Theme
Community
Barbara's Chapter · Childhood through shortly before Mom's death in 1988
Mom's Card Tables and a Perfect Hand
Barbara remembers Mom crocheting over morning coffee, hosting Club with tuna casserole, yeast rolls, sweets, and nuts, and praising the prizes the children bought at the Highland dime store. Annual Club picnics at Riverside Park featured homemade food, flavored pop, swimming, cards, and watermelon. Shortly before Mom's death, during a card game at Carol's house while Diana visited from Florida, the players secretly arranged a perfect 500 hand for Mom and never told her. Barbara also recalls the haunting story of a Club lady losing a finger in a Mix Master, tentatively identifying her as Olene Allerdyce.
Barbara's Chapter · When Barbara and the other children were quite young
Plum-Tree Spectators and Garden Treats
Children watched from the plum tree in the Reichenberg’s back yard as Ruth and John butchered chickens. Barbara recalls chickens hanging on the clothesline and having their necks chopped, but explicitly says, “I know this can’t be right.” The children shrieked as headless chickens ran about. She also remembers stealing kohlrabi from the Reichenberg’s garden and admiring Mrs. Britz's gladiolas and chocolate cakes.
Barbara's Chapter
Remembered Faces, Flowers, and Childhood Play
Barbara lists people and families she remembers: Mrs. Rohrer shared flowers from her beautiful garden, and Mrs. Johnson asked Barbara to zip up her formals. She also recalls Old-lady Clyde, Earladine and Jean Hoglund, the Petersens, especially Eileen, and Sis Vergaine and her son Stevie, whose possible imprisonment she questions without confirming. The Hancocks had an abandoned little house where the children liked to play. The Ferrys and The Gillersteads are also remembered by name.
Diana's Chapter · Childhood, beginning at age three
Early Morning Journeys and Friendship in the Hospital
Diana traces the unexplained falls and progressive skin and leg changes that led Dr. Menton to refer her to Illinois Research Hospital in Chicago. Early morning family drives combined the comforting smell of coffee and cheese sandwiches with the fear of examinations and long waits. As illness interrupted school, Mrs. Lynch tutored her at home. Repeated hospital stays brought painful procedures and treatments, but also friendship with Loopy Gonzalez, hallway races, water-balloon mischief, Friday hamburgers, parties, special dresses, chapel services, and visits from family and friends. She also remembers homemade food and a church-donated basket from which she could open one present each day.
Diana's Chapter · Childhood through high school
Seven Children, Shared Adventures, and Sisterly Mischief
Diana remembers Iris cutting hair, Bernie rescuing her from punishment and playing records, and Bob driving four younger sisters to school and building an igloo with Billy Johnson. Carol served as a second mother, led 4-H meetings, and accompanied Diana to the State Fair. Dee was a card-playing companion and peacekeeper. Diana and Barb shared sleeping space, television suppers, prank calls, forbidden games, and adventures with Carol’s car. Family outings included the drive-in, ice cream, carnival rides, and drag races.
Diana's Chapter · Childhood through college, with later reflections
A Car for College and a Family That Always Helped
Diana recalls demanding study habits, family gardening and tomato sales, and her anxious departure for college. Iris and Bill’s gift of a car made nursing school feasible. During an earlier John Deere & Company strike, Iris brought groceries when the family lacked money. Diana describes her scholarship, difficult college years, friendship with Martha Kawada, and graduation. Memories of planting a flower garden and helping haul water from the water works lead to gratitude for the family’s enduring support and resourcefulness.
Dee's Chapter · Club began in 1945; continued 55 years later
Club Days, Secret Pals, and Midnight Friendship
Mom’s eight-player club met on the second Wednesday of each month, rotating homes to play 500. Alice Atchison recalled its names changing from the Pregnant Women’s Club to The Hot Flash Club. Mom prepared with meticulous cleaning and dessert making; prizes and annual Secret Pals added to the fun. After Daddy had his stroke, he mistook a Secret Pal card for evidence of a secret lover, a story Mom later told with amusement after his death. In her widowhood, Mom enjoyed supper, cards, and midnight snacks with Ruth, John Reichenberg, and Florence Britz. She also played Euchre through Friend’s Circle and the Community Center, preferring the Circle’s company.
