Trumbull – To The Guion Settlers – Greetings – A Birthday Remembrance – September 8, 1940

Alfred Duryee Guion

R-92    September 8, 1940

To the Guion settlers in

the Cook Inlet and Orinoco River Sections,

Greetings:

Nellie ( Nelson Sperling) is home again. He is on leave of absence from the Army for recuperation purposes. He walked in here a few minutes ago. He doesn’t know whether he will go back to his old post or be sent to Kelly Field in Texas. He likes the Army, and the treatment he receives. Mrs. Mantle has heard nothing from Art but as his term of enlistment is about up she would not be surprised to see him walk in any time now.

For the last week we have been having bright sunshiny weather with just enough edge in the coolness to suggest fall days ahead. Alas I cannot take unadulterated enjoyment from the fact because sneeze days are here again and, while each year, attacks seem to be a little milder than the previous year, they are yet bad enough to be unwelcome. Maybe if I live long enough I’ll outgrow the thing entirely. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why I have stopped taking morning walks. Stirring up pollen or merely being in amidst it in field and wood quickly puts my eyes, throat, nose, etc., in such a state of irritation that all the benefits of the exercise are nullified. Another reason why I discontinued the walking idea in the early summer was because as soon as the mosquitoes became prevalent it took much of the joy out of woods walking and then, as I do not especially enjoyed tramping highways with cars whizzing by at frequent intervals, I strike off as soon as possible into words, roads, across fields, along narrow paths, etc., and I found that early in the morning the dew is so thick on the fast-growing vegetation in early summer that before many hundred feet my shirt, trousers, shoes and in fact every bit of clothing was saturated. I might as well have stood out in the rain. However, I intend resuming walks in the fall and winter.

Following my usual custom in order to celebrate the reaching of another milestone on the journey through life, I have started on its way to each of you boys a little birthday remembrance. ( To celebrate his own birthday, Grandpa always gave his children presents.) Of course it won’t reach you by the 11th but it would be pretty difficult to know when to mail it so as to reach you by parcels post at any designated time. As far as Dave and Dick are concerned, I am considering the possibility of taking them to New York to see some of the current shows, but this is contingent on Dick’s being able to get time off. Dick is talking about saving up his money and taking a hobo trip with Bobby Kascak through Florida.

It looks as though I would have a busy few days next weekend. Mr. Burr has promised to have somebody up here with a power saw so that we can saw up that wood which has been piled up near the barn since you boys took down the Locust trees and it may be that we shall be able to complete arrangements with the Trust Company, to move into new business quarters, and naturally Sunday is the best time from a traffic standpoint to do this.

Gale Brand, Bruce Lee, his daughter and his niece came up one day this week. We were unable to persuade Gale to do any card tricks.

No letter from Lad this week, a short one from Ced and a real letter at last from Dan, very interestingly written and being passed around through many hands. Someday when Dan is famous and his biographer undertakes “The Life and Letters of Daniel B. Guion”, this one will have a place, if for no other reason then it’s dating the time of patent medicine advertisements, Ugda tablets, etc.

Wells, a few words to each of you individually and then I will see what Charlie McCarthy has to say.

DAD

Saturday and Sunday I will post more Special Pictures.

Judy Guion

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Trumbull – Venezuela And Alaska, All Hail (1) – Local News Of Interest – September 1, 1940

Alfred Duryee Guion (Grandpa)

R-91

September 1, 1940

Venezuela and Alaska, All Hail:

I’ll take up the photos first because, presumably, you have looked at these already before reading the letter. They are enlargements of small snaps taken either by Zeke or Lois on various occasions. I borrowed the negatives and had these made for your entertainment. At first I thought of putting captions on the back, but decided this was superfluous as what they are is quite apparent and you may prefer to supply your own titles. They were taken in the early summer of 1940. (Which snapshots Grandpa is referring to, I do not know)

Hay fever season is here again and I have started on my sneezing bouts. Does ragweed grow in Alaska or have they some other pollen bearing weed that takes its place? Does anyone have hay fever in Anchorage? In Pariaguan? If ever I decide to visit either place in the late summer this might prove the deciding factor.

