Though Teresa and I were married by a municipal judge, – a form of wedding not sanctioned by the Church of Rome, we received warm greetings from many officers of that Church, one of the sweetest was as follows, from “Mother M. Loyola, o.p. Prioress and the Dominican Sisters of the American Congregation of St. Catherine de Ricci, Chacon 1 ½ , Havana” in words as follows:

“Strong as Columbia’s rivers,
Calm as her great hills be,
So your ‘protectorate’ ever
Over this Pearl of the Sea!

Sunny as Cuba’s island,
Sweet as her flower-weighted air,
With never a check nor a ‘veto,’
Be her life ‘neath your fostering care.”

“Jan. 1, 1901.” The original in my files of Teresa A. Frye.