The following memories are quotes from “Reminiscences of Alfred D. Guion, written in 1960 while he was on a four-months “around the world” freighter trip.
At this point I will begin adding the memories of the children as they were growing up
The house on Landsowne Dr. in Larchmont Gardens, Mount Vernon, New York
LAD – I was born in New York City in 1914 then I lived i.n Yonkers for a short time. When I was about one, we moved to 91 Dell Ave. in Mount Vernon, New York. By the time I was three, I was quite interested in mechanical things. I remember taking an alarm clock, taking it all apart and putting it back together, but I had one gear left over when I finished. It didn’t keep very good time. It was fast. I never could find out where that gear went.
My mother, Arla, was 19 years old when I was born and she was the oldest Peabody girl. Burton was ahead of her. Then there was Arla, Helen, Kemper, Anne, Dorothy and Lawrence. There were seven of them.
I remember I went shopping with Dad’s mother (Ella Duryee Guion – Mrs. Alfred Beck Guion), my grandmother, and I was taller than she was. She went grocery shopping and she took me with her on the trolley because I could help her. I just remember I was taller than she was and I helped her carry the groceries.
We had a black woman who did the cooking and took care of the house. One of the things we had in the kitchen was a dishwasher that was hand operated. It had a big handle on it and we pushed and pulled, and I remember liking it, I enjoyed doing that.
I don’t remember much about my Dad in Mount Vernon or Larchmont. He was always busy working.
CED – in about 1918 or 1919, Dad bought a new Franklin touring car. My mother used to drive Dad down to the station and he’d go into New York City where he worked. Then she’d come back home. She would go back and get him later. One day, she backed up to turn around after the train had pulled out, and ran up on a hydrant. The wheels of the Franklin were about 20 or 21 inches. She got out of the car and there it sat up on the hydrant, all out of shape. She stood there and looked at it, she said everything was skewed, the doors, the frame ,,, and that was a wooden frame of course. She had to get help to get it off there. We moved up to Trumbull in that car. I guess Dad decided to sell it shortly after we moved to Trumbull
LAD – Every year Dad had a couple of weeks of vacation and he would take us up to Sandy Hook, Connecticut, on Lake Zoar, and we would stay in the cabin. I don’t remember much about it but probably Dan, Ced and I were playing out in the yard in the area around the cabin. There was a nice place where the branches were above us, and below them, it was pretty open. We were crawling around in there and later that day, I started to itch. For three or four days I was swollen pretty badly with poison ivy. I’ve had problems ever since. Many summers, I get poison ivy. The first summer out here in California, working for the Frouge Construction Company, I was driving a tractor to clear some land. I didn’t realize that it was poison oak I was driving through and tearing up. It didn’t affect me too much, just my arms and hands. By that time, I knew how to take care of it anyway.
On some summer vacations, Dad would take us to a place called Foster’s Pond, in (Andover) Massachusetts, which either belonged to Rusty Heurlin’s family or they had an interest in it. Rusty took us there the first time and we went a couple of times after that. That’s where Dan and I found out that a canoe isn’t very stable. We went out on Foster’s Pond in the canoe and I don’t remember what we were doing, but one of us stood up and stepped a little to the side and it tipped right over. It was a nice warm pond and we didn’t have any problems.
Tomorrow, I’ll finish this week with a post from Reminiscences of Alfred Duyee Guion. I’ll continue the story in three weeks.
On Saturday, another excerpt from a letter written by John Jackson Lewis about his Voyage to California.
On Sunday, the next segment of My Ancestor, Alfred Peabody Guion, my Dad.
Judy Guion
"Greatest Generation" Life Lessons 