Monday Aunt Anne ((Peabody) Stanley, Grandma Arla’s sister) arrived with Gweneth (her daughter), dog and crutches. Her ankle is still in a plaster cast so quite naturally every step she takes has to be with the aid of crutches. She looks better however and says she has gained 14 pounds. She left with both children the next day to return to Virginia via New Rochelle with the idea of getting settled for the fall school term. She is having alimony trouble with Fred right now and although Fred was supposed to contribute towards Donnie’s (Don Stanley, Aunt Anne’s son, who arrived to spend the summer in Trumbull with very little notice) huge capacity for eating while here and Anne was going to see that if Fred did not make good she would, I have so far received only a $12 check from Fred. Due to Don’s visit our plans for the summer were completely negatived, not only by his being here but because of extra financial burdens. Helen also owes $16 yet from the things she bought on my account at Read’s last Christmas. I’m beginning to think (my own fault of course) that maybe the Peabody’s are taking me for a ride and I’m soft enough to let them do it.

Aunt Betty is still with us but expects to go back early next week. She has done a lot of mending, darning, etc. Bruce Lee stopped in one night during the week and invited us all down to Westport Friday night. It seems Alice was away for a few days vacation, and Pat had a cousin, a 17-year-old girl, from Maryland visiting them, and nothing would do but that the girls, without any help from Bruce, prepare a buffet supper. This they did and a good time was had by all. Last night we all went to the movies – – Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_Hawk_(1940_film)

The summer, if you can call it such, is practically over. Tuesday or Wednesday I guess it is, Dave goes back to school, and I’ll have to begin thinking about furnace fires and ashes and kerosene, etc. oh, yes, Elizabeth told us that while we were at the movies yesterday, Britta  and Rusty stopped in on their way home from Wakefield.(Rusty Heurlin and his sister, Britta)

We are still dickering with the Bridgeport City Trust Company, who owns the building on South Main St., that we are considering renting. The trouble is that it is up two long flights of stairs, and when we order paper in packages of 120 pounds or when customers like Ashcroft send us 28,000 envelopes each month with four enclosures for each and the truck man has to carry this material up these stairs, there is going to be a sit down strike right then and there. So I am trying to get them to rig up some kind of hoist, but to do that they say it will be necessary to knock a hole in the outside wall and put in a new window which will cost about $80 and could not be done for the rent they are charging. So, we’ll see.

Arnold (Gibson, Lad’s best friend) is to be married today and they will leave in their trailer for a trip through New England. They came over here last night and borrowed our punch bowl. Arvin Zabel (the brother of Raymond Zabel, Elizabeth’s husband) has lately been in his third smashup. Paid a $25 fine for reckless driving. Zeke says he is now thinking of joining the Navy.

And that’s all the news for this evening, ladies and gentlemen. Next broadcast of local news will be one week from today, over, Station

ADG

Tomorrow and Wednesday, two more portions of this letter. Thursday, a letter from Aunt Betty (Bettie Duryee, Grandpa’s Aunt) and on Friday, another letter fgrom Grandpa to his three oldest sons in Alaska and Venezuela. Judy Guion

Special Pictures – Kitchen and Dining Area – Before And After – May, 2023

Our Family is blessed with a FANTASTIC WORK CREW. Our Maintenance Chairman. Joe, has a group of friends that love the Island so much that they dedicate 2 long weekends, spring and fall,  to Open and Close the Island each year. They hook up the water pump and make sure it is working, they put the dock in, or take it out, of the water and make repairs as needed. They also make improvements – they have built all the Bunks in the Sleeping Cabin. We used to have accommodations for 8, now we can sleep 12 very comfortably. They have installed new windows and electrical wiring. This is only a partial list of all of their projects.

