Marian (Irwin) Guion (Mrs. Lad)
Jean (Mortensen) Guion (Mrs. Dick)
There is a report that Ray Wang has been wounded although not seriously. Catherine Warden (who had been renting the apartment with her husband, Paul Warden, until he was drafted) is preparing to leave here somewhere around the first of the month for Oklahoma where Paul will be stationed for quite a while). I don’t expect there will be much difficulty in finding a new renter but it will leave us seriously handicapped regarding the laundry problem, which she has been doing for us every week on her washing machine. Jean and Marian are willing to tackle the job after I get our washing machine put in order (Ced fixed the electric ironer when he was home a year ago). I figured however, that with them both working all day, five days a week, they might not have the time, so I took our wash down to Crawford Laundry which used to do it and was told that, as a special favor to me, they would take it this week, but only the de-luxe expensive service was available, that they were not taking on any new customers in fairness to their old steady customers and that in any event, they could not promise the return of any wash inside of a month. That, coupled with the fact that it is impossible to buy any sheets (they had to call the police at a recent sheet sale at Read’s, one of the officials at the store was knocked down in the scramble and two women tore a sheet in half, each grabbing one end and claiming it was hers), sort of settles the matter for us. Either we wash our own stuff or go without, or wear dirty clothes. Reminds me of my cousin Dud’s (Dudley Duryee, childhood friend of Grandpa’s)test to determine whether his socks were dirty enough to go to the laundry. he threw them against the wall, and if they stuck, they were.
It’s been snowing here all afternoon, in spite of which fact, two young things journeyed up here in the bus to get married this afternoon, reminding me of another 14th only a month later, when I performed another marriage ceremony (referring to Dick and Jean’s marriage on February 14th, 1943) here in the house and then the groom shortly thereafter ran away to Brazil, and, personally speaking, hasn’t been heard from since, – – well, hardly ever.
I spoke forniest (? not my typo) in this letter, about your possibly inheriting some of your parents characteristics. There is one thing you did not inherit from me and that is a, what for the lack of a better term, I shall call “money sense”. I suppose it is largely my fault that most of you are not more thrifty. When you were born, I started for each of you a bank account but fell down somewhere along the line in inculcating the idea of saving for the rainy day that invariably comes with the change in life’s weather. Later, this fund was transferred (small as it was) to the Home Building & Loan here in Bridgeport, and none of you have added a cent to it, as far as I know, since that time. In Ced’s case I suppose the atmosphere of Anchorage makes it particularly difficult to develop the habit of laying by for future needs. I religiously saved for him the money he sent home from time to time, thinking he was paying me back for some fancied debt he owed me, and then when he came home last year, he spent it out of his generous heart. He gets a bonus from Woodley’s and immediately thinks about buying Christmas gifts in spite of the expense of fixing up his car. If you boys can’t save something from the small amount you are being paid, just for the mental discipline and good habit formation, then bolster your good intentions by sending me something REGULARLY to put aside for you. I speak out of the experience and observation of sixty years and know someday you are going to thank me for it, if you heed these words now, and it will make me face your future more confidently also. This is not something you married ones can push off onto your spouses. It’s your job. Sorry to end on so somber a note.
DAD
Lad, Dan, Ced, Elizabeth, Dick and Dave, 1992
"Greatest Generation" Life Lessons 