Theme
Illness
Barbara's Chapter
The Everyday Care That Made a Home
Barbara gathers memories of Mom's familiar sayings, childhood in Dunseth at the foot of the Turtle Mountains, and skiing over fences to school with her brother. Mom treated colds with crushed aspirin, sugar and water, and Vicks covered with flannel. Before Dr. Menton's house calls, Virginia McFarland helped tidy the house. Spring cleaning and Saturday chores kept the home spotless despite the coal furnace. Barbara recalls a music box bird she thinks Bernie bought in Paris, Mom's treadle sewing machine, the girls' Peppy Steppers 4H projects, and handmade Easter outfits for Sunday School. She adopted Mom's red-ribbon suitcase custom. Jennifer passed along Gramma Guild's recollection of tonsil removal before telephone work, and Barbara remembers Mom's lifelong red hair.
Barbara's Chapter
Daddy’s Lap, Garden, and Backyard Workshop
Barbara warmly remembers curling up in Daddy's lap and describes his old-time remedies, including cigarette smoke for earaches, hot lemonade with booze, Samon Salve, and an overpowering experiment with menthol crystals in a furnace-connected vaporizer. Family activities included drag races, wrestling, golf, gathering nuts and grapes, and working hard in the garden and orchard. She recalls reading in an apple tree, his embarrassment-inducing old cars, his objections to girls attending college, Friday grocery and library trips, Christmas gifts, singing, trading, and inventive repairs. She also remembers helping him adjust and repair the television and his name for homes south of Coal Town Road: “Frogtown.”
Barbara's Chapter · When Clarence was fourteen
Clarence's Long Recovery in the Stone Shed
Dad's favorite full brother Clarence was helping take pigs to market when he jumped out of the truck on a hill, ran alongside it, and fell beneath a tire. After his lower abdomen was run over, the family took him home rather than to a doctor or hospital. He survived nine months of recuperation in a small stone shed without medical care.
Barbara's Chapter
Visits and Stories with Gramma Hobson
Trips to Geneseo Illinois brought visits with Gramma Hobson, Billy Johnson’s grandmother, whom Barbara remembers as tall and very charming. They loved hearing her stories about Diana’s time in Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
Barbara's Chapter
Dog Days Rest and a School Vaccine
Barbara remembers Bernie and Bob having ringworm and wearing nylon hose knotted on their heads. Mom required afternoon rest during the “Dog Days of August,” which Barbara thinks had something to do with Polio. In about third grade, nurses came to school and gave the children Polio vaccine, described as experimental at that time.
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
Facing Surgery and Finding Pride in a New Leg
After diagnosing localized scleroderma and abandoning treatments, doctors decided to amputate Diana's left leg, apparently to save her life. Her mother's practical explanation initially excited her, but her father's angry response left her ashamed; older siblings later told her he cried after the surgery. Diana recalls terror during ether anesthesia, pain in the absent leg afterward, restraints, and her initial refusal to use crutches. A therapist-led tour of other patients prompted her to walk. After discharge, her father closely followed construction of her first prosthetic leg in Davenport and learned to adjust it. His fascination and pride became a distinctive source of bonding.
Diana's Chapter · Early childhood through grade school
Strawberry Patches, Saturday Baths, and Childhood Play
Diana recalls Carol’s frightening knee injury, punishment for charcoal writing and throwing rocks, and fear during her mother’s pneumonia. She describes the small house before bedrooms and a bathroom were added, Saturday baths in kitchen tubs, outdoor games, dolls, jump rope, and Jacks. School memories include crying on her first day, health inspections, and a sixth-grade ribbon.
Diana's Chapter · Through January 28th, 1995, and afterward
Cherished Ornaments and the Comfort of White Birds
Diana remembers Lee's warmth, generosity, love of babies, and reverent annual unpacking of Mom's Christmas ornaments, especially the shamrock and gold fish ornaments she made him. Lee died of lung cancer on January 28th, 1995, Mom's birthday. Two hours before his death, Diana watched white birds fishing in the lake behind their home and felt Mom was coming to take Lee with her. White birds continued to bring Diana comfort in her grief.
Diana's Chapter · 1990–1995 and afterward
Kelly’s Courage and a Mother’s Pride
Kelly earned her Masters in Rehabilitation Mental Health Counseling in 1990. After being treated and cured of Hodgkin’s disease in 1995, she developed an interest in Traditional Chinese Medicine and earned a degree in it. Diana praises her daughter’s courage, compassion, determination, and tender heart.
