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 

* Victor Adler 

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 domes- 
tic 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 Fre- 
derick 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, per- 
haps 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 

*T 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 Fre- 
derick Lewis Demuth of 25 Gransden Avenue, London Lane, Hack- 
ney, E., and being too weak bodily to affix my name have affixed here- 
‘to my mark in the presence of the undersigned witnesses. At 122 

Engels to Adler. 15 November 1890 7) 

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 **