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 (2) – Individual Notes To Each Son – September 1, 1940

“The Old Swimming Hole” at Anzoategui Camp, January, 1940

Supplement to R-91           Sept.1, 1940

Dear Lad:

Some weeks ago when Arnold and his sweetie were showing me through their trailer they mentioned in the course of a discussion on pots and pans that they would like very much to have some of this new stainless steel ware that lasts a lifetime but that the cost was so high that they did not feel able to afford it except buying one piece at a time. The other day when I was in Read’s (Department Store in Bridgeport, Connecticut) I ran across a beautiful set of two stainless steel pans with copper plated bottoms put out by Revere of Boston. The sets were a double boiler, something I have wanted to get for myself for a long time but did not feel able to afford the necessary $6.50. However I did buy this double boiler as a gift from you to Arnold and from what they said last night when they came over to borrow the punch bowl, it must have been a happy choice. So you are set back $6.50 by your spendthrift Purchasing Agent father. I hope you will think I did the right thing by our little Nell.

I am still holding firm on the purchase of a movie projector, playing one store against another to get the best price possible. I find I shall have to purchase a screen also.

Cedric Duryee Guion

Dear Ced:

Thanks for your last letter also enclosing the note you started in Seattle to tell me what happened to the Willys and never finished. I will await with interest the history you are writing. By the way, the thin sheets ought to have reached you by now.

I shopped around several days last week to try to find a suitable uniform outfit and finally located what I think you wanted at an Army and Navy store. Practically the same thing at Meigs would have cost two or three dollars more. Jacket, pants (which, because of the long legs and narrow waist had to be ordered from the factory) shirt and leather necktie totaled $7.13. This is a couple of dollars more than you allowed and you had better consider the excess a gift from your Dad. I have been after Dick all week to get out the blue dungarees and Brown dress coat and will try to ship them off to you Tuesday in one package.

Daniel Beck Guion

Dear Dan:

I don’t know why I continue to write to you, unless that’s it is that hope springs eternal in the human breast. Saw Barbara (Barbara Plumb, a neighbor and Dan’s girlfriend) yesterday and she said she had a couple of letters from you which were very nice letters but she did not think I would be interested. I would be interested however in hearing from you as to what the contacts you have had so far on the job promise for the future. Do you like the man with whom you work? Are they Army officers and are you subject to Army discipline? Did you have to sign a contract and, if so, was it with the US government, or did you have to enlist in the Engineers Corps? You have told me practically nothing and naturally I am a bit interested. Aside from the present job, have you decided on any more definite plans for the future than you had when you left? Are you going to the University at Fairbanks and if so will you study geology? If not, what line of work do you expect to follow? If you haven’t yet made up your mind, it is about time you got together with Dan and had a quiet heart-to-heart talk and decided something instead of just allowing yourself to drift along. Maybe I’m doing you an injustice to imply that that is what you are doing but, in the absence of any news from you, that is all I can assume.

One other topic and then I’ll stop. That is health, doctors and hospitals in Anchorage. When you were in Venezuela I did not worry because of Ted’s assurance that health was taken care of and I don’t now worry about Lad for the same reason, but I don’t know how good a doctor there is in Anchorage or if there is any sort of hospital. Ced wrote you were laid up a few days ago with a cold. Let me know the dope on this.

DAD

Tomorrow I’ll post the third portion of this letter, a confidential and personal letter to Lad.

I’ll be posting Special Pictures on Saturday and Sunday.

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

Army Life – Observations From Normandie After D-Day (1) – Dan Writes Home – August 3, 1944

Daniel Beck Guion

Normandie, 3 Aout, 1944

Altho’ much of the novelty of our new surroundings has worn off, I am still impressed by the casual manner in which the people here live their lives while whole villages and towns are bludgeoned into stark masses of rubble and the roar of planes fills the sky and the endless stream of trucks, jeeps, tanks etc. rumble incessantly toward the front, camouflaged in their own tattle-tale dust clouds. Norman folk carry pitifully small bundles that represent their personal possessions are crowded into the steep-sided gutters that line the narrow roads. They are people who are returning to their homes – many of which are mere spectral walls, some of which are miraculously untouched.

In odd contrast to the villages and roads, the countryside has made no compromises with the old man Mars. It is as if he set his feet down only in certain villages which lay along his path, and no evidence of his passing exists beyond the tall, thick hedgerows lining the highways. It is haying time. Fields are dotted with piles of sweet hay, with men kneeling beside them, tying the hay into neat little bundles by a dexterous twist of a strand of grass. These bundles will be fed to the horses and cattle when winter comes, later in the year, to Normandy.

War is fickle. We seem to have been projected into a countryside that scarcely admits the war is going on. I cannot help remembering the day we left London to come here – the sirens were moaning plaintively and we saw several buses laden with evacuee children. Yet here, so much closer to the front, evacuees are returning to their homes! Only at night do we hear Jerry’s planes – usually just a few scattered bomb-reconnaissance planes. We can no longer hear the guns from the front.