Dee's Chapter
Grampa's Hard Work and Courage
Grampa suffered a serious leg burn after falling into a vat of lye while working nights at a foundry. A newspaper article described a new treatment that healed the burn but left a terrible scar. Delores is unsure whether his cane use was connected. Her mother recalled his taking on the duties of judge, postman and coroner during a Swine Flu epidemic in their North Dakota hometown, apparently immune while many others died. After his wife died of tuberculosis when their daughter was eleven, he raised the daughter alone.
Carol's Chapter · 1940s and later
Ice Deliveries, Party Lines, and Summer in the Basement
Carol describes well water pumped beside the sink, water heated on the stove, an icebox supplied by an iceman, and glass-bottled milk delivered during the war years. She contrasts her family's circumstances with school friends Juanita and Lavelle Nelson, who lived in a boxcar and cooled food in a hillside hole. She recalls distinctive party-line rings and secretly listening to conversations. In summer the family lived and ate in the cooler basement; her father eventually cut up their oak dining table to make a punching bag ceiling-mount.
Carol's Chapter
Sharing Water and Learning to Save Every Drop
Carol recalls a family well that repeatedly went dry. Their water tasted and smelled good, unlike some neighbors' sulfurous water. Mom hauled water from Reichenberg’s well for laundry. Ruth and John Reichenberg and their children, Kent and Carolyn, were close friends and neighbors. Daddy fitted a wagon with a five-hundred-gallon tank he had made and fetched water from town two or three times a week to replenish the family's and neighbors' wells. These shortages taught Carol lasting water-conservation habits.
Carol's Chapter
Open Doors and a Winter Skeleton-Key Rescue
Carol recalls leaving doors unlocked in the early years, opening the front door for summer breezes, and hanging flypaper to catch the flies that entered. Later, the family used a skeleton key. One snowy winter morning, while Mom was visiting Diana in Florida, Carol stepped outside barefoot in a thin housecoat to shake a rug. Chris, whom Carol estimates was about five, slammed the door and accidentally locked it. Unable to get back inside, Carol sought help at the Sajbens. Mr. Sajben opened her door with his own skeleton key and joked that it would probably open every door on the street.
Carol's Chapter
Growing Up with the Peppy Steppers
Carol recalls being very active in the Peppy Steppers 4-H Club for many years, starting at age nine, despite not living on a farm. The club leaders were Mrs. Earl Holder and Mrs. Earl Bustard.
Carol's Chapter · Childhood–1995
A Lifetime of Faith at Calvary
Carol recalls riding the Sunday school bus to Calvary Lutheran Church as a young child. Her father never attended church, but her mother joined after his death and worshipped with Carol every Sunday until she died. Carol participated extensively in church life through teaching, singing, office work, groups, and council service. She was baptized and confirmed there at fifteen on May 16, 1954, married her first husband Don Boney there, and recalls Chris's baptism and confirmation there. She describes over fifty years of membership before transferring to a church in North Port, Florida, in 1995.
Carol's Chapter · 1948–1998, with earlier childhood memories
Next-Door Friends and a Lifetime of Kindness
Carol remembers the McFarlands as next-door neighbors and closest friends. She played daily with Marilyn and Patty and attended school with them through high school. Virginia and Carol's mother supported each other through hard times over coffee and cigarettes. Despite working outside the home, Virginia helped with housework, ironing, babysitting, and overnight stays, once washing the girls' hair outdoors with collected rainwater. The two women were charter members of a 500 Card Club founded in 1948 and belonged for over forty years. The McFarlands moved into town in 1952, and Pat later moved away when she married. Carol and Marilyn remained close. Carol recalls the losses of Dale in 1994, Virginia in 1996, and Marilyn's husband Bill in March 1998.
