Trumbull – Hello, Laddie (1) – Birthday Greetings From the Two “Jeeps” – April 3, 1940

      Alfred Peabody Guion (Lad) in              Venezuela at Knopp’s Camp

April 3rd , 1940

4:30 PM

Hello, Laddie:

Well it is almost six months since we last had any word from you, and as this is your birthday and we are thinking very much of you, we could not withstand the temptation to write and see if you would answer. (Will prayer help?)

Incidentally, do you remember a family or rather a young married couple, by the name of Stanley, who used to live in New Haven. They were queer people who used to entertain people at the oddest hours, and they used to go on picnics with a Miss Mullins (Cecelia Mullins, know as Babe, Lad’s girlfriend back in Trumbull) and a Mr. A.P. Guion. We were talking to them just the other day and they were wondering if we had heard from Mr. Guion, they had not heard since last November 10th  and were wondering whether it was by chance or by choice.

Seriously, we have wondered whether you were tired of writing to people in a faraway place, or if you have written to us and we had never received your letter. We look forward to hearing from you so much that we had to take the chance that you still cared about hearing from your old “Jeeps”. If we never receive an answer to this letter we will know that you do not care to hear from us.

Winter is finally subsided and now we have a beautiful, even if a little belated, spring. People are out raking up leaves and getting their gardens ready to plant. Even I have the urge to plant flowers so spring must really be here, for I have never had the urge since we have been in New Haven, before.

As I sit here writing to you, for the Stanley family, I am remembering two birthdays ago when we had you here with us, and your smiling face is still here with us, right on the radio. We sincerely hope that before too many years, or months, go by, we may again have the pleasure of having you in our family circle again. Those were grand days, and days that Rusty and I never tire of talking about, undoubtedly we bore everyone else with our forever harking back to your being in the states, but some day perhaps, if we hope hard enough, our friendship circle will be complete.

Tomorrow, I will post the rest of this letter from friends.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Dear Lad – Mary Donned Her Brand New Skates – March 31, 1940

     Alfred Peabody Guion (Lad) in Pariaguan, Venezuela

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 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 thoughtful message.

ADG

Tomorrow and Thursday, I will post a letter from Laura Mae (Larry) and Russ Stanley, friends of Lad’s from Trumbull. On Friday, another short note from Grandpa.

Judy Guion

Friends – Dear Laddie – An Obiturary and A Trailer – March 29, 1940

At this point in 1940, Lad is the only son away from home. In a few months, Dan and Ced will leave for Alaska and you will learn more as the time gets closer.

          Lad in Venezuela with his car

Mar. 29, 1940

Dear Laddie,

Have you gone native or something? Why don’t you write?

I hear you have a V-8 – too bad, but I suppose one must bow to necessity. Or have you become a convert.

Have you heard the news? (I think I told you that Alta and I were engaged). I am buying a new (demonstrator) 21 1/2 foot trailer in which we intend to make our home. It is to be delivered in June. I am quite bugs on the subject of trailers. They seem to me to be the ideal answer to a young (or old) couple’s home needs, especially if they, like us, suffer from the itching (not athlete’s) foot.

Do you expect to get home at the end of your two years?

Perhaps you know that Rusty, plus the usual general hell raising, has been visiting your family for some time.

Your new nephew is getting to be quite a spunky little devil. His dad and I and a couple of others go out target practicing nearly every Sunday.

I enclose the obituary

               Arnold Gibson

                Alta Pratt

Write soon, Laddie.

Your friend,

Gibby

Arnold Gibson, know to family and friends as Gibby, is Lad’s best friend back in Trumbull. They have a shared interest in all things mechanical, from motorcycles to cars and trailers.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting a short letter from Grandpa, who is still under the weather, Wednesday and Thursday,  a letter from friends and on Friday, another short letter from Grandpa.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Dear Lad – Easter Sunday and Good Advice (2) – March 24, 1940

This is the conclusion of a letter I started yesterday which includes some really good advice to Lad from his Father.

