Some are born into good families; some achieve good families; and some -- are adopted bodily into good families! Modesty forbids my entering a claim on the first count, although I am just in receipt of a letter from a professional genealogist in Washington who assures me that he can connect me up with the "famous Loop (Leupe, Loope, Loupe) family of England, the Netherlands and France,-- for a consideration.

On the second count I can speak freely. I have achieved a fine family, known to most of you: My wife, Agnes, unsurpassed in womanly virtues and attributes, save perhaps for health alone, and two lovely daughters, The elder, Marget, after graduating from the local schools and the Walnut Lane School for Girls in Philadelphia studied for two years in the Institute of Musical Art of the City of New York¹, specializing in piano, and is now working for her degree in music in the School of Education of the New York University. The younger, Jane, our baby, is still in the grammar school and is as lively and healthy a specimen of young girlhood as you could wish to see.

So, if you adopt me into your illustrious family, these must come too. With this single condition, I am willing and honored to accept your wonderful invitation, for during my professional life I have had occasion to look into several members of your family, I may say that I have INSIDE information², and I know that it is good and one with which I am glad to be more closely aligned.

The current year has been marked in our immediate family by the death of my mother, who lived with us. We can only be thankful that her declining years were passed in comfort and that she was spared the frequently prolonged suffering of a malignant disease of the throat.

As a newcomer, I will not trespass further on your time and space, but will thank you sincerely and wish you all well during the coming year.