I cannot begin to express my appreciation for all their time and effort. They do not want anything in return but we let Joe to take them up one weekend in the summer, with their families, to  enjoy the beauty and peace of our “Piece of Liquid Heaven”.

 

The Kitchen – September, 2020

Kitchen with new laminate counters – May, 2023

Old sink with new laminate counters – May, 2023

Old Stove with new laminate counters – May, 2023

The Dining area and Card and Puzzle Table – September, 2020

New Storage in the corner next to the windows – May, 2023

New storage area next to the Refrigerator – May, 2023

Tomorrow, more Special Pictures.

Judy Guion

 

 

 

Army Life – Observations From Normandie After D-Day (2) – Dan Writes Home – August 3, 1944

Daniel Beck Guion

The German soldiers, recently here, were youngsters from 16 to 20 years old. They were largely service troops, and very poorly fed – “even the dogs would not eat their food” said one reliable source. They often became so hungry that they would munch grass! Some returned from furloughs in Germany almost in tears, with reports that their families, their homes, their friends had all been killed or destroyed in the allied air offensive. Germans visiting French homes were quite agreeable when they came along to a house, but if two or more came together they were distrustful – afraid that what they might say would be held against them by the others.

I have taken every opportunity to talk to the people, hoping to become proficient in the language while I have the opportunity. I talk to the washerwomen who come to the stream running below our camp. I speak to the farmers working in the fields near us. I speak to the children who long ago, learned to ask for “shooly goon” (chewing gum) and “bon-bons” (candy) from every passing soldier. I visit the farms each evening and gossip with the families – reviewing the war news, asking for cider or cherries, answering questions about America (“are there many elephants there, and camels in the deserts?”) I help two charming French girls with their English lessons, patiently striving to make them pronounce the “th” without a “z” sound.

It’s a very healthful life, living out-of-doors, getting plenty of sleep, appreciating food that would have seemed unpalatable in London, enjoying every minute of this new and absorbing life. Because things here are more exotic than in England, I count this experience second only to my sojourn in Venezuela, and I thank the fates that pull the world’s strings for giving me this opportunity. Packages received here in France will be much more appreciated than they were in England because here we can buy nothing except cider, cherries and an occasional egg.  All the villages, hamlets and cities are “off limits” to all American servicemen and what rations of cigarettes, candy and toilet articles we receive, are doled out meagerly by the army, free of charge and at irregular intervals with the plea that we take only what we really need.

                  Particular requests

                   Cashmere Bouquet soap

                   Gillette’s Brushless Shaving Cream

                   Chocolate bars

                   Any 35-mm camera film (except type A Kodachrome)

                   Half and Half smoking tobacco

On Saturday and Sunday, more Special Pictures.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – To The 3 Corporals, Ced and Jean – News Of Family And Friends – April 18, 1943

The Trumbull House

Trumbull, Conn., April 18, 1943

To the 3 corporals, Ced and, Jean:

Poem For the day:

Oh, what a happy world t’would be

And sure, I don’t mean maybe

If Mrs. Schickegruber

Had never had a baby.

          With this exalted thought with which to start off my weekly bugle, I shall now return to more mundane matters. First about Grandma. She writes: “Shall I say you are a peach? I wish you could know how I prayed for your answer. Your letter arrived about an hour ago. I had written to Dorothy (Peabody) much the same as I had written to you. She replied that Anne ((Peabody) Stanley, one of Grandma Arla’s sisters) is now at Conde Nast’s in Greenwich as a receptionist and that Gweneth (her daughter) and I are to come there to stay. I prefer Trumbull but on account of Gweneth, too, leaving here, I believe I had better follow their plans for now. I am coming to Trumbull some time, if only for a visit. A thousand thanks for your goodness and of course you will hear from me soon. My love to all of you. Mother”. There is more of a personal nature to her letter, but the salient facts are as above.

