Hard Work, Strong Tempers, and Lasting Family Ties

According to accounts by Floyd, his father, Daniel Guild worked, before he was married, a small rented farm in St. Mathias County, Minnesota with his brother, Bernal. They grew field (feed) corn and ninety-day russet potatoes to sell or barter for items they needed from others. They kept common livestock—chickens, pigs, and a milkin’ cow—for their own use. When Olive was widowed at age 30 by Vosburg’s tragic accidental death, she walked up the road from her place to Dan and Bernal’s farm in an 1898 snowstorm and asked Dan, who was only 21 at the time, for help. To make her plight more obvious, she dragged three of her littlest kids, Myrtle, Gertie and Ralph with her. It is said, that Olive was devastated by her husband Clarence’s death as they were greatly in love. She could not work the land herself or pay the rent on the farm they had only worked a year, and eviction was imminent. It was a brutal winter and her food supply was running out. She was desperate for a solution. When she appeared on his doorstep, she begged Dan for help. Dan told her he had no money but offered to put them up until Olive could figure out how to find and get help from her sisters on the condition Olive would agree to cook and keep house for them. Olive had not turned to her 6 living sisters first fearing that might break up the family because none of them could possibly take her or more than one child each. Her father, Alanson Holmes Wooster, had died a year earlier, which is reported to be her reason for wanting to return to St. Mathias County to be near her mother, Eunice Adelai Finch Wooster, who was old, frail, and would die within a year. And, it is said, Olive wasn’t even sure where all her sisters lived, having lost track of her Minnesota sisters when she moved to North Dakota with her husband, Clarence Vosburg. Florence, Olive’s oldest daughter, who would have been 14 at the time, and Edith who was 12, were Olive’s little surprise when she moved into Dan’s house. Bernal didn’t like the deception but Dan said, “What the hell. What’s two more, now?” Or so the story goes. Things must have gone pretty well with the new arrangement, because shortly after she had gathered up her meager belongings and moved in, Olive became pregnant by Dan Guild. They were married as Seventh Day Adventists in 1899. Olive was ten years older than Dan, so some say she must have been very attractive to him, as men almost never married older women in those days. Or, perhaps, by convention, not marrying a woman a man had conceived a child with was unthinkable. Dan had been raised a Christian by his very devout mother, Carrie, who, it’s said, each night read long passages from the Bible, sang a hymn in a beautiful voice, and prayed on her knees before their home altar with her husband and three children. Church on Sunday was a given; never an exception, ever. Bernal, Dan’s younger brother by 3 years, continued to work the farm with Dan and lived there until their father, Newton, died in 1901. Bernal used his inheritance to buy a fine horse and a new Colt .45 revolver (now in the possession of Josephine Guild, Bernal’s youngest son Gordon’s wife.) At age 21 and unmarried, Bernal set off on his own to become a traveling salesman selling Singer Sewing Machines on credit door to door in Minnesota. He rode from home to home collecting small payments for the machines he had sold. He met Belle Woodley when he sold her mother a sewing machine and returned week after week to collect payments. Considering that Bernal had the Guild good looks, perhaps the traveling salesman and the farmer’s daughter stories and the legends of the Guild men’s roving eye began that day. By every account, Bernal was good-natured, loved the girls and a good time. He was an incorrigible practical joker, who laughed the hardest when his pranks backfired and he became the victim. Their firstborn, who came soon after Olive and Dan married, was Bessie Amelia, who became Merlin Howard Ringering’s mother. Then in 1901 came Pearl, who looks like Barbara Guild Miller, Floyd’s youngest daughter. They called Pearl “The Innocent” or “Beautiful Angel” after she died at age sixteen of diphtheria. Next came Clarence Newton in 1902, then Floyd Raymond, in 1904 and five years later, Harold Herman, who died five weeks after his birth in 1909 of spinal meningitis. No one knows why Olive named her first son with Dan Guild “Clarence” after her first husband, Clarence Vosburg, or if Dan even knew Clarence Vosburg, though Dan must have, because they lived only a few miles apart. Clarence’s second name, Newton, was given to him by Dan to honor Dan’s father who had died only a few months before his son Clarence’s birth. All this time, Dan was still farming corn and potatoes. In 1904, with Floyd’s birth and before Olive’s oldest Vosburg girls had started to leave to get married, Dan had ten mouths to feed and ten bodies to clothe. They all had a hard life. They were so poor they had to share coats in the winter. Provisions often dwindled to the point that the next meal was in question. Dan and his sons were excellent fishermen and hunters, which helped to feed