My dear Classmates:-

The Robin lighted in my home just before Christmas, and I just couldn't take time even to read the letters. It is just a little less than seven years since Robin visited me last and they have seen very many changes in my life.

On March 15, 1925, my dear husband left me for his heavenly home. He was in Sunday School, playing in the orchestra, when his violin dropped from his hands and he was gone, without any warning that we had understood. The shock was so great that I have never been the same since, and I can sympathize with those other of my classmates who have had this same cross to bear. We had been married almost twenty years and were planning a trip to the Yellowstone and Seattle to celebrate that summer. Unlike the other girls who have been left widows, I have three daughters to whom I must be both father and mother. Ruth, my oldest girl was a great pal of her father's, they used to tramp together every Sunday afternoon and I know she missed him dreadfully. Now, she is a sophomore in Mt. Holyoke and is getting along splendidly. She loves the college and is much happier there than she would be at Goucher, because she loves the country too much to be happy in the city. Jessie, my second daughter is a Junior at CCI, the prep school where I went and which is just a half hour's ride up the road. She will not go to college, she is no student, but will take up some other kind of work. Sarah, my baby is ten years old and in the 6th grade in Public School, so we have not decided at all what she is going to do when she finishes High School.

As I told in my last letter, I had a big old Fashioned house with a large plot of ground around it. The neighborhood has been the same for about forty years, but a year ago it began to change rapidly. The old house next door to me was changed into a five family apartment house, and I thought it was time to move before my property depreciated too much, so I sold my old house and bought a much more modern one, about a block from my father's home. It has a small garden, and a one car garage. We moved the last of September, after a most strenuous summer. You see, my father-in-law built the house where I lived, and the family had lived there for more than fifty years, and although I tried to keep from accumulating too much, nevertheless the was a tremendous amount to be disposed of, because I have no room here to put so much. By the time I got this house in livable condition, I was just about all in. It certainly was an uprooting, to leave the home where I had lived for twenty-two years and where I had gone as a bride. I am getting used to this house, however, both physically and financially. I took a picture of the house today, and if it turns out well, I will send one with this letter. In summer the house is covered with ivy, and looks very pretty.

After Mr. Parker died, I learned to drive the automobile, a thing I had always intended to do and never gotten right down to it. I am so sorry that I never learned to drive before, because I enjoy it so much. I haven't taken any long trips but I have managed to cover about 8000 miles in the last two years, and we have had a great deal of pleasure with the car.

I feel that it would be much better to have a Round Robin printed every year, because this method is entirely too slow. By the time it gets around the news is so very old. Of course that would necessitate doing without the pictures, and they are delightful to see but if we had a letter once a year from all the girls interested enough to write, I think it would be enough better to make up for the lack of pictures.

At the rate at which this letter has progressed so far, it will not make the rounds much before 1930. I am number 25, just about the middle one and the letter started in January 1924.

Maybe if we get a good crowd at the 25th reunion in June, we can arouse more enthusiasm in the Round Robin. I am planning to be there and hope there will be a big turnout.

Now, I must bring this to a close. I don't want to tire anyone with a list of my various outside interests, which do not include politics. My most absorbing interest outside of my home is our Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, of which I am Vice-Regent, and Chairman of Genealogical Research, in which I am particularly interested. We have a very interesting Chapter House, which we bought and furnished about four years ago. It is the house where Alexander Hamilton courted Betsey Schuyler, during the winter of 1779-1789, just a little over a block away from my new home. We are very proud of it.

Hoping to see you all in June,
Yours in 1903
Mabel Day Parker

I have been finishing this letter, Monday afternoon. With the radio broadcasting the Southern California football game- so please excuse any mistakes or queer sentences.