California came through with the letter this week. Lad says my letter reached him on his birthday which he celebrated locally by attending a party in his honor of the occasion given by one of his lady friends. Marian, he says, resembles Babe (Cecelia Mullins, his girlfriend in Trumbull) in a number of ways, even to her occupation. Lad has resumed his diesel teaching, but has run up against lack of cooperation on the part of one of his superior officers, which takes some of the joy out of the work. This sort of thing, in my experience, is quite common. In almost every big organization there is always someone who makes life miserable.

Dan also sends a cryptic message expressing delight in the prospect of Grandmother coming here, and informing me he is going back to Lancaster for a week of bayonet training (this goes over big, as you can imagine, with Dan).

Jean (Mortensen) Guion (Mrs. Richard)

A postal from Jean announces that Dick is a Corporal Technician. She has acquired a coat of tan; has met a girl with whom she shares an apartment where they cook their meals. (Jean left Trumbull a little while ago to join Dick in Florida)

A few highlights of local news: Elizabeth was up here one day this week and on the way home ran into Smoky (the family pet at the Trumbull House) with her car. He is pretty lame but otherwise seems to be O.K. Mrs. Ives is home from Florida. The Trumbull’s are staying with her. Catherine and Paul (Warden, the couple who rent the apartment in the Trumbull House with their two young children, Susan and Skipper) have gone to Mass. to bring home their children (who were staying with Catherine’s sister while Catherine was in the hospital for surgery). Irv. Zabel (brother of Raymond Zabel, Elizabeth’s husband) is home from the southern Pacific. He returns soon to join a crew on a newly commissioned destroyer. Art Mantle a neighbor and friend of Lad’s), whom he saw quite frequently, is back in service again but is on coast patrol duty. Dave has quit the state guard because of “pressure of other business”. We have been quite busy at the office for the past two weeks. I hope it continues.

Dan: As requested, I shall renew your driver’s license. Lad: Do you intend to renew your P.S. license? Dick: Better let me know about that insurance. Jean: If you have not made return reservation you had better do so at once as I understand they are booked up to the middle of May on the good trains from many places in Florida. No checks have come from you yet.

Well, so much for this week’s Clarion. Have you heard the new song in which Herr Goebbels says if they continue to lose planes at the present rate the war won’t even last for the duration.                                    DAD

Tomorrow and Sunday. more Special Pictures.

Judy Guion

Army Life – Lad Writes From The South Pasadena Hospitality Center – More Restrictions – April, 1943

HOSPITALITY CENTER OF SOUTH PASADENA

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

435 FAIR OAKS AVENUE

SOUTH PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

Dear Dad: –

Here I am again. – And also, much time has elapsed between my last epistle and this, but I will try to cover everything that has elapsed, which is getting easier. Camp regulations are becoming worser by the day.

First, however, an answer to your note. This friend of mine, here, purchased a certified check for $595.00 from a bank, and instead of mailing it to me, here, it was sent to Bridgeport by Airmail, special delivery (according to available information). Immediately upon receipt of this info, I sent you the remainder, and you should know the rest, better than I.

We are being further and further restricted. In fact, it is very hard to get off every other weekend now. [And rumor has it that very shortly we will be no longer associated with O.T.C. but with S.C.U. (Service Command Unit) which will, in all probability, mean six hour passes once every 3 or 4 days, and one weekend out of every 7 or 8 – Oh, me]

I have heard from Hartford direct, so forget about the licenses. Thanks.

Lad and Marian in South Pasadena, 1943 

We went to the beach last Sunday, but the wind blew too much sand around to make it pleasant. However the weather is perfect. I may get a furlough sometime in July or August, but nothing definite as yet. My love to all.