Dee's Chapter · After retirement; strokes three years after retirement
Daddy’s Turn to Enjoy Life and His Last Concern
After years of providing for his children, Floyd bought a beloved motor scooter, a turquoise blue Comet, and a travel trailer, despite Ethel wanting nothing to do with them. Three years after retirement he suffered a series of strokes. He wanted to be baptized before dying and to see everyone. Delores recalls his insistence on seeing Iris’ husband Bill so he could ask Bill to take care of Ethel, a devotion she deeply admired.
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.
Dee's Chapter
A Red Quarantine Sign and Homemade Applesauce
With ten people living in the house, the narrator marvels that illness was not more frequent. Barbara contracted scarlet fever as a baby, and health inspectors posted a red QUARANTINE sign. The narrator thinks Daddy stayed elsewhere so he could work. Mom offered homemade applesauce after the unpleasant preventive medicine. The narrator also remembers disliking Cod Liver Oil.
Dee's Chapter
School Vaccines and Memories of Dr. Menton
The narrator recalls lining up in the junior high gymnasium for an oral polio vaccine and comparing smallpox vaccination scars with friends before school. The children all went to the hospital on the same day to have their tonsils removed by Dr. Menton, whether or not they were sick. He also made house calls. She recalls a scandal involving his wife's drug theft, arrest, and imprisonment, followed shortly by his departure from practice. Mom was upset to lose a doctor she valued.
Dee's Chapter · Childhood; includes recollections at ages two or three and six or seven
Jacks, Paper Dolls, and a Childhood Full of Imagination
Dee remembers a happy childhood despite wartime film shortages and few toys. She recalls punishment for peeling airplane wallpaper, fear after The Wizard of Oz, Virginia’s ketchup prank, and endless games with Pat and neighborhood children. Paper dolls from Iris comforted her during an ear operation. Bicycle rides, a clubhouse, swings, and imaginative play filled the days, although large dogs frightened her and Hannah’s dog once bit her.
Dee's Chapter · 1949; the Fifties; later recollections
The First Television and the Music That Stayed
The parents returned from Diana’s 1949 leg operation in Chicago with the family’s first black-and-white television. Dee contrasts television with the radio programs that had fed her imagination. Bernie bought a record player after starting window-display work, and Dee repeatedly played Patty Page’s The Tennessee Waltz. Bob and Sue danced, Barb and Margie adored Pat Boone, and Barbie and Diana played instruments. Years later, Diana’s warped violin was discarded, rescued by Mr. Sajben, repaired, and played by his son; Dee regretted being unable to recover it.
Dee's Chapter · Childhood through later reflection; calendar years not stated
Learning to Hear and Accept Herself
Delores describes her congenital left-ear deformity, hearing loss, early speech lessons, and a year at a special school where she felt accepted after being called stupid at regular school. Dr. Williamson reconstructed her ear at about eleven, partially restoring hearing, but missed schooling led to repeating a grade. At twelve, her first hearing aid revealed family voices, birds, and insects so vividly that she cried. Her father called her “Sputnik” because of the aid's modern technology. Later, Diana helped her understand that her impairment did not mean she was stupid and encouraged greater self-acceptance.
Carol's Chapter · late Forties or early Fifties
Experimental Treatment for Grandpa’s Injured Leg
While working as a fireman at Herman Nelson in downtown Moline, Grandpa Williams accidentally stepped into a vat of lye, severely burning and eating away the skin and flesh of his leg. Doctors used ACTH and Cortisone, described as experimental drugs at the time, to heal it. The Dispatch published an article about the treatment; Carol thinks it is in the family scrapbook.
Carol's Chapter · 1881 onward
Gramps’s Helping Hands and Generous Heart
Carol recounts Edward Williams’s birth, marriage to Agnes Tomitum, and family losses. After Agnes died of tuberculosis, he raised Mom and Lloyd alone and moved with them to Moline in 1925. Despite arguments with Daddy over drinking, Gramps was a valued family helper. He contributed two thousand dollars for a house addition, worked in the garden, helped with canning and childcare, and paid for Mom’s false teeth and occasional dresses. Mom’s “good” dresses for 500 Club meetings were cotton housedresses costing two dollars and seventy-nine cents in J. C. Penney’s basement.
Carol's Chapter · When Carol was about eight or nine years old
A Scooter Scar and a Strawberry Laugh
Carol fell from her scooter near the strawberry patch and badly cut her right knee. With Mom unable to leave Barbara, who had double pneumonia, Virginia arranged for Mrs. Hannah to drive them to the doctor. Carol received four clamps and retained a visible scar. Back home, her sisters, Marilyn, and Patty claimed to have found flesh from her leg, but Virginia identified it as strawberry—a mistake they still laughed about.
