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RESÚMENES EN INGLÉS. ABSTRACTS

memoirs commence with Devrient's origins of a Huguenot family in Germany
and the early death of his parents, which stymied his hopes of becoming a
painter. This setback led Devrient to emigrate to Argentina when he was twen-
ty-one years old. He had connections to important Germans in Buenos Aires,
but shunned integration with them and instead went to work with a friend at the
estancia Matilda, which Máximo Fernández was developing near the town of
Bragado in Buenos Aires province. The work, hard at the outset, and then his
employment as an accountant for Fernández, led Devrient to decide he would
try to make his own way. When a trip to Germany to gather funds was unsuc-
cessful, he returned to Argentina and operated a small estancia as mediero (half
owner) with Máximo Fernández. Some years later he collaborated with Carlos
A. Diehl, buying with him the estancia La Constancia, in southeastern Córdoba
Province. After a few years, Devrient bought out Diehl and became sole owner
of this property. Devrient began speculating with a private bank, buying and
selling properties, before he finally was obliged to sell La Constancia in the 1930s.
He not only describes his business ventures, but also writes about his growing
family. Married to an Argentine wife, he educated his three sons and five daugh-
ters in the German tradition. He traveled several times to Europe, where he
rekindled his love for painting. After leaving La Constancia, his sons-in-law took
over the remaining estancias, and he went back to painting. The book finishes
with his seventieth birthday party at the Hotel Edén in La Falda, Córdoba Prov-
ince, which was capped by a speech in his honor by his friend, Arno Eichhorn,
then owner of the hotel. The Eichhorn family's Nazi affiliation and friendship with
Hitler is never mentioned.
Keywords: family history – emigration – rural life in Argentina 1890-1935 – bank-
ing problems – travels to Europe – painting.