the large family later on. When they ran out of grain for the cattle, they sometimes cut up their stored seed potatoes for cattle food. Though he had various occupations during his lifetime, he never earned more from any of his efforts than just enough to barely get along. Olive said, “Dan was a pathetic farmer. He worked hard all his life for nothing.” At one time, possibly around 1910, when cars were becoming more prevalent, Dan had, in addition to his poor farm, his own battery fixing business. He rebuilt old car batteries and then resold them or just repaired them for others. He also did radiator repairs. There are accounts of his kids all having battery acid burn-holes all over their clothing. This business was in town and in both Dan’s and Olive’s name. The shop, Dan’s Radiator Shop, was at 506 Laurel Street in Brainerd, Minnesota. Olive demanded Dan return to the farm each night where she could keep an eye on him because she was skeptical of his marital fidelity. This caused great friction between them it is said. By every account, including Olive’s, Dan was a “Good Looker.” Maybe he had a roving eye or maybe Olive just thought he did. No one who might remember can, or maybe will, say. Dan was known to be very inventive and devised many mechanical innovations just like his father Newton, though he never gained any patents for his creations. It was said that Dan could fix anything. Floyd always said his father, Dan, was very mechanically inclined and creative, and that he was a verbal man with many strongly held opinions who was never slow to make his position known. Merlin says he ran his fingers up and down his suspenders the whole time he talked, and both sides of his mouth quivered as he spoke. Dan had other facial tics and suffered from narcolepsy. We are told by Clarence’s wife, Francis, that he was demure in his interactions with others, loved his coffee and reading the newspaper. He wore full suits of wool underwear all year long—even to bed on the hottest summer nights in Minnesota. Olive Guild and her Vosburg children, who were always called, “The First Family”, and the five children she had with Dan, “The Second Family”, were evidently more than she could handle. Her unrelenting arthritis pain, her avowed belief that Dan was cheating on her, and her growing frustration with Dan’s not being able to provide well for their family caused her to become mean in spirit. We need to remember that these were hard times for women running a household. There were no modern conveniences at the turn of the century, especially in the country, so every chore was arduous. A woman had to work hard from well before dawn until late into the evening just to keep up with the cooking, laundry, house cleaning, and clothes making and mending. Planting and attending the truck garden and canning for the winter was an extra duty for women that lasted from spring to early fall. This, at a time when it had become known that germs caused disease, added the burden of a frantic zeal to keep everything clean. Olive’s girls were pressed into hard work at an early age. Some say their hands were always raw from the homemade lye soap used for doing laundry. Hand-sewn gloves to hide their rough hands were a necessity for a woman going out into public. It all added up to long, long, long hours requiring much strength in the body. This staggering amount of hard work, and harsh conditions, often while pregnant, killed many women. No wonder church was so popular—an hour to sit. It was said that Olive Guild’s “Vosburg Brats” were lazy and wanted all of their mother’s attention and resented their stepfather, Dan, and even moreso their half brothers and sisters, Bessie, Clarence, Floyd and Pearl. They wanted Olive buried next to their father Clarence Vosburg but didn’t get their way, we know not why. But, as they grew up together, they all became very close. Although Olive had become a truly mean-spirited woman by any account, reports by Iris, Bob and Bernie Guild, three of Floyd’s kids who knew her, claim she always treated them tenderly and was kindly. We know she was more than proud of Floyd and Clarence in their accomplishments and may have pulled back on her grousing when they came around. Olive suffered terribly from arthritis. She was in constant pain, but nonetheless forced to care for ten people. No wonder she simplified her life by making pancakes seven days a week. (She ground the old maids from popped corn with a wall-mounted grinder and sprinkled them onto Dan’s pancakes.) It’s been told that she had permanent scars on her back from hot irons placed there in attempts to relieve her pain. Some remember the house being filled with bottles of pills and liniment, and said that the minute anyone entered the house she would start complaining about her troubles, predicting she would soon die, and generally tried to make everyone around her suffer with her. Orville Prescott, one of Myrtle’s children, said an aura of Sloan’s Liniment followed her everywhere, even to church. She is said to have been unrelenting in her complaining, and adding to her misery, or perhaps because of it, Olive and Dan fought constantly; mostly about his inability