After my Uncle Dan (Daniel Beck Guion) passed away in 1997, I realized that first-hand accounts of this particular “Slice of Life” would only continue to diminish over time. I needed to record the memories of my Aunt Biss and her brothers and share them with the family. This culminated in the idea of a Blog so that I could share these memories with anyone who would be interested in the personal histories of some members of The Greatest Generation.
Over a period of several years, whenever possible, I recorded the memories of my Dad and his siblings.
These are the memories of Elizabeth Westlin (Guion) Zabel, Grandma and Grandpa’s fourth child and only daughter.
Dick, Dan, Ced, Lad and Biss with Mack c. 1924
(In grammar school) We always came home for lunch and one day I climbed the Maple right behind where the old dollhouse was. There was a Plum tree there; the dollhouse and the sandbox were both there. It was just this side of where the parking lot is now. I can remember the Plum tree because, I was maybe five years old, and the car was parked in there. I climbed in the car to play, driving or something and I must have hit the gear or something and put it in neutral, because it ran down and hit the Plum tree. And of course, I got into trouble for that. I was always getting into trouble.
At one point … evidently someone had cut down some rhubarb and when Dad got home, he was angry. He asked, “Who did this?” And they all said, “Biss did it.” I didn’t but I got spanked for it anyway.
In grammar school, I was taking tap dancing lessons and Dad would always forget to give me money for them. I’d have to go in and wake him up before I went to school. He’d say, “The money is in my pant’s pocket”, and I’d open his wallet and there would be all this money, so instead of taking one dollar, I’d take two. I guess this went on for about three weeks. One morning, Dad said, “Sister, do you take any more money out of my wallet than the dollar?” I said, “Oh, no, not me.” Then I realized that he knew right down to the penny, how much money he had so I stopped taking it. I’m sure he knew that I was taking it.
Dick and I were cleaning up the playroom which was the living room in the little apartment. At that time there was no kitchen in that part of the house, and that was our playroom. We used to put chairs in a line and that would be our train. We had a lot of fun in there, too. Anyway, Dick and I decided that it would please Mother and we’d clean up the room. We had a wooden toy box where we put all our toys. There was so much paper and stuff around that we decided we take the toys out and we put the papers in there, like a wastepaper basket, and we’d burn them. What else do you do with paper? So we did and of course, since the toybox was right under the window, the curtains caught fire. Dick and I got scared and ran into the kitchen, got quart bottles and filled them with water. Then we’d run in and pour it on the fire. We kept running back and forth but the fire kept getting bigger. Mrs. Parks, the housekeeper, happened to come in there and she put out the fire..
Tomorrow, more adventures during the Early Years with the Memories of Elizabeth Westlin (Guion) Zabel.
Judy Guion
"Greatest Generation" Life Lessons 