Below is the transcription of the letter and the actual images.

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167 Glenmary St.

Jackson, Miss.

Nov. 28, 1961

My dear Claiborne:

I thank you for your letter of the 17th which I received today. But it brought such a great disappointment. For some cause I have thought of you so many times for some days. Had I not gotten your letter today, I had planned to write you inviting you and your wife to come spend Thanksgiving with us. But with your last week’s trip, I know it will be of no use to write you now. Or if you could not stay over until after Sunday. I meant to ask you to come up here. If you couldn’t get a train, to come by bus. You could get a connection in Hattiesburg, and I can meet you at the bus station. Can you do that this coming Saturday? I preach at the Trenton church every 4th Sunday afternoon. I am

low in no sense, but I could show you the spot where you were born. The same Meth. church is as it was when your father was pastor. Just a few members. Wood ends point out to you where all the houses were, stores, school, masonic lodge. I suspect that your father was active in the masons when he was there. I was. I taught the lectures to every one who joined the seven years that I was there. When Trenton began to go down and we Pres. left, they moved the church to Temple three miles away. It stands just as it did sixty years ago when I was pastor. It is a joy to still preach there. I think you would enjoy such a trip. If you can, (but I hope you can) come this coming Sunday. You’d not want to come at Christmas. I’d like for you to hear me preach in my first church.

But most of all I have a burning desire to talk with you. You did select such a bad day to come to see the folks at Christmas. I am so sorry that you didn’t call me from the home. I had two rooms that you could have used that night. One with twin beds and one double. I’d been so glad to have met your folks and for them to have met mine. I plan to go to the Choir family breakfast at the Central Pres. Ch. at 7:30 Thanksgiving morning and to service at 8:30. I then am invited to a Catholic church wedding at 9 and two weddings that day myself. If we do not get to meet before winter, I am afraid that we may never meet in this world. We are both octogenarians. I in the late and you in the early. I had a letter from the Central Pres. Ch. this week to write a Christmas message for the Christmas

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