Trumbull – Mary Donned Her Brand New Skates – March, 1940

R-60     March 31, 1940

Dear Lad:

By the calendar this is the last day of March but by the weather it seems to be the first day of summer. Mild enough to leave all the doors and

Lad Guion in Pariaguan, Venezuela

windows open during the sunny part of the day and to go outside without hat or coat and feel comfortable. It’s probably hard for you to visualize the feeling, not having had the recent contrast of cold raw weather.

I am disgusted with myself. For one solid week I have been in bed trying to get rid of a cold. I got up at noontime today for the first time since last Sunday and am now up in my room trying to get up ambition enough to do my duty by you, but I still feel pretty mean — head heavy, nose stopped up and a general feeling of listlessness, in spite of the weather above referred to. I wasn’t cheered up any by receipt of a letter from you this week, and I did really expect one. Possibly your Easter trip to Trinidad kept you too busy to spare the time to write.

My brain is too deadened to think of anything interesting to say, I am afraid. Anyway there isn’t any news of interest to record. Dan has been a great help. He has not only been to the office every day to pinch-hit as far as he could for me, but before leaving he has been getting my breakfast and after arriving home at night has been getting supper and in general running the ménage.

I suppose I ought to try to get to the office tomorrow if the weather is decent. I am pretty much disgusted with myself. I thought I would be wise and stay in bed as soon as I felt the cold coming on, and after two days I could then figure on being back in the old rut again. But it must have been a grippe or flu germ that got mixed up with the cold because I felt a bit dizzy, had pains in my various joints and in general felt like ”an old Man”.

Imagine some asterisks inserted here to Mark a pause to listen to Charlie McCarthy, Vera Vague and Dr. DaFoe. By the way if we can imagine this character “#” on my typewriter to substitute for an asterisk for a moment, I will try to remember a little verse I heard the other day, to wit:

Mary donned her brand-new skates

Around the pond to frisk

Now wasn’t this a mad bold chance

Her little #

That last effort seems to have exhausted my brain completely as for 15 minutes now I have been trying to think of something more to say, realizing all the while that I ought to be back in bed again, so uninteresting as this note is, it must serve for the present. I hope next week will not only bring a letter from you but will also produce one to you.

As always,

DAD

Apr 1 –

I’ll be thinking of you on your birthday and will send you a thought message.

ADG

I have just found a small box with about 70 photos taken in Venezuela between 1939 and 1941. I think they may be all the pictures my father took while he was there. Many of them are of the people he worked with and would not mean anything to you, but I’ve picked out about two dozen and will be including them in letters to and from Lad.

Tomorrow, I’ll post a letter from Laura Mae (Larry) and Russ, friends of Lad’s from Trumbull.

Saturday I’ll share pictures of the Dell Avenue house that Grandpa moved to after his father died and they sold the Lincoln Avenue house.

On Sunday, I’ll be posting a few pictures of the four Peabody girls, two that I haven’t used before.

Next week, we’ll check in on the early months of 1941, when Lad is still in Venezuela and Dan and Ced are in Alaska.

Do you know someone interested in architecture? They might like to see the detail in both the Lincoln Avenue and Dell Avenue  houses. Why not share the link?

Judy Guion