Carol's Chapter · Carol's grade-school years
Scrubbed, Starched, and Sent Off with Lunch
Carol recalls Mrs. Shadle's periodic ringworm inspections, teachers recognizing the immaculately groomed Guild children, and strict expectations of behavior. With no school cafeteria, her mother prepared six labeled lunch sacks each morning, carefully matching individual tastes. Room mothers occasionally provided hot spaghetti served from a large electric roaster.
Carol's Chapter · 1928; the Forties; later years
A Roller-Skating Beginning and a Legacy of Care
Mary Hill arranged Ethel and Floyd's blind date, and they went roller-skating. They married in Moline on November 6, 1928, with Elva and Frank Melton standing up with them, then celebrated with dinner and a movie rather than a honeymoon. Carol remembers their independent household responsibilities, relentless work in the Forties, kindness to neighbors, and family values demonstrated through everyday actions.
Carol's Chapter · April 1945; throughout Mom and Dad's lives
Remembering Roosevelt and Getting Out the Vote
Ethel and Floyd were lifelong strong Democrats who admired Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. They listened to Roosevelt's Fireside Chats and trusted that the war would be won. Ethel mourned Roosevelt's death in April 1945, and the family kept his picture in the living room for years. She worked with Virginia McFarland and Mrs. Welander to arrange rides and remind people to vote, stayed informed about candidates and issues, and never missed voting.
Carol's Chapter
Daddy Could Make or Mend Anything
Floyd traded with Hugh Chase and proudly repaired and resold a broken chain saw at a profit after using it. Herb Spahn remembered his riding-sprayer, motorized plow, help to neighbors, and protective rule against swearing around his girls. Carol recalls his metalwork, woodworking, car repairs, plumbing, electrical work, and walnut carving, skills that kept the household from needing hired help.
Carol's Chapter · Childhood–December 1966 and later years
A First Job and a Friendship That Lasted
After graduating from Moline High, Carol obtained her first full-time job through church friend Vendla Solmonson at Augustana Book Concern. She handled Sunday School material subscriptions for Lutheran churches throughout the United States, starting at a dollar an hour. She commuted with lifelong friend Eilene Peterson, whose family had been close neighbors, and stayed until December 1966.
Carol's Chapter · Childhood–1999
Chris: Backyard Friendships, Soccer, and a Life in Music
Carol's determination to live in the Coolidge school district placed Chris near three boys who became lifelong friends. His enthusiasm for soccer led to memorable football kicks and the captaincy of Moline Senior High School's first soccer team. At Northern Illinois University, he turned toward guitar and a college band while earning his degree. He later released a CD, founded a record company, supported local musicians, wrote music journalism, and compiled a family recipe book presented at the 1999 reunion.
Bob's Chapter
Bob's Bright Fragments of Childhood
Bob lists vivid childhood memories: neighbors, a gasoline burn while playing with a toy steamshovel, Barbara refusing medicine, Bernie's skating injury, and Tom Johnson knocking out power lines with a falling tree. He recalls visiting the Rodgers in Cordova, swimming at Campbell’s Island, annual Riverside Park picnics, Iris’s wedding, and poker games with Art and Eileen Cordingly. Other memories include orchard camping and spraying, gathering walnuts, toys and homemade kites, fireworks, homemade foods, hauling water when the well dried up, building a house addition, basement heat relief and flooding, coal heating, backyard tomatoes, and the surviving mailbox millstone.
Bernie's Chapter
Dress Ups on the Chicken-Coop Stage
Playing with sisters sometimes meant House, School, or improvised performances in an old chicken coop with its front wall removed. Known as The Play House, it held a trunk of musty old clothes contributed by neighbors for Dress Ups. Brothers, sisters, and neighborhood children watched the performances from the grass along the garden.
