Maria Brunswig lived and worked here. She would be the one to take her mothers letters, Ella Hoffman de Brunswig, and organize a fascinating record of what life was like in Patagonia for a pioneering family in the early twenties. Brunswig writes to her grandparents in Germany and mirrors with unusual intensity the adventures and challenges of arriving in South America and moving to Patagonia from a European perspective.

Brunswig writes to her mother about the new world she is discovering and the transformations that little by little she experiences. She washes clothe in a stream, cleans, sows, eats the eggs of ostriches, and even slaughters lambs. She also learns a language and customs that were unknown to her and makes time for providing her three daughters with a first rate education. Her compelling record becomes a family chronicle that opens new horizons on her new adopted country.

The third of February of 1923, Ella Hoffman descends from the steam ship Vigo on the Buenos Aires harbor. She is with her three daughters, the 6 year old twins Irene and Ana Luisa, and Maria who is nine. Also with them, is Berta Freytag, the maid. Her trip continues South.. The 5 of February, "Ella" and her group will board another steamship that will take them to San Julian, located on the coast of Patagonia.

Lake Ghío, november, 1923. Bridges, Ella & Cossentine.
In front: Iya, María & Asse.

Once there, there will be a three day car ride to the ranch of Lago Ghio. There she will re-unite with her husband, Hermann Brunswig, a former sea captain. They had been separated for three years and a half
And so, the journey barely began, and that originates with the hardships undergone in war-torn Germany, takes us to the hopes and dreams of the new world and the wealth that the Patagonia promises.

In her dreams of reaching Argentina - to make a fortune to return to Germany - did not expect to be faced by the charm of Patagonia. The land’s austerity and its remoteness would change her life forever.

Ella Hoffmann’s life is an extraordinary example of the conquest of Patagonia, of the wit and courage of the first settlers, and of how they learned to love and tame a hostile land filled with danger.

The lives they were forced to live, encouraged