I have spoken to many French people since coming here, and I am gratified to know that my French classes at Richmond were thoroughly worthwhile. I have difficulty in understanding French when it is spoken rapidly but that, of course, is to be expected. The following bits of information I was able to catch from those Frenchmen who were persuaded to speak slowly:

Rations under the Germans – 2 pkgs (40 cigarettes) per person per month; 2 small pieces of crude soap per month; no chocolate or other candy. Cider is made in December. If it is made right it will keep for three years (if the Germans and the Yanks don’t get it!) From the hard cider is made “Cognac”, more properly called “calnados” from the country that manufactures it. Even more properly it might be called rot-gut apple jack by those who have the temerity to try it. Eggs are not abundant because it has been impossible to find grain for the poultry.

Tomorrow, I will finish this letter home to family and friends in Trumbull with more observations from Dan.

Judy Guion

Army Life – Dear Dad, Aunt Betty And Jean – A Change In Plans – July 31, 1944

Marian (Irwin) Guion and Alfred Peabody Guion (Lad) in Pomona, California

Monday

7/31/44 (Grandpa’s notation)

Dear Dad, Aunt Betty and Jean,

Here we go again!  Life in the Army is very much like sitting on a time bomb. We never know whether we will go off in the next minute, or whether our precarious seat will prove to be a dud.

The fellows have been told that they should have some technical training, so beginning tomorrow,  Lad is going to be teaching a course on the finer points of the Electrical System of Diesel Engines. This should last about two weeks. Actually, it means absolutely nothing, beyond the fact that it will keep the fellows busy! So, the way things stand now, we should be here for another two weeks, but just as soon as I put that in writing, the Army will change our minds for us! Consequently, you now know just about as much of our future plans as we do, and as to their definite-ness – your guess is as good as ours!

Life goes on pretty much the same these days, in all other respects. Lad is back at the Pomona Base now, and doesn’t have to report for work until 5:45 AM. He’s keeping busy, but is not working as hard or as long as he had to when he was at Camp Haan.

We thought we were going to be able to send you another addition for the ”Rogue’s Gallery”, but we were not satisfied with the finished product, so the photographers are going to see what they can do about it. But it will take another two weeks to get the pictures back. But you’ve waited this long for a picture of us together, so it shouldn’t be too hard to wait that much longer.

On the next cool Sunday, when you have nothing else to do, will you look in the top shelf of Lad’s trunk that is in the attic and see if his flashlight is there? It has a black, hard rubber case, with the red tab on it which says, “Approved by Underwriters Laboratory” on it. It is a gas proof and waterproof one, and Lad would like to have it with him if it is there. If you can’t find it in the trunk, contact Babe Mullins Lad’s girlfriend before he went into the Army), and see if she knows where it is.

Aunt Betty, I’m sure Ced has been using his most persuasive powers to get you to Alaska. But don’t forget that there might be some question about your being able to smoke those cigars of yours up there. Families, you know, understand these things and make the necessary allowances, but strangers are apt to raise their eyebrows at such goings on. And I’m sure the natives wouldn’t understand at all. They might think you were on fire, and  bury you under an avalanche of snow. So don’t say I didn’t warn you. Besides, who’s going to help me shovel a path to the garage if I come to Connecticut this winter?

With all our love,

Lad and Marian

Tomorrow and Friday, a very interesting letter from Dan, In Normandie, France, after the D-Day Invasion. He writes quite a b it about the countryside and the people he has met.

Judy Guion

Trumbull – To All My Sons, Except Ced (3) – Special Birthday Letter To Dick – July 30, 1944

This is the continuation of Grandpa’s Birthday letter to Dick.

Richard Peabody Guion

So my heart is full of thankfulness that we are a congenial family. (And that goes for the new daughters in law, too). It is a circumstance I know from what she has so often said, that would greatly please your mother if she were here to share it with me. And of course you, as one unit, must take full satisfaction in doing your share to make the sum total what it is.

Then there is the personal (and somewhat selfish) satisfaction I feel, in you, my son, as an individual. Somehow your being away for so long has made me appreciate all the more those little traits of character that go to make up one’s personality – your even-tempered and good nature, your whimsical ideas and comical way of expressing them, your artistic urgings to self-expression that never really have had an adequate outlet or chance for full flowering – your pride in doing well the things you undertake, your possession of high ideals and early start in married life with an attractive loyal mate, with like ideals, all bring a feeling of certainty that whatever the future may hold for both of you, it will be good. Someday I hope it may be your privilege to watch a little son or daughter, or both, grow up from babyhood through childhood to adult years and that you may have occasion to take the same full measure of joy and satisfaction in the result as I have and have had in you.

There, I still have not been able to get across the sort of birthday greeting I had hoped to accomplish when I started this letter, but for the rest, you will have to read between the lines. Right now, I want most of all to have you back home again, safe and sound, all the better, mentally and physically and spiritually for this horrid war interlude, but until that time comes, you’ll just have to imagine the love and boundless goodwill you deserve and command from your loving

DAD

Tomorrow, I will post a letter from Marian to “Dad, Aunt Betty and Jean” and on Thursday and Friday, an interesting letter home from Dan who is in Normandie, France, after the D-Day Invasion.

Judy Guion

Special Pictures – My Twin And Me shortly After Our Birth – July, 1946

 My guess is that Aunt Elsie is holding me and Grandpa is holding Douglas, my twin, because Doug was over 6 lbs. at birth and I was only about 4 lbs. (I stayed in the hospital in an incubator for a few weeks after birth.) This may have been taken the first weekend I was home, some Sunday in July, 1946.

Aunt Elsie Guion (Grandpa’s sister, and Alfred Duryee Guion (Grandpa).

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