Bernie's Chapter
A Shell Sign Toboggan and Happy, Tired Walks Home
A smaller, treeless ravine near the Vergain’s house offered safer sledding for girls and drew many children after heavy snow. Children used sleds, cardboard, boxes, and sometimes skis. The narrator's father made a toboggan from half of a metal Shell gas-station sign and attached a pulling rope. Its sharp-edged, rounded body carried three or more children in fast, spinning rides among other sledders and milkweed patches. Bernard remembers trudging home cold, wet, chafed, exhausted, and happy.
Bernie's Chapter · World War II
Making Do with Ration Books and a Victory Garden
The family had ten Food Ration and three Gasoline Ration books, and Bernard remembers little hardship from rationing. Iris and his mother improvised stocking seams with makeup. The family's established vegetable garden became a source of Victory Garden pride, with John Reichenberg supplying advice and shared seed catalogs. His mother displayed a blue-star service banner, his father refused to surrender potentially useful junk to scrap drives, and Bernard participated in Boy Scout paper drives.
Bernie's Chapter
A Garage Raising and a Last-Minute Ham Dinner
Floyd Guild recruited neighbors for a garage raising, promising a ham dinner but telling Mom only the day before. Virginia helped assemble and prepare the food and jokingly warned Floyd that people had better come to eat it. The garage was successfully built in a day. George Rohrer, who helped, attempted the same thing a year later, but no one came—not even Daddy. George built alone, and Daddy later contrasted George's sagging roof with his own straight one.
Bernie's Chapter
Watching the Sky from the Soul Bowl Hillside
The family attended public fireworks displays sponsored by the Moline Daily Dispatch at Soul Bowl in Silvis. They watched from the grassy hillside around the playing field, enjoying Mom's enthusiastic reactions and wishing the show would last longer. Sometimes they caught chiggers in the grass.
Bernie's Chapter
Floyd Guild’s Well and a Father-Son Secret
Bernard recalls Daddy locating water with a forked willow divining rod near the kitchen door, then spending much of a summer casting a dozen massive concrete rings. Daddy dug inside the stacked rings as they sank into the ground, creating a secure thirty-three-foot well. Bernard and Bob played in the rings and helped haul dirt until neighbors took over. A leftover ring became a play space in the orchard. Before water was reached, Dad and Dale secretly lowered Bernard into the cold well in a rough rope halter. Bernard recalled seeing stars in the daytime sky from the bottom. Threatened with the razor strap if he told Mom, he kept the secret until late in life; she claimed she had already known, which he doubted.
Bernie's Chapter · When Bernard was about eight or nine
A Friendly Greeting in the Hotel Lobby
Bernard's father took him into the LeClaire Hotel in downtown Moline and turned him toward a black man shining shoes. Having only seen white people before, Bernard was speechless when the man smiled and offered him a shoe shine. His father then led him away. Bernard is unsure whether prejudice was intended and thinks his father may simply have wanted him to see the man.
Bernie's Chapter
A Mother's Lessons in Equality
Bernard recalls discriminatory songs and limericks performed by his grandfather and father. His mother repeatedly countered them, out of his father's hearing, by teaching that no person was better than another. He believes her teaching, his own experiences of discrimination, and his liberal education helped him reject prejudice. He also recalls Dale McFarland's complaints about black workers at Farmall and abuse directed at Swedes and Belgians in Moline, ending with a hope that prejudice would end with his generation.
Bernie's Chapter · During the narrator’s two years at Ray Vogue
Finding Belonging in Art and Returning Home
Bernie enjoyed movies, galleries, beach outings, and cooking lessons with Byron while returning home whenever possible on the Rock Island Rocket and later in his Vauxhall. Art school, Art Institute visits, and parties organized by Byron brought him an accepting circle of friends. Their open conversations and diverse community helped him shed feelings of inferiority and embrace liberal ideas. He also credited his family’s love and closeness with his enduring sense of protection.
