Dear Girls of 1903

- First I want to say to the girls who could not come that the Reunion was certainly worth while. I felt warm inside and proud and happy to be there. The words of Dr. Froelicher repeated by his son will stand by me, I hope, for age. Again the tribute to Dr. Pari met roused lasting memories. My mother since I last wrote to you, is gone - its like breaking away from the trellises. Too, I felt deeply the heart break of Thyra Crawford and the sorrows of our class.

I understand. And with what pride Eda Briggs and Alice Dunning and all those mothers must have filled as Nancy Nulton presented the daughters and don't forget that's where I come in as one of the aunts along with Dr. Shefloe as the uncle. Now what have I been doing. Shall I tell it long or tell it short. Well lets make it as much as I can say just down to the bottom of the sheet. And I'm sure anybody would admit that is fast traveling. You know, I cherish a vast curiosity about the rest of the world. This time it was Australia and the far flung islands of the Pacific. Samoa with its deadly heat and the trade winds which were a blessed help and the tropical hills and the purple and blue fish. The Fiji Islanders with hair plasters with damp lime to make it extend out for all the world like mops. Again Rarotonga with its coral reefs and the lagoon, where occasionally a shark shoots by like lightning. Then there is sunny soft Tahiti where unmarried girls, and boys as well, wear a white fragrant flower called the cherri always over the right ear. The warm climate and the prodigality of nature in these tropical islands go to make life free and careless. The air is balmy and the skies are soft an lovely and brilliant flowers and fragrant odors are everywhere. But whether the traveler deems it good or bad he will hold Tahiti in his heart forever.

The beauty of Sydney is unforgettable - there are the promontories at the ocean's entrance, and inside the promontories are winding bays and inlets and the picturesque red roods over the hills. I cannot stop to talk about the wondrous caves of Jenolau and the glories of the Blue Mountains of New South Wales where towards twilight after much patience I actually fed the wallabies on the edge of the woods. I can also say I have seen a Federal Capital in the making. It is Canberra. I journeyed from Melbourne in Victoria back to Queensland by the service cars which transport the mail. We journeyed thru the Australian Bush over rough roads, rivers, around and over mountains. It was coming spring in this southern hemisphere and in the bush were bright colored parrots and paroquets and cockatoos, and the grey Austalian thrush and the magpie with its warble like a flute and please don't ever forget the laughing Kookaburras, which laugh and laugh their lives away high on the sweet scented gum trees, which by the way shed their bark instead of their leaves. And the Bush flowers! There is the golden wattle and the flaming flaunting waratha - the callow lilies which they call the aruna - and feature all these growing wild if you please. I saw mobs of kangaroos and caught a glimpse once of a wild dingo and so on and on. Then I haven't said a word about New Zealand and the natives called Maoris and about their earrings and folk legends and palisaded villages. They salute by nose pressing, called the Hongi and I wish I could tell about how they sing and their dances called the Haka and of their burial s called the Taugi, which means to cry out or grieve and of their curiously carved temples. And how they tattooed - the spiral design belonged only to the chiefs, a tattoo on the lips and chin indicated a married woman and on the forehead meant a princess, etc. I spent a while in the thermal districts, marveling at the geysers and blowholes, steam vents and sulphur wells, scattered thru this part of New Zealand.

The memories of these experiences are a perpetual interest and seem to vitalize every book, every magazine I read. It really is wonderful to me as I talk to you about all these things it has been my privilege to see. Only I am at the bottom of the sheet.

Yours,
Florence Carmine Bankard