Alfred Duryee Guion

In the absence of news, or at least lacking normal functioning of my brain, in order to interpret to you what news there might be gleaned if one were alert, I will have to fall back upon a little philosophy in order that this letter may not look disappointingly short. You have probably noticed that in one’s personal conduct it isn’t the things that one is expected to do, no matter how much sacrifice or effort it may entail, that makes an impression on the world, but rather some little insignificant thing that is entirely unexpected that, because of that fact, registers far bigger than is warranted. Apropos of this thought, I met in my younger days a wise old man that took a fancy to me. He has had quite a successful career and in talking with him one day he told me that as a young man he deliberately set out to make an impression on others, so he always made it a point to watch opportunities where the things he did stood out in strong contrast to what others did. For instance, in case of a bad snowstorm when everyone was expected to be late at his office, that is the very day he would get up extra early and be on time or a little ahead of time. Again, when in celebration of a company dinner, everyone stayed out late the night of the celebration with perhaps the flowing cup circulating to freely, he would make it a point to be at his desk the next morning a little ahead of time. He told me the attention he thus created and the reputation it earned had much to do with the success he achieved. And that brings me in a long-winded way around to a little suggestion. You recall in one of your letters a while back you mentioned the fact that you liked people and wanted them to like you. The thought occurred to me that if every week you sent three or four picture postcards under regular postage, not to those whom you might be expected to write to, but rather to those with whom you have only a slight acquaintance, the effect would be correspondingly great. For instance, Dave Cronin, who went to bat for you with the Justice of the Peace up in Woodbury, has been under the doctor’s care for a few weeks following a minor but very painful operation. Any of your old school teachers you especially liked, some of those in a humble capacity with whom you have worked, other “forgotten men” that would not in the least expect to hear from you. If you like the idea and it appeals to you strongly enough for me to dig up the names and addresses of those I happen to know that have done nice things for us in the past (such as Rufus Burnham, Roger Bachelder, Emma Linley, the Chandlers, etc.) let me know and I will do my best, only you had better give me the names of those whose addresses you want me to furnish.

Hope you are having a very enjoyable Easter trip at Trinidad. Be careful you don’t get all gummed up in the asphalt pit. And if I don’t get a letter from you Monday I’ll send out the reserves.

Complainingly yours,

Dad

Tomorrow and Sunday, I will post more of Elizabeth’s Adventure in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Dear Lad – Easter Sunday and Good Advice (1) – March 24, 1940

This is a letter written to Lad, in Venezuela. Grandpa finds time to write to his only son away from home (almost) every Sunday bringing a feel of home to a far distant and quite foreign country. Little did Grandpa realize that this weekly letter-writing project  to sons (and daughter-in-laws), would continue until October, 1946, when his last son finally returned home to Trumbull. 

                                                                 March Blizzard – 1940

                                                                 March Blizzard – 1940 

R-68     Easter Sunday, March 24, 1940

Dear Lad:

No matter what the calendar says, it certainly does not feel like what we think of as a typical Easter Sunday, while the Sun is shining, the temperature is way below freezing – somewhere around 16 or 17 above I should guess, there is quite a strong biting wind that is going to spoil a number of Easter parades.

If this letter is short,  uninteresting and has many errors, please put it down to a miserable cold I have just developed. It makes me feel a bit lightheaded and almost dizzy at times, and last night when I got into bed I was shivering in my teeth chattering like it is just after you have come out of the water after being in swimming and the air is cold. Dan has very generously offered to get dinner and I thought I would get this off to you and then perhaps after dinner I would climb into bed again. Dave has been home for a couple of days with a cold that is perhaps where I assimilated the germ, although right now colds seem to be very prevalent, almost everyone you meet either having just gotten over one, in the middle of one or feeling one is coming along.

No letter from you again this week which is, as usual, disappointing, particularly as I was interested in learning whether the draft I sent you arrived promptly and was readily cashable.

Received a letter from Rayom during the week, post marked New York City, but giving no street address and stating that he had been following up some old contacts in New York and it now appeared probable that he would lead to a job and the first thing he would do when he got some money would be to pay up all his old debts, including what he owed me. I don’t doubt but that his intentions are good, but I am not buying any more cars or arranging for trips to Venezuela in the prospect.

Yesterday afternoon Stanley Osborne and my cousin Nan stopped in for a few hours visit on the way to see some friends in New Haven. He is the musical director, you may recall, in Skidmore College at Saratoga Springs, whom we visited some years ago. I brought Ethel (Bushey, Elizabeth’s best friend) home from Bridgeport the other day and she told me she had just written you a nine page letter. She also said that she forgot to mention that Billy Katsten had had a smashup with his car. No details.

This week also brought an interesting letter from Harold LaTour, written from the Palace Hotel in Caracas. He does not expect to get to Ciudad Bolivar but has been ordered by his company to go to Brazil.