Iris's Chapter
Penny Candy, Hollyhock Dolls, and Front-Porch Days
Iris recalls a small grocery store in a converted home's front room across from 1015 29th Street, where bread, milk, and penny candy were available. Living between the river and railroad tracks, the family received visits from hobos seeking food, and Mom shared despite the family's own limited supplies. Grandpa gathered dandelion greens for Mom to cook in bacon drippings. Iris remembers River Drive, Dad's beloved Model T Ford, a short-lived rabbit hutch, and making dolls from hollyhock blossoms beside the garage. One summer she badly hurt her knee falling from her bicycle on a black-cinder-covered street and spent long days recovering on the porch swing and cutting paper dolls. After Carol's birth, Mom was ill and weak for a long time; Iris tentatively recalls Grandpa being there part of the time and remembers Uncle Lloyd's brief visits. Grandpa Williams and Dad exchanged sharp words, while Saturday evenings also brought card games with Mom, Dad, and friends.
Iris's Chapter · Second World War
Quilt Squares and Dime Stamps for the War Effort
Too young at eleven to fully understand the war, Iris nevertheless responded to President Roosevelt's radio appeal. On Saturday mornings she made quilt squares at the YWCA for Red Cross ladies to sew into quilts for GIs. At about thirteen she sold dime war savings stamps outside a grocery store, wearing a patriotic hat and apron. She recalls, with uncertainty, that a hundred stamps filled a book, says twenty-five dollars bought a war bond, and had two bonds by war's end. She also recalls why her father and grandfather were not drafted and mentions a boyfriend who joined the Marine Corps after the war.
Iris's Chapter · August 13, 2001
A Prayer to Make a Difference
The poem “I’D LIKE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE” expresses a wish to bring smiles, ease others' lives, bless strangers, help children, and give generously within one's means. It closes with the hope that someone will remember the speaker as having made a difference.
Iris's Chapter
Remembering the Flower Lady with Love
Iris hopes to be remembered for her floral work and decorating at the little white Congregational church in Roscoe, Illinois. Being known there as The Flower Lady makes her happy. She also hopes her children, grandchildren, and Bill, her husband of over fifty years, will remember her with love.
History of the Guild Family · 1445–1676; house legacy continuing to the time of writing
Across the Atlantic to a Lasting Family Home
The family traces its line to Mr. William Fairbanks in Yorks in 1445, then recounts Jonathan Fayerbanke's marriage to Grace Smith Lee, their seven children, and their voyage to Boston in his own ship in 1633. Jonathan moved to Contentment in 1636, built the enduring Dedham house, acquired land, joined the township covenant and eventually the church, and prospered as a farmer. The house is described as America's oldest standing timber frame dwelling, a National Landmark continuously owned by the family and never mortgaged, with replicas including one at Boston Commons. The passage also describes the wider family's political activity, Patriot and Union service, and slaveholding by some landed members. It retains inconsistent arrival chronology and contradictory wording about Jonathan's death relative to Grace's.
History of the Guild Family · Perhaps about 1918
An Unexpected Inheritance and a Granary Home
An elderly bachelor left his wooded 160-acre property and operating sawmill to the poorest family in St. Mathias Township. The township elders chose the Dan Guild family. Floyd and Clarence saw a hopeful future, while Olive feared Dan would ruin their good fortune. Dan, Olive, Floyd, and Clarence made the windowless granary livable by sealing its open slat-work. Bessie had already left home to marry Ira Ringering, recently returned from World War I, and Pearl had died of diphtheria at 16 a year earlier.
History of the Guild Family · After the foreclosure around 1918; ownership noted in 2001
A Sawmill and a Small Home on Falk’s Farm
After stating that Dan lost everything, the account says he retained the sawmill. Harold Falk let him build a small house on his farm in exchange for sawing logs into boards. Dan also used sawdust to preserve winter-cut lake ice for summer sales. Iris, Merlin, and Bernie remembered the plain two-story tar-paper house, where tarpaulins divided living and sleeping spaces. A barn for cows and pigs was added later. The 103 acre farm included part of Round Lake and two rivers and was still owned by Marvin Falk in 2001.