July 15, 2000

Rev Brian Joyce – and to the Parish Community

Christ the King Church

Pleasant Hill, CA 94523

Dear Reverend Joyce,

With deep appreciation and delight I have been enjoying reading the anthology you dear people have put together relating your long and cordial association with Monsignor Wade. It was almost like “being there” to read the repartee exchanges and Monsignor’s responding lively and humorous comments.

Monsignor Wade married my husband and me at the Mission at Carmel-by-the-Sea in April of 1939. Monsignor had not been in the states very long at that time but it was a special privilege to have a shirt-tail relative perform the ceremony.

We lived in San Francisco that year because my husband had charge of his firm’s (Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co.) exhibit at Treasure Island during the Fair that year.

Before we settled in our apartment in San Francisco we stayed in a very nice new motel on Van Ness Avenue. We had picked up Monsignor to have dinner with us one evening and later brought him to our motel for a little more visiting. He was very impressed with the nice appointments of our quarters, and without a word stretched out on a sofa, with his hands behind his head, one leg bent at the knee, said – “and to thin that I cried when I left Ireland!”

The recording of his poetry was an added pleasure. To put all of this together had to be motivated by a spirit of generosity as well as in a practical way by all who worked on this offering for the benefit and pleasure of the Clarke relatives.

I thank you for your most gracious thoughtfulness and kindness. This presentation will always be remembered as evidence of the warmth of your affection for Monsignor Wade.

Very sincerely and gratefully,

Thelma F. Clarke