                                                                     Packard and Mack

Cedric, yesterday, sold his old Packard sedan for $15 to that fellow in Huntington that has the junkyard. It has only one good tire and no battery, the top was torn off and there were several other infirmities, so I guess he got a pretty fair price as others he contacted said $13 was the top price they would allow.

Since I do not know when this picture was taken and Lad also had several Packards, I do not know if this is the one referred to in this letter, but it probably is at least similar.

Tomorrow I will finish off the week with the rest of this letter with some very good advice to Lad.

On Saturday and Sunday, more of Elizabeth’s Adventure in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Judy Guion

Peabodys and Duryees – Birthday Greetings From Grandma Peabody – March 22, 1940

                        Grandma Peabody

26 Coligni Square

New Rochelle, N. Y.

Apt. 22

March 22, 1940

Dear Ladd,

This morning we are having a great snowfall. I awoke at five o’clock. The wind was blowing very hard and I got up to look if there had been snow or rain but there was neither. Grandma Peabody went back to bed listening to the wind and the windows rattling. About 5:30 I commenced hearing the foghorn and boats answering each other. About 6:00 I thought I smelled coffee and I got up again and went to the kitchen and there was Helen ((Peabody) Human, sister to Grandma Arla), sitting at the table with a cup of their frightfully strong coffee. She said she couldn’t offer me any because “I know it’s too strong for you.” I said there must be a very heavy fog the way the storm boat horns are blowing, she pulled up the window shade and said, “Look.” I was perfectly amazed to see the ground and trees heavily covered with snow. It was beautiful. It is now 9:30 and the snowfall has abated some and big chunks of snow are falling off the trees. I won’t be surprised if there is rain before long.

You have no doubt heard all about the terrible sleet storms we had as it reached Connecticut, too. In this section we were without heat and light from early Monday morning until Wednesday evening at seven. We lived in the kitchen where the gas oven was running from morning till night. All houses using oil burners run by electricity suffered. Kemper and Larry (Peabody, Grandma Arla’s brothers) have coal furnaces so they had heat. At Larry’s, they had no lights but got it back the day before we did. At Kemper’s, they had both light and telephone all right all the time. Our phone was also in order.

You may know as much as I do about the sleet storm. I presume you get the New York papers.

Ted (Human, Helen’s husband) brought your last letter to me to read. You are a wonderful letter writer. Always so interesting. You certainly seem to have plenty to do. That’s all right as long as you don’t overdo. Ted has been home all week with a cold but is improving. Dorothy (Peabody, Grandma Arla’s youngest sister) has been in bed since Sunday with a slight cold. But she is coming along fine. I am hoping this letter will arrive on your birthday. I am so sorry I can’t be near enough to make you a birthday cake. With my love and best wishes for your happiness, I am

Always your loving

Grandmother Peabody

11:30 AM – Sun is shining bright.

Tomorrow and Friday I will be posting an Easter letter from Grandpa. 

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Bassick High School Wins New England Championship – March 17, 1940

This week I will be  posting letters written in the spring of 1940. Lad is the only son away from home right now. He is working for the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company in Venezuela. He is their diesel mechanic and travels around to various camps making repairs and helping the mechanics at each camp. Dan is going to the University of Connecticut, Ced is working at the TILO factory in Bridgeport, Dick and Dave are still in school. Grandpa continues to hold down the fort and keep Lad informed of local happenings.

Alfred Peabody Guion (Lad) at a camp in Venezuela

R-67  written on St. Patrick’s Day in the morning – March 17, 1940

Begorry, and how are ye this mornin’, me foine spalpin:

Right at this moment there is a lot of excitement due to the fact that Dick has just come in after having been away since 4 AM Friday morning on a trip to Portland, Maine, to see the Bassick (High School in Bridgeport, where Dick is a student) basketball team win the New England Championship. Stratford was put out of the running early, but Bassick stayed in. The final was played with a Rhode Island team, the final score being 39 to 37. Dick went up with four other boys in Charlotte Barsky’s car. They got a $2 room and slept three in a double bed (if you can call it sleeping), one in an armchair and Dick on the floor. Evidently, from what Dick has revealed so far, the hotel room was somewhat of a wreck when they left, chandelier loose and the glass in the door broken. One of the Bassick boys almost got arrested trying to skin out of a lunch room without paying for a meal. I guess it is one of those high school adventures that Dick will remember for a long time.