Carol's Chapter · The Forties
Clean Sheets, Warm Flannel, and a Family Doctor
Carol recalls doctors making house calls in the Forties. However sick the children were, Mom had them leave their beds so she could put on clean sheets before the doctor arrived. Mom also treated colds with Vicks and warm flannel cloths. Carol remembers Dr. Menton as their first doctor; he went to jail after being caught supplying illegal drugs to his wife. His successor, George Cook, provided medicine expecting more children to fall ill, visited frequently, and became a lasting family friend.
Carol's Chapter · 1944–1951
Banana Curls, School Games, and a Love of Reading
Carol remembers starting kindergarten at Roosevelt Grade School in Moline in 1944, riding in Mrs. Hogland’s improvised station-wagon seating, and wearing clothes her mother made and carefully arranged banana curls. Kindergarten included naps, a plaster handprint she still kept, and Drop the Handkerchief. Later memories include learning to read with Dick, Jane, and Baby Sally, riding the school bus, having tonsils removed with Marilyn and Bob, and loving fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Grafton. In fourth grade she learned time and multiplication, discovered boys, and began wearing glasses. In fifth grade she won a reading contest with over sixty books and became an enthusiastic comic-book reader. The section heading says First to Sixth Grade, although the account begins with kindergarten.
Carol's Chapter
Carol’s Extra Basket of Back-Then Memories
After the book was finished, Carol collected memories Bernie said there was not enough room to include. Her nostalgic list moves from Mom reading the funnies, homemade treats, and Dad's comparison of a Studebaker to a two-row corn picker to Bob's Davy Crockett hat, Bernie's stilts, school dances, fashions, childhood games, illnesses, street names, music, and remembered entertainment quotations.
Carol's Chapter · April 1988
A Florida Visit and a Last Tender Touch
After a couple of years of severe abdominal pain and inconclusive tests, Mom visited Diana and Lee in Florida in April 1988. They helped her relax and took her on a cruise, but the pain continued. Diana persisted in seeking medical help until an x-ray revealed a large ovarian cyst wrapped around blood vessels. A complete hysterectomy found no cancer, but Mom could not recover and died of heart failure at seventy-seven on April 22, 1988, in Coral Springs, Florida. Carol cherishes the hand caresses they exchanged while Mom was on a respirator. Mom is buried beside Daddy at Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois.
Carol's Chapter · Christmas Eve, 1967–May 23, 1968
Caring for Daddy Through His Last Months
Daddy suffered a stroke on Christmas Eve, 1967. Not realizing its seriousness, the family went to Iris and Bill's while Mom stayed with him. After Mom called Iris to report that he was worse, Lee and Bob took him to the hospital. Following two weeks there, his agitation prompted a search for other care. The family rejected St. Anthony's Hospital in Rock Island because patients were smoking while Daddy struggled to breathe. Mom tried caring for him at home with help from the girls and daily visits from Virginia, but the burden became exhausting. He was eventually taken to East Moline State Hospital. He died at sixty-three on May 23, 1968, surrounded by Mom and all the children, and is buried next to Mom at Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois.
Carol's Chapter · 1944–1988
Chris, the Sunshine of Carol's Life
Carol recalls her 1965 marriage to Donald M. Boney, Chris's birth in 1967, and the joy her son brought her. After the 1972 divorce, she and Chris moved in with her Mom. She remembers Don as a supportive father, recounts his Navy Corpsman service and decorations, and records his death after years of cancer.
Bob's Chapter · Junior high school–1996
Dances, Sue, and a Life Together
Robert recalls his first dance in ninth grade, new clothes from Mom, bus travel with his date, and dances at Coolidge Junior High and the Moline swimming pool. Through his high school friend Bob Warner, he met Bob's sister Sue. They dated for six years and married in 1960. He describes thirty-six years of marriage until her death from cancer in 1996 and forty-three wonderful years together. He celebrates her organizing, friendships, their trips and regular nights out, her care for Steve and Brian, and her love for their four grandchildren.
Bernie's Chapter
Railroad Treasures and Childhood Days by the River
In a sequence of childhood memories, the narrator recalls locomotives, Grampa's walks to kindergarten, gathering fallen coal for Mommy's stove, and finding treasures near the foundry. He remembers his fifth birthday, first-grade lessons, a printing prize, and a teacher locking out Arnold for lateness. Life in a big white house includes celebrations, baby Carol's arrival while Mommy is sick, Mommy returning with Baby Delores, games with Bobby and Iris, penny treats, a tavern visit, May baskets, and the fascination of a river the children are forbidden to approach.