Laddie

Tomorrow, another letter from Grandpa to finish out the week.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Dear Kith …. (2) – A Request From Grandma Peabody – April 11, 1943

This is the second half of a letter addressed to: “Dear Kith (I won’t bother with the kin tonight) AND, of course, Jean”. 

Anna Charlotta (Westlin) Peabody (Grandma Peabody)

What struck me as one of the saddest letters I have ever received reached me last week from Grandma – – sad, not so much in what she says but in what it implies. Here it is: “Dear Alfred: I am in bed and it’s nearly midnight, and as much as I am in quite a predicament and not very good at beating around the bush, I thought I better write to you, plain as possible. I am very anxious to leave here and I wonder if I could come and stay at your house again. I could not do any more work than I did before but I would like to come if it is possible for you to let me. I went to stay with Kemper last May against my will, the same as I went with them to Vermont, against my better judgment. But at the time it seemed the only solution and Ethel told me she wanted me. These two people are very trying to live with day after day, month after month. I have kept out of their way, staying in my room hunched up in my chair, so to speak, ever since we came here. I am feeling fine now, thanks to some vitamins I have been taking regularly for many weeks. I have plenty of bedding for my use and as I am not very big, a cot bed would do me very well. Please let me know as soon as possible. This, maybe, is a strange letter, but if I see you I can explain things. I have been so lonesome and you know I believe that most of my children are not welcome here. Not for a night or a meal. Do write soon and let me know. Mother.

It must be cold. My window is completely covered with ice, but fortunately the wind is from the south somewhere so my room is warm. Dorothy’s apartment is too small for two people. I hope you can take pity on me. Mother.”

This is due notice to you all, that if or when the time ever comes when I am not welcome at my children’s homes, that is the time to drop a big load of arsenic in my coffee.

After discussing the matter with Dave and Aunt Betty, I wrote to Mother and told her to come ahead, and after she arrived we would talk over room arrangements. I told her as tactfully as I could that no changes could be considered as far as Aunt Betty’s and Jean’s room is (or are) concerned, but that, as Dave plans to sleep on the sleeping porch this summer and the attic room could be used as a spare room for the boys on furlough, if she didn’t mind the lack of privacy, the room off my room would be available. Up to this writing I have had no further word from her.

A letter from Dan, bearing evidence of manfully struggling with a post office type of pen, says: “Notice has been posted that Co. D must devote this spring and summer to training for overseas duty, and must be prepared to leave at any time. How much significance can be attached to this notice can only be conjectured. Our work has not been altered yet in any manner.”

                                                         

Jean (Mortensen) Guion (Mrs. Richard)                                                                   Richard Peabody Guion

Saturday brought a welcome letter from Jean. Her train arrived three hours late but model husband Dick was there to meet her. His C.O. had given him an overnight pass, and later in the week, another, so he ranks high with Jean. Dick thinks he is tops also. Jean is in a small hotel just across the street from the beach, and likes it very much. Dick has a nice tan and       looks the picture of health. He seems to like Army life very much, including his C.O. (Yes, Jean dear, I shall send your check by airmail as soon as it arrives. In the meantime, however, if the family vaults can be rifled for your benefit, just say the word. And tell that lanky son of mine, will you please, to answer my letter about his insurance premium so I’ll know how he wants it handled.)

Alaska and California didn’t report last week, but here’s hoping this week may bring some news from these far Western outposts.

Katherine Warden (the tenant in the apartment) came back from the hospital today. Paul had painted the apartment and some of the furniture and the girls had put up some draperies. Barbara (Plumb,) had furnished a beautiful bunch of flowers and altogether the apartment looked very attractive. The children come home next Sunday, according to plan, as the German reports have it.

Well, for a fellow with headache and bloodshot eyes, I seem to have done right by you little Nell’s as far as two pages of correspondence this evening is concerned, and now methinks I will take a well-earned rest, but I’ll be thinking of you and hoping you won’t forget to write your one and only               DAD

Tomorrow, a letter from Lad, written on Hospitality Center of South Pasadena stationery. Friday brings another letter from Grandpa to finish out the week. 