Yesterday noon I went to New York in the Willys with Dan and Barbara (Plumb, Dan’s girlfriend). It seems Barbara had wanted for some time to see a show which is having a popular run right now called The Philadelphia Story starring Katharine Hepburn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Story_(play)  Guess I’d better tell you about it. We started in a wet snowstorm which kept coming down steadily, packing on the windshield and gumming up the wiper all the way down on the Merritt Parkway. We had lunch before the show started (matinee at 2:40). The show was very enjoyable and after it was over, there being not much of a St. Patrick’s Day parade due to the miserable wet snow which still kept up, we walked down Broadway from 44th St., to Times Square on our way over to visit Aunt Elsie to kill time until supper time.

Alfred Duryee Guion (Grandpa) and Aunt Elsie Guion

As we arrived at the Times building, we noticed in the running strip of news they make by lights near the top of the building, that a bomb had exploded in the parcel room of the Grand Central Station. On arrival at the shop (Aunt Elsie, Grandpa’s sister, had a shop inside Grand Central Station) however, we learned that they didn’t even know a bomb had exploded, the only thing Elsie having noticed was some black smoke pouring out of the check room but business going on as usual. Elsie looked fine, is getting stout in fact, asked about you and said that while business in general was pretty punk they had been doing quite well that afternoon. Do you remember some years ago, I think it was when Aunt Betty sailed on her European trip, that we all went down to see her off and she blew us to a very nice dinner at Sharaft’s on 43rd St.? I think you were along although Dan says he wasn’t there. Well that is the same place I took them for supper.

We had a very enjoyable meal and then started back on our homeward journey. It had turned colder and the streets were generally icy. We got along pretty well accept that we came across an accident on the Merritt Parkway up near Greenwich caused, I believe, by a car colliding with the snowplow which was traveling in the opposite direction from which cars were supposed to be going in that lane; and with the darkness, poor vision through the windshield, curve and assuming at a distance that the two headlights coming toward you were in the other lane, we almost ran into it ourselves and only a sharp swerve as we came around a curve, with cars in front and behind us, prevented us from the crash, particularly as the combination of speed and a slippery pavement made maneuvering difficult. However we reached home without mishap. Today the sun and higher temperature melted most of the fall.

Because I did not come home from the office before starting for New York Saturday, I did not have a chance to see if there was a letter in PO Box 7 that came from you yesterday afternoon, but at least there was none up to and including Saturday morning. I’m hoping I may find one tomorrow and possibly the photographs, and speaking of the latter, Dan has just gotten some of the snaps he took of the ice storm which I shall probably enclose with this letter.

There doesn’t seem to be much else to make interesting news. Here are a few odds and ends. Baby Zabel (Raymond Jr., Elizabeth’s first child) has had a cold for the last few days which has worried his parents a bit but he seems to be better today.

Dan was up on the third floor of the Stratfield Hotel one day last week making a delivery when he saw Alice Reyom with a nurse’s apron on. He did not stop to speak to her but it looked to him as though she might have a job in some doctor or dentist’s office.

Dick has been coming to the office after school and working on addressograph plates. Dan took his place while he was away at Maine.

Carl, I hear, returned Monday but I have not seen him and have learned no details about his trip.

Dan got in touch with the highway people and they told him they were putting their spring crew on the end of April, so he has put in his application for a job as in years past.

I suppose this letter will reach you before your birthday and that being the case, I wonder if I can begin to get across to you just how a father feels about birthday greetings to his oldest boy so far away that he has not seen for so many months. Have you ever run across something in print that seems to say in the masterly way something that you have felt but seemed to lack the ability to express in words? Some time ago I ran across a thing of this sort – a letter from a father to his son, and if I may, I will let this sort of substitute for some of the things one would like to say himself if he had the gift of expression. I will attach it to this note.

All of us at the old home send are fondest and best birthday wishes, boy, and most of all

Your,

Dad

Tomorrow, I will post the enclosure entitled:  Letter From A Father To His Son .

On Wednesday, a letter from Grandma Peabody and on Thursday and Friday, an Easter letter from Grandpa.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Dear Lad – Round Robin Letter From Friends – (2) – March 10, 1940

This letter was written in perfect outline form, but with the automatic settings in Word, it doesn’t copy correctly into WordPress. I apologize for the sloppiness.