Bernie's Chapter · Childhood; ringworm episode after W.W.II
Family Remedies and Memories of Childhood Illness
Bernard recalls ringworm treatments for himself and Bob, crediting Daddy's use of Kerodin with becoming a standard treatment after the Arp doctors heard of it. He remembers Daddy's foot fungus and recurring malaria, Gramps's weather-sensitive rheumatism, and Mom deliberately exposing the children to whooping cough. Despite saying he cannot remember childhood sickness, he recalls ringworm, measles, and chicken pox. Other memories include Mom's sewing injuries, sunburn and bursitis, his own dog-bite scar, a girl's scarlet fever that he tentatively attributes to Carol, and the family's belief that childhood vegetables would protect them from cancer.
Bernie's Chapter · Age twelve; later, the day before and day Kennedy was shot
A Blue Merry-Go-Round and News from the Sofa
Dad told stories of pulling childhood teeth with a string and door knob. Bernard's own tooth extraction under gas at twelve produced a vivid vision of a blue merry-go-round above a blue lake. Fear of another anesthetic experience led him to avoid the other children's shared tonsil-removal day. He eventually had his tonsils removed the day before Kennedy was shot and remembers eating potato chips on his sofa when Walter Cronkite announced the shooting.
Bernie's Chapter · When Diana was a little girl
Diana's Courage and Nightly Prayers
Bernard recalls loving Diana deeply and praying every night for her painful leg to heal, fearing she might lose it. He calls her illness the worst thing that happened to the family, while crediting her bravery and constant smile with making the tragedy bearable.
Bernie's Chapter · 1988 meeting; 1982 departure; 1993 death (dates as written)
Remembering Life and Travels with Larry
After recalling about sixteen years living with Rick, Bernard describes meeting Larry Savitz on a Caribbean cruise with Rick in 1988. Larry brought singing, friendships, sign language, dancing, parties, and cruises into Bernard’s life. Especially treasured were visits to Larry’s Uncle Irv’s beach-view condo in Aculpolco. Bernard also states that Larry returned to Philadelphia in 1982, contradicting the meeting date. Larry died there of AIDS in 1993, and Bernard remembers him with affection.
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
From a Second Mother to a Cherished Friend
Iris reflects on her second-mother role in childhood and the friendships she now cherishes. She recalls Bernie's broken tea sets and playful dish-towel chases, taking little Barbara everywhere, soothing Diana's ulcerated leg with lard, helping reposition baby Carol's head until the neck grew stronger, regretting Delores's scoldings after her hearing problem was discovered, and understanding quiet Bob's pointing without his needing to speak.
History of the Guild Family · 1904–1907 and Floyd's youth
Dad's Beginnings and Family Resemblances
The family recounts Floyd Raymond Guild's farm birth, parents, inherited appearance, and full and half-siblings. They remember the infant death of Harold Herman and state that eight of Olive's ten children lived well into old age. The passage contains conflicting ages and dates for Olive and calls the Vosburg children both half-siblings and stepsiblings.
History of the Guild Family · 1801 and later legends
Jason Fairbanks and the Legends After the Hanging
Jason Fairbanks, youngest son of Ebenezer Fairbanks, was hanged on September 1, 1801 for murdering Elizabeth Fales. The narrative recounts his physical impairment, intellectual pursuits, claims of innocence and a failed double suicide, escape to Canada, reported confession, recapture and trial. It calls him 'Jonathan' during the escape account without explanation. A storm interrupted the hanging, and subsequent legends claimed that friends revived him and that he escaped to South America; the narrator compares these tales to those about Elvis Presley.
History of the Guild Family · 1445–1904
Carrie’s Roots and a Treasured Lock of Red Hair
The family traces Carrie’s Fairbanks ancestry and Newton’s Guild ancestry, notes the neighboring family grave sections near Dedham’s old St. Paul Church, and recounts Carrie’s birth, marriage, children and death. A lock of her red hair passed from Belle to Barbara Guild Miller. Floyd was born after both grandparents had died.
History of the Guild Family
A Family Resemblance Remembered
Family stories said Newton passed an underdeveloped ear and cheek to Adah, who was proud of the resemblance; similar transmission was believed to involve Floyd’s children and Bernal’s son. The passage identifies the condition as Hemifacial Microsomia, gives an occurrence rate of about one in 5,600 births, and asserts that the family’s repeated occurrences were chance rather than genetic inheritance.
