Dear American with its readers: I am a little late this week in my writing. My last letter was written on Thanksgiving day after our ride to Pasadena. Since then we have been to Long Beach, a city of wonderful entertainments. It seems that there is something doing every minute.

We went to the Brethren church to hear a sermon but the Lavern [sic; LaVerne] College* students had a program on and so we listened to their program. Went to lunch, then down on the water front to see the fleet of ships that were anchored out to sea.

That evening there was singing and speaking at so many places but we did not stay because we did not want to be out in the traffic at night. While there I met Uncle Billy Roberts, who will be remembered by the old settlers of Myrtle Point. I also met Neil Mooman [sic; Moomaw] and his wife and family. They live at Huntingdon [sic; Huntington] Beach; then there was Wilma Lett; and two of the George Carl’s children; and many others I knew. In fact as we go from place to place we are always meeting Oregon people.

Our brother-in-law, C.E. Boss, and his wife, have a fine radio, and we listen to many fine sermons. One whom we very much enjoy is Miss Amy McFesson [sic; Aimee McPherson], who built the great temple called the Angelus temple, that holds 5,000 people. One evening we heard her perform a marriage ceremony and it had every word of the ceremony in it.* We could hear it distinctly as though we were in the room with them. However we could not see if it was the same as the man in the following story:

A man at Long Beach asked the minister to perform a marriage ceremony and the minister said that he would if he would wait until after the preaching service. When he was through his sermon the minister “All who wish to get married please come forward.” There were 13 women and one man who came forward. I was not there to see how the minister disposed of the job, but it might be well to tell some of the good Coos county bachelors who would be glad to reap just such a harvest.

Today we drove to Los Angeles to see a brother of my wife, the oldest in their family. He has been ill but is better. My wife is improving very decidedly, and we are glad. She found it difficult to lie down to rest, but she can now and does not cough and wheeze near as much. I am still making furniture and then there is some carpenter work to be done and some painting. So long as I can keep busy I do not fear getting homesick. We are always glad to get the American each week as it brings us the news of our old friends and so many of them. It would not be possible to get all that news in the letters that come.

With many good wishes for you all, we are

Thomas and Ada Barklow