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Dear Kith …. (1) – The Enemy Penetrates The Front Lines – April 11, 1943

Alfred Duryee Guion (Grandpa)

Trumbull, Conn.,

April 11, 1943

Dear Kith (I won’t bother with the kin tonight)

AND, of course, Jean:

Spring draws on apace, I suppose, but from the temperature here __________ during the week, one would never suspect It. You lucky ones in Southern California and sunny Florida have escaped one week of the blustery, raw March weather, bad enough to keep the furnace going full tilt, bringing the oil stove downstairs to bolster up heat in the kitchen. Aunt Betty has been taking her hot-water bag to bed with her every night. Today when I came down, although the sun was out bright, the thermometer registered below freezing, as I timidly peaked out the kitchen window (remember where you hung it, Ced?)

However, I had foreordained that this should be Start-The-Garbage-Clean-Up Day, and to that end, had brought up from the office yesterday, 8 or 10 cartons of paper and pasteboard scrap that has been accumulating for six months and which I have vainly endeavored, time after time with dealers and Salvation Army alike, to take off my hands. As Dave had to go down to the office to turn out a rush multi-graph job he did not have time to do yesterday, I soloed on the garbage. First I got out the A. P. Guion blower patent with a few adaptations by A. Sr., and started in.

The wind blew gustily and strong, but unfortunately in the wrong direction, so that all smoke, dust, sparks, etc., came right back” in de fuhrer’s face”. I cried impartially from nose and eyes, but manfully stuck to the job. “I am the task force”, says I to myself. I can’t let my boys down on the fighting front, so amid imaginary shot and shell, I went doggedly on and too position after position, “according to plan”.

Mess Call intervened, and clad in my fatigue uniform, I sat down for a few moments relaxation. In the midst of it all, Paul (Warden, who rents the apartment in the Trumbull House with his wife, Katherine) came bursting in to inform me that evidently some enemy sparks had penetrated the front lines and were making a blitz on flank and rear, so armed with brooms, rakes, etc., Red (Sirene), Paul, Charlie Hall (a neighbor and good friend of Dick’s) and myself went to it, subdued every enemy outpost in short order and restored the lines.

Alas, however, all my stores of fuel, piled on the lawn in what seemed a safe distance from the fire, had all caught fire. A shovel, which I had laid across the top of one box to keep the papers from blowing around the yard, had its entire handle consumed, a bowl of water which I had thoughtfully set by for emergencies, between two of the cartons, was broken by the heat and the wires to operate the blower had been completely burned in half. However, the engineer contingent went to work and repaired the wires and then, bravely tossing masses of flaming paper on the fire with a pitchfork, we succeeded in finishing the day successfully, if bloodshot eyes, a headache and lame muscles merit that term.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue with the rest of this letter, including a request from Grandma Peabody. During the rest of the week, I’ll post a letter from Lad and another one from Grandpa.

Judy Guion

Army Life – Dad – Lad Mentions A Female Friend – April 8, 1943

This letter is written from the Hospitality Center of South Pasadena. Marian Irwin was the Executive Director of the South Pasadena Camp Fire Girls and did her duty to entertain the troops at the Hospitality Center. She actually met three of Lad’s friends who arrived at Camp Santa Anita while Lad was taking a two week Diesel Engine course from the Wolverine Motor Works near Chicago. She told me that they kept telling her, “Wait until you meet Al”. Little did they know how well that would turn out.

The date appears to be April 8, 1942, but in actuality, Lad wasn’t drafted until June, 1942. This letter was written in 1943. By April of 1944, they were married and Marian was moving from base to base with him.

