty
in a US hotel.