Dear Classmates,

What more fitting way of 'seeing the old year out and the new year in' than writing my letter to you? It has been such a wonderful year, so packed, for me with new experiences and solid satisfaction, so weighted with fresh sorrow. I want to tell you all, right in the beginning of my letter, how much the feeling for one another's grief as expressed in the letters has meant personally to me; and I want to add my word of loving sympathy to all who have been bereaved of dear ones. I have just this month, on December 8, lost my darling Mother, who has lived here in my home for the last three years, and whose sunny companionship has meant so much to me. She lived to the end of her 83 years maintaining a gallant spirit and a mind active and interested in all good work, alive to new ideas. She has been, and will continue to be a great inspiration to me.

In the 3 1/2 years since my last letter I have been busy at my usual tasks. My teaching is very absorbing in interest, and I have put in four summers in advanced study to keep myself abreast of the times - three summers at the University of Pennsylvania Summer School, and this past summer taking the very strenuous 'Virgilian Cruise.' This last was a great experience, with some 250 college and high school people with picked specialists in the classics and in archeology as our leaders. It does something to a mere grubbing Latin teacher to take her through the blue Mediterranean and have her actually stand on the walls of ancient Troy, or stand in Apollo's grotto at (Delos), drink from the Castalian Spring at Delphi, and climb the Brysa at Carthage. Not to mention three wonderful days in Athens and eight most profitable days in Rome. It was all too short, but short as it was, it did me a world of intellectual and spiritual good, yes, physical good, too, with our long hikes to out-of-the-way ruins.

As you see, I still keep my little home in the country. I drive in to school every day, but seldom take longer drives. At present my younger sister, with her two daughters, is with me. They will stay until June. It is to me a great pleasure to have two live school-girls under the same roof. Geraldine, aged 14, is a sophomore in Lansdowne high school, and Genevieve, aged 10, is in the fifth grade of a near-by elementary school. Both girls take great delight in 'doing lessons' and both stand high in their classes, as befits nieces of 1903.

I have enjoyed very much the comments of other country dwellers of our members who have gone, like me, somewhat garden-crazy. My garden is my great pastime, and into it I put much thought and energy, and a few stray dollars. Success is variable, but I do have wonderful zinnias, and a few fine perennials. Being of a utilitarian turn of mind, I also have vegetables, succeeding best with the plebean cabbage and the thrifty tomato. It is great fun.

I am not a club woman, like many of you, being, I must confess, too self-centered for such activities. I do have very active work however with the Philadelphia Classical Society, and enjoy the contacts very much. And like so many of you, I keep up my church work as much as possible. On my trip this summer, I was able to pick up considerable information on ***missions in Mediterranean *** and ***( )(---------all blurred in copy - try original?) We know it cannot but bring sorrow to some, but we have learned to take the blessings with the sorrows and still go on. My love to you, each and every one!

Thyra Crawford Rees

Sister, Mother and I, in the order named, standing under the apple-tree last August. Garden in the background.