{Lutheran Theological Seminary and Waterloo College
Waterloo, Ont.,} Dec. 14, 1924.
Dear Mother:
I will try to write you a few lines again to-night. It hardly seems a week since I wrote you last, but time passes very rapidly when one is busy, and I was more than usually busy last week on account of giving two nights on Committee work in connection with the Merger. However, the worst of that is over now and I think one more meeting of the full committee will fix up everything that is necessary to the accomplishment of the merger by the two Synods at their meetings next June. As I was head of the Constitution and By-Law Committees I succeeded in giving these documents the stamp of strict conservative Lutheranism and have so far succeeded in carrying through the Merger Committee every contentious clause. We expect to hold the final meeting of the Merger Comm. early in January. The Seminary and College are in dire financial straits just now – about $9000 behind on current expenses. For some time it has looked quite doubtful as to whether we would get our monthly salaries, but so far they have come regularly. The Board is meeting I think some day this week to devise ways and means of financing. The institution has become too large to depend altogether on the Synodical apportionments and the Tuition fees. Just at this season it is particularly hard going as most of the apportionments do not come in till toward the end of the school year. We are now
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looking forward to our Christmas vacation. We will close on Friday of this week and will reopen on Tues. Jan’y 6th. This week will be largely devoted to examinations, though of these I will have only one. I haven’t reached the stage as yet when I care to examine the student on any more subjects.
Everything begins to look like Christmas. I received one present already – 4 bottles of Ginger Ale from the Kuntz Brewery. I am saving it as well as most of my beer for Christmas. I think I have about 70 bottles of beer left from my Sept. or October brew. But I don’t know how much cider still remains in the barrel. My Elderberry blossom wine – which I have merely sampled - is as beautiful and fine as could be desired. If I can I will keep that till next summer. Last week we had snow every day, I think, from Monday on, but only in squalls so that till yesterday it barely covered the ground. But since yesterday it has been stormy with high winds and very cold. I had to shovel snow twice to-day, a.m. and p.m. and will probably have to repeat the process to-morrow. Down Jefferson St. I had an embankment about 5 ft. deep and 30 or 40 ft. long to shovel out. It looks like a railway cut down that street now. Mrs. Bockelmann sent Eileen a pretty dress for Christmas. The children in the Sunday Schools are getting ready for their concerts. Some of our children have parts. Arthur and Marion are running pretty close on their examinations, Arthur being a few points ahead so far. He was very strongly in the lead till Marion best him on [?] arithmetic. He came home the other day and said his teacher said “You are a boy of application”. He got down the dictionary and said he had to look up that big word to see what it means. He came to the conclusion that she meant that he was a [?] student. Well, I will have to stop at this point. With much love to you all,
I am
Most Sincerely yours
[signed] Carroll H. Little