to provide and always about her suspicions of infidelity, which she never proved. Olive was known to spank even her grandchildren with a switch for minor infractions or making too much noise. When small children were in the house, she stuffed cotton in her ears and placed a switch under her apron- string. Stories say she would pick up anyone’s kid and spank them “On good measure.” No wonder they stuck their tongue out at her—something they learned from her—and called her a witch. Her sister in law Adah Sophrona’s 9 kids were the worst by Olive’s account, but she never turned them away. It is said she never once cooked a meal for company, forcing Dan to round up the food when relatives or friends arrived. There is a tale that Olive once in her life made a pie—a cherry pie—and never let anyone ever forget about it and how good it turned out, “If you live to be a hundred, you won’t ever get a piece of cherry pie that good.” Merlin Ringering, Bessie’s son, tells the story of getting even with his Grandma Olive by accident. Seems, when he was seven or eight and visiting them, he peed out the second story window every night instead of going downstairs and waking them up. Trouble was, his Grandpa Dan had dug up a gunnysack of onions and placed them on the porch to dry out. Merlin says his piss soaked those onions really good, and that he didn’t even know it until Olive went to cook up some bean soup and later tried to fry some liver and onions with the contaminated onions. Both dishes had to go into the hog’s slop barrel because they tasted so bad. Merlin got a lickin’ with a willow switch for that but feels he got even, anyway. He really disliked her immensely because she had caused him many undeserved whippings. In 1925, Dan left Olive to live in the radiator shop with Clarence, at which time, Dan gave public notice in the Brainerd paper, stating that because Olive had left his bed, he was no longer responsible for her debts. When Olive read the notice, she immediately walked all the way to town and ordered him to come back home and told him that he was forgiven. (She forgave him?) He did return, but it is said, they just tolerated each other after that, and began acting openly hostile to each other in front of others. They never divorced, however. Olive would just up and leave after a bitter argument and move in with a daughter for a spell, but always, soon after, move back home with Dan. Those mature enough at the time to observe them carefully believe they were actually very close and dedicated to each other, but that both had mighty tempers and were just plain too stubborn for their own good. All of this being true, each of her children loved and adored Olive until her death. Certainly, we know Floyd was reverent in respect of his mother. It’s worth noting that, by every account, the Guild men seem to have had a reputation with the ladies, but this may have been more of a supposition based on the fact they were all so handsome. One Guild woman remembers that whenever a Guild man came around, the unmarried girls became “all giggly and flustered.” It is said that the Vosburg kids were idlers. None ever made anything of themselves, and every Vosburg child died a pauper. Conversely, the four Guild children were bright, ambitious and inventive, and had outgoing personalities. Surely they got this from somewhere. Perhaps, it was the combination of Olive and Dan’s personalities that shaped the Guild kids. Dan Guild was said by some to be a loner and a man of few words, but by others as talkative and forthright and disarmingly honest. Whatever the truth about that, Floyd, Clarence, Bessie and Pearl were all very outgoing, loved to laugh and joke around and had very healthy egos, which we all seem to have inherited. And there is little doubt that Floyd and Clarence got their exceptional skills in tinkering from their father Dan, who got it from his father, Newton. Floyd and Clarence, who was 2 years older, were inseparable when they were young and continued to correspond and visit each other for years in later life. We think Floyd and Clarence attended school until about the sixth or seventh grade. Floyd was a good penman and a good speller. All his life, he signed his name on greeting cards to family members, his kids, and even ones to his wife, “Floyd R. Guild.” He surely loved writing his name. Arnie Guild has a 1918 calendar of Olive’s where Floyd signed his name, “Mr. Floyd Guild” three times as if trying out his signature. Then noted, “Wrote this with Ralph’s pen.” Floyd maintained strong ties to his half brother and half sisters as well as his own siblings in his adult life. Though Clarence, his natural brother, was Floyd’s buddy he was very fond of Ralph—his 10-year-older half brother. He looked up to Ralph as a big brother while growing up and spoke often and fondly of him in later life. Floyd’s Vosburg half-sisters were all married more than once except for Florence and some were married three times. Between husbands, they lived with each other or moved in with Dan and Olive. Myrtle said their mother, Olive, never turned them away, and gladly offered them refuge because, “All men are dogs any way you look at it!”