Dancing in the Reading Room of YMCA POW Center in Riga | University of Illinois Archives

Caption accompanying image reads: Often, after the entertainment, there is a general demand for dancing, so the floor is cleared and you get a picture like No.8. I [presumably Donald Lowrie] wish you could have heard the Hungarian gypsy orchestra which was playing for us, the night this picture was made. The crowd enjoyed itself, but I believe those players had more fun than the crowd-- it was just fun to see the pleasure they took in their music. The little chap in the foreground was a music-teacher from Vienna. He played the violin for our show, and then left his wife to look after the baby up in my office, while he 'took a waltz or two'. His frock coat may at once time have been as stylish as it looks in the picture: it wasn't, when he was with us, and his big toe was almost out of one of his clod-hopper shoes. But he liked to dance, just the same, and we are no sticklers for form in our hut. Of course, only a comparatively small percent of the whole crowd dances, but it is a curious thing that those who merely look on seem to get as much fun out of the proceeding as those who get out on the floor.

Found in RS: 15/35/53, Box 2, Folder Riga-Stettin YMCA work for Central Empires, POW May-June 1921, Image VIII