CEDRIC D. GUION
P. O. Box 822
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
June 26th, 1946
Dear Dad:
I still haven’t taken my A test, and still am holding up everything for it. I have been sloughing off badly in all other activities, and if something doesn’t iron out soon I will have to go prospecting or homesteading. Getting more money than I ever have, and yet I have never been more short of spare cash. The good part of it all is that I am paying off a few big debts which are getting smaller at a good clip. When they are paid off I should be sitting pretty.
Enclosed are two checks, one for the June payment on loan at the North End Bank, the other to carry my insurance at John Hancock for another quarter.
Well, since I last wrote you much water has spilled. I am now living in a small apartment with Chuck Halgrimson, another P. N. A. employee, and doing our own cooking here. So far it is working out fine, and the future seems good, except that Pirkey, who had the apartment before she left for Chicago for the summer vacation, may be back for next school season, and will want the apartment back. By that time we may find another apartment and continue on as we are. We are paying $50 per month for a living room-bedroom, kitchen, and bath. The rent is reasonable up here, but back there the charge would be about $35 post war inflation price. We are still lucky to get it at that price here. It is small but comfortable. Furniture was included, but we moved the bed out and put up Dan’s and my double bunks. The stove is a three burner hot point electric range with oven. Refrigeration is ingeniously achieved by putting perishables in the bathtub and letting a stream of water from the cold water faucet run through a big bowl, which in turn cools all the various items in their individual and sundry jars, cans, etc.
Speaking of Pirkey – She is back in Chicago with no pictures of Alaska to speak of, and I told her I would ask you to gather up the Alaskan slides and express them out to her for her to show to her friends in Chicago. I hope that this will meet with your approval, and I am sure she will take good care of them. She has done so much for me that I felt it was one way of giving favor in return. When she is finished with them she promised to return them to you at Trumbull – (be sure to enclose return address). I should have requested this the first of the month, but as you already know, I am not as prompt at that sort of thing as I should ought to of be.
Thanks, Dad, for the filters. They were as always highly cherished, and they arrived last week in good condition. As far as anything else is concerned, I can suggest nothing which would be required. I do appreciate your generosity, but let me suggest that you be generous to yourself this once, buy a few cartons of cigarettes (earmarked with my name if you like) and deposit them in the “had to see Paris” fund. You owe it to yourself, and it will do you good to make the pilgrimage to the ancestral nation. In case you find it impossible to take the boat, why not try the airways? I don’t believe they are too much more than the boats, but you can find that out yourself. They have the advantage of no tipping at least. (I mean in a money gift sense) and a much shorter time in transit. Maybe you could make one way boat, the other plane, although in that case you might lose the round-trip rate. Well, bon voyage, and happy landings.
Tomorrow, the rest of the letter from Ced to Grandpa with more news from Alaska. The rest of the week will be filled with letters from Grandpa.
Judy Guion
"Greatest Generation" Life Lessons 