1. Dear Lad,
   1. Things are looking up
      1. Spring is coming
      2. School work is easy

i.    I’m taking more science

1. Which I’ve already had at JCC
   1. That makes it easy
   2. I’m happy about the whole thing
   3. I do not know what to write
      1. Mainly because I don’t know what you are interested in
      2. Because you probably already know about the storm we had
      3.                                                         i.    Including the blizzard

ii.    Also the ice storm

1. Which ruined many trees
2. Which made attending school impossible
3. Which was beautiful
   1. It made everything look as though it had been covered with glass
   2. Which put all electrically run implements out of commission
      1. Including

i.    Stoves

ii.    Every clock in the house

iii.    Lights of all kinds

1. A Chinese Checker game is in full swing at present

i.    Which makes it hard to concentrate

1. Because I have a one-track mind
2. Have you heard –

i.    I’m a Kindergarten teacher, now

1. I train in Kindergarten every morning
   1. Phooey
   2. Sometimes fun, though
      1. Cute kids
   3. Write me a letter sometime
      1. O.K.?
   4. Jean

**********************

Muy amigo y hermano mio,

The body of the letter is written entirely in Spanish and my American keyboard won’t do it justice, so I’ll insert a copy and you can read it for yourself!

Dan

***********************

Hi,

Europe is at war. England and France are on one side, Germany is on the other. Hitler is leading the Germans, called Nazis.

I am the last one to write a letter because I went to a class at church which tells how to be a good member. I am going to join the church in October.

I am not doing very well in school. Latin is awfully hard but I think I’ll make it.

I don’t imagine anyone thought to tell you about the ice storm because it was such a trivial thing.

I’m pretty hungry, so

Bonus Dies

David

Saturday and Sunday, more of Elizabeth’s Adventure in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – Round-Robin Letter From Friends (1) – March 10, 1940

It’s a typical Sunday evening at the Guion house in Trumbull, Grandpa is sitting in front of his trusty Remington typewriter composing a letter to Lad, his oldest, who is working in Venezuela for an oil company, local young folks are gathered in the alcove, playing Chinese Checkers tonight. Dan made the suggestion that they all write a letter to Lad to be send by regular mail, which they did.

Dear Al,

It’s me again. How’s every little thing in S.A.? You seem to be keeping the “natives” well in hand. I’m going to school in Brooklyn, now. Personally for filth, smells, etc., Brooklyn has anything in S.A. beaten by a mile (or should I say a kilometer?). New York is having a water shortage at present. You’re given only enough water to brush your front teeth. When a house is on fire the firemen throw water on the roof and pump it out of the cellar to use over again. The firemen had a little trouble at one fire. They threw water on the roof and none returned to the cellar. It seems the building was a storehouse for rubber goods. In desperation the chief sent a squad of men into the building to squeeze the sponges stored there and the fire was brought under control. Another queer fire was when the bacon factory burned up. The bacon was nailed top and bottom for curing purposes. The heat of the fire caused the bacon to shrink – lifting the entire building 8 inches off the foundations. The firemen had to use block and tackle to bring the building down to the foundation again. One sees some queer things, huh?

Wish you good luck, son.

Red (Sirine)

**********************

Barbara writes something, (I cannot read it) and signs her name.

**********************

Alfredo!

Have you been taking pictures of your Latin wilderness? Every time I write I ask you about this, but, as yet, I haven’t seen any pictures or gotten any reply. How do you spend your little spare time? This year is the easiest and most enjoyable school session I’ve ever had. I only have three subjects, history is the hardest, but easy, English is more fun and easier, art is the best subject and by far, the easiest.

Enough about me; now about Ced’s car, if it can be called a car! More commonly known as “Lem”, short for lemon. Ced has purposely been reluctant in writing about his “fo pas” (French for damned dumb mistake) so I’ll give you the highlights. You can have the headlights to, they work, but so does the rest of the car, sometimes. When he brought it home, he asked each of us how much we thought it cost and after a reply of discouragingly low prices, he listed its few assets. Bar (Barbara Plumb) told him he shouldn’t have bought an old car because he would always have something wrong. After a few months of minor troubles, he decided to call it “Bar’s right”. Since he bought it, he has been having steady trouble with it

Buenos noches y adios

Ricardo (Dick Guion)

**********************

I’ll finish the week with the rest of the letters composed by friends and family at the Trumbull House.

