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This letter was transcribed thanks to the considerable efforts of Wendy Jack. The footnotes were prepared by myself and then verified (and corrected or amplified) by Wendy. Many of the letters are the property of Betty Whiteside and/or Wendy Jack. Any researchers who wish to make further use of them should check with them first.
Sharon Oddie Brown, modified June 8, 2005

                                                            May 4th, 1920

Dearest Sally [1]

            Your letter of March 15th arrived yesterday.  You had heard of my being poorly but have likely long since heard that I am all right.  I feel as strong as I can expect to feel at 76.  Like you I don't feel that I want to die yet.  I never met any one who did.  For myself I feel and know that I am a miserable sinner but as some old worthy said "The Lord Jesus is a great Saviour"

It is wonderful how little faith or sense of religion is in the world just now. Even among our own family neither girls nor boys will read a really religious book.  Nothing but novels on Sunday or Saturday.  Even Brownie [2] going to marry a clergyman [3] never took a book on Sunday evgs but a novel to read.  I don't believe she ever read even The Pilgrim's Progress.  My own Molly [4] just the same.  It was so different in our young days.

    I hope you had a nice visit from Mary [5] and your dear wee grand child.  I am sure you would make a great pet of her and spoil her.  My Mickie [6] is a dear big fellow now and as fond of his grandmother as ever.  I see very little of him now since he went to Belfast to Harland & Wolfe's.  How little we thought in the old days that you and I would live so far apart and never likely to meet again in this world.  I live greatly in the past and forget what happens lately but old days are quite fresh.

    Jackie McCullagh [7] is home to Slieveroe to say goodbye before going for six years to Singapore.  Molly Mc. [8] went home to stay during his visit.  I have no niece with me the last little while but Molly will be back soon as Jack leaves.

    I am got to write very badly.  Fran Brown [9] has gone back to Poughkeepsie but Blin [10] is not going at present.  Bessie [11] , my sister, is not so well again.  She suffers badly from indigestion.  I think my heart is not so bad as it was.  I have still an intermittent pulse but I feel all right.

    My love to Clair [12] & Mary Ione [13]

                 Your ever loving old cousin
                               Mary Griffin [14]



[1] Sarah (McCullagh) Whiteside

[2] Alice Margaret (McCullagh) Alexander, daughter of Margaret (Jackson) (Reed) McCullagh

[3] Rev. Andrew ALEXANDER

[4] Mary “Mollie” Wright

[5] Mary Ione (Whiteside)  Mitchell

[6] James Francis Wright

[7] John Andrew McCullagh(1897-1971),, son of Margaret (Jackson) (Reed) McCullagh, nephew of Sir Thomas JACKSON. Did he serve in the HSBC as well?

[8] Mary “Mollie” McCullagh daughter of Margaret (Jackson) (Reed) McCullagh

[9] Frances Olive Brown, daughter of Thompson Brown & Elizabeth “Bessie” (Jackson) Brown. She lived in Poughkeepsie, New York with a Dr. Dobson and his wife. She died there in the late 1920s. Never married.

[10] Sarah “Blin” Brown, daughter of Thompson Brown & Elizabeth “Bessie” (Jackson) Brown.

[11] Elizabeth “Bessie” (Jackson) Brown

[12] Thomas Clair Whiteside

[13] Mary Ione Whiteside

[14] Mary (Jackson) (Menary) Griffin

 

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