April 8, 1943

Dad: –

Again too many days have gone by, but they have all been full. Even Apr. 3rd. I got a letter from you on the eventful day – thanks. It went by as usual, but the bunch of us were invited to a party in my honor at the home of one of the girls I have met here. In fact, she is so much like Babe (Cecelia Mullins, Lad’s girlfriend in Trumbull) that I have difficulty now and then in calling her Marian. She is not quite as pretty as Babe but resembles her in almost every other way. Even to occupations. Well, anyhow, the party went off fine and about 2 A.M. on Sunday we decided to go to a swing-shift dance at the Casa Manana and had a good time. Got in Camp at 6 Sun. Morn. (This is the first mention of Marian, my Mom, in Lad’s letters home.)

Due to a change in the system of paying, last Wednesday, we could not get out of camp in time to see “The Drunkard”, so it is still something to look forward to.

I heard from Mrs. Lea, and everything is O.K. – sorry I didn’t or couldn’t do anything earlier, but I should have written. But that’s me.

You asked in one of your letters that I tell you something about what I’m doing. Well, Art Lind and I are working together in the same class and we have decided that the system used by the Army for teaching Diesel Engines can be greatly improved. Well, without authority, because of stubbornness on the part of one officer to listen to our story, we went ahead and ran the class for one week. It was a decided success and proved our point to a “T”, but still, since it has been general knowledge that Art and I were responsible, this same officer is not able to get credit now as having originated the idea, and has still not issued the necessary orders. It is people like he who are responsible for a great deal of the discontent prevalent in the Army. Other than that, the course is continuing as it should, and running very smoothly.

It seems that our new Battalion C.O. is from a Basic Co. and thinks that we are trainees. If this sort of treatment keeps on, there is going to be trouble in Hdq. Bn. And I won’t be lax in cooperating.

In a letter, you mentioned that Dan may be scheduled for overseas, it is beginning to look like all of we A-1’s will be replaced by “limited service” men, and then – – –? Who knows?

I’m fine, Dad, and I hope you and the rest are the same. Remember me to all.

Lad

Tomorrow, and Wednesday, a letter from Grandpa, on Thursday, another letter from Lad and on Friday, another from Grandpa. 

Judy Guion

Life in Alaska – Dan Writes Home About The Willys And The Rumored Invasion – August 25, 1940

Daniel Beck Guion

Wed. Aug. 27

Anchorage

Dear Dad, this is jiust a hasty note (in spite of my haste I seem to have taken the time to insert an extra “i” in “just”) to add my bit to what Ced might have written last night. He mailed his letter while I slept this morning, thus depriving me of the chance to enclose this note in his envelope.

The envelope in which you enclosed the Certificate of Merit and the clipping from Bridgeport Life arrived yesterday, over one month from the date of mailing ….That in spite of its being via airmail! The letter offered to send a check to tide us over the starting period. We are the ones who should be sending you a check to pay for the Willys, so flagrantly wrested from you. I have already directed you to acquire title to any money I have lying idle in the bank as payment on the Willys. You have not acknowledged it yet.

You did properly in reading Fred Chion’s letter, and I have sent it to Barbara to read, and to return it to you so that Ted can read it.

Re: Jap Invasion. The only rumor I have heard about any invasion is that there must be some secret threat or the Government would not go to all that expense (and this, after eight years of the New Deal!). My personal opinion is that the new methods of warfare might employ the term “over the top” in reference to the top of the world, i.e. over the North Pole from Europe …. A much shorter and apparently less hazardous route than the old ones, now that air has come to stay. Alaskan defense, then, would be available against not only Japan, but Russia and Europe, too.

Regards to all, especially Don (Stanley, cousin and son of Aunt Anne (Peabody) Stanley, who has been spending the summer at the Trumbull House), whom I have shamefully neglected.

Dan

Tomorrow, Dan’s note of Sept. 9th, and a letter dated Sept. 11th, written to Lad. Wednesday, another letter home from Sept. 14th, on Thursday one from Oct. 8th and on Friday, one from Oct. 9th.

Judy Guion