Judy Guion

Friends – Dear Laddie – All the Local Dirt – March 5, 1940

This is a letter from (I believe) Ethel Bushey, one of “The Gang” from the Trumbull House, who was Bissie’s best friend and married Carl Wayne.

Alfred Peabody Guion (Lad) in Caracas, Venezuela

March 5, 1940

Hello Laddie –

What a surprise to receive a letter from you, especially when you remembered my birthday. I meant to answer long ago but things seem to happen just when I plan to write. Carl (Wayne) is now in Florida with Ebb Joy. They took Carl’s car, a new Ford, and Ebb’s trailer. I am now a lonesome widow. Of course I get around, you know how it is.

Biss and her son, Raymond Zabel, Jr., known as Butch to the family

You should see your lovely nephew. He is wonderful! The best baby in the world. I love him.

The weather has been very nasty here between snow and hail. Just yesterday we had a hailstorm and we have no heat, lights, or water. The furnace is run by electricity, too. Damn the modern conveniences (sometimes).

Wish you would come back before I get so fat you won’t know me.

Anything I write now will probably be old news.

Rusty (Heurlin) is staying with your Dad at present and last night he was playing the guitar and we all sat around and sang.

Dad has a new car. This year’s model is a beauty.

I’m writing this in the office so please excuse the pencil.

Have you found any girls that you like? Bet you miss parking off the Merritt Parkway, or don’t you? I often think of you when we go by that certain place. Never have I thought of anybody but you driving the Packard.

            Arnold Gibson

Were you surprised to hear of Arnold and Alta’s engagement? I was flabbergasted. Did you think he was serious with her? Remember the first night he took her out? New Year’s Eve and we were at my house, with Doris and George Porter. Doris’s little girl is quite a young lady now. She is walking and also talking. Won’t be long before Bissie’s will be doing the same. Helen and Bill have a very nice little home and seemed very happy.

Bill and Carl want to buy a 27 foot sailboat for this summer, Helen doesn’t approve but I guess he is going to do it anyway.

Arnold and Alta bought a $950 trailer to live in. Arnold says he isn’t going to pay anybody rent.

Have you been writing to Babe? (Cecelia Mullins, Lad’s girlfriend) If you have, then you probably know she has a 1940 Ford. Someday Ethel will have a car too. (I hope)

Remember Ann Holt? She is married and expecting in April. Guess I told you about all the marriages, births etc. Just thought of two more, J Kurtz has a son and Dan Wells’ wife is expecting again. How’s that for all the dirt in town.

Now, how about you? What are you doing and who do you go out with and when will you ever be back, etc. etc. etc.

Wish that I could have enough time off so I could come down and visit with you. I hope Lad, that everything I’ve written isn’t old news to you. It won’t be very interesting if it is. Please don’t wait as long as I did to answer and I promise faithfully I’ll write a nice long letter next time. In the meantime be good and write soon, I’ll be waiting.

Love,

                           Ethel Bushey

Ethel

P.S. Any pictures of you? Send one please.

I never reread a letter so excuse the errors.

I meant to address this last night but we still had no lights so went to visit Bissie. Lad, I do wish you could see the baby or just hold him for a minute, he is just perfect.

Rusty played some more and Bissie and I sang. Later Rusty walked home with me and we had quite a nice talk. He is leaving today for New York or Philadelphia.

               Carl Wayne

I’m just counting the days for Carl’s return. I’m beginning to miss him now. Don’t you miss any of us? You never say in any of your letters anything about being lonesome.

Last night the fireplace was going and I thought of the nights I spent in there with you. We had fun, didn’t we? Remember the night I got sick on the beer and Bissie accused you the next morning?

There are so many things I would like to tell you but don’t know whether or not they would interest you.

This summer two very nice boys, Richard Bylandt and Paul Brolin, rented Friend’s Lodge for the summer and we had wonderful times with them. Paul’s people have oodles of money and he is a Cornell man. He worked for six years after graduating and this summer he and Richard gave up work to live for one year doing just as they please. I know you would like them.

Carl has a diving helmet. He took it to Florida with him. In his letter he said he went down for some coral and sponge. He really has the craziest hobbies.

Think I will finally end this letter and look for your address. I hope it is the same.

Love,

Ethel

For the rest of the week, I will be posting a letter written by Grandpa to Lad in Venezuela. He also enclosed a Round-Robin letter written by members of “The Gang” who are visiting on Sunday Evening’s Weekly Open House.

Judy Guion