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]

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[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