History of the Guild Family · 1904–1925 and later recollections
Hard Work, Strong Tempers, and Lasting Family Ties
The family describes poverty, shared winter coats, uncertain meals, Dan’s mechanical ingenuity and repair shop, and the heavy household work borne by Olive and her daughters. Severe arthritis and unproved suspicions of infidelity colored Olive’s marriage and behavior. Recollections differ sharply: some emphasize harsh discipline and complaints, while grandchildren recall kindness and others see a devoted couple with stubborn tempers. Dan’s brief 1925 departure ended in his return, and they never divorced. The narrative also remembers affectionate sibling bonds, Floyd’s signature practice, and Olive’s willingness to shelter daughters between marriages. Sweeping judgments about the Vosburg and Guild children are presented as family opinions rather than independently established facts.
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 · 1917–1951 and later family visits
From the Old Farm to a New Start in Moline
Family memories follow Dan and Olive on the Falk property, the mysterious driveway inscription, Myrtle's minnow sales, and Bessie's diphtheria quarantine and marriage. After Dan lost the property, Clarence moved to Bessie's home and Floyd stayed with Uncle Bernie, learning horse care and practical jokes. Gus Falk helped Floyd move to Moline and find work in 1921. Relatives admired his success, and visits and reunions continued through his parents' later years. The passage preserves contradictory dates in Olive's calendar account and the boys' refusal to admit writing the inscription.
History of the Guild Family · 1875 and later; most events undated
Sophrona's Children and the Love That Helped Edith Heal
Adah Sophrona Guild Beckman died of tuberculosis at 38, leaving eight surviving children after Samuel's fatal poisoning at two. Her widower Frank married Clara, who severely abused little Edith and was imprisoned after Frank discovered the abuse. The family concealed the imprisonment with a brain-tumor story. Frank later married Mary, whose love helped Edith recover. Edith became a tender mother, and her daughter Gerri supplied details. The account also recalls Adah's lost inheritance and Frank's later Wabedo Lake resort.
History of the Guild Family · About 1926–1968
Floyd and Ethel: Dancing, Work, and Seven Children
Floyd and Ethel met on a roller-skating blind date, courted through dancing and picnics, and married in Moline in 1928 with Frank Melton and Elva as attendants. They raised seven children. The passage says Floyd worked his entire life for John Deere, while also recording a roughly year-long Depression layoff when Lloyd helped him obtain WPA truck-driving work. Remembered as hardworking, playful, outspoken, and devoted to family, Floyd died of acute kidney failure in 1968 after an earlier severe stroke and is buried beside Ethel.
History of the Guild Family · 1916–after 1922
Loss and Growing Up Too Soon
Ralph died of double pneumonia despite a snowstorm sleigh journey to hospital and a blood transfusion. Agnes died in 1922 after tuberculosis and complications from swine flu. Ed moved Ethel and Lloyd to a boarding house run by Mrs. Howe. As he began drinking heavily, eleven-year-old Ethel took on care for herself, Lloyd and her father. Ed continued managing a diner and dance hall; Ethel recalled being caught by him kissing a dance partner in a car.
History of the Guild Family · About 1921; after 1930
A Frightened Train Ride to Grandma's Quilts
While Agnes was in a sanitarium, Ethel and Lloyd traveled fearfully by train to spend four or five months with Michael and Millisa Lehman in Astoria. Lizzie was remembered for her quilts and Michael for strict discipline. Ethel did not question the difference between her father's surname and theirs; Mary later told her the unspecified “bigamy” story after Iris' birth in 1930.
History of the Guild Family · School years–1988
Brownie’s Dancing Days and a Lifetime of Mothering
Despite grief at home and being refused a college education, Ethel found happiness in friends, dancing, and work. Mary Hill introduced her to Floyd, whom she married in 1928. Together they raised seven children, while Ethel survived a serious goiter and worked several jobs. In widowhood she enjoyed crafts, cards, grandchildren, and travel, including a cherished 1979 European holiday funded by Bernie. She died during a visit to Diana in 1988, remembered for her unqualified love.
History of the Guild Family · 1926–1965 and later
Uncle Lloyd’s Visits and Cocoa-Dunked Sandwiches
Lloyd moved to Moline, married and divorced, and later lived in Savannah, Illinois. His Army Signal Corps service included injuries during an amphibious landing in New Guinea, followed later by lung surgeries. The account says a 1965 surgery kept him from his father's funeral, although Ed's death is elsewhere dated 1953. Lloyd eventually disappeared from the family's lives, but his beloved visits left a lasting breakfast tradition of sandwiches dunked in cocoa.
History of the Guild Family · 1926–1953
Grampa’s Helping Hands at the House on 39th Street
Ed Williams became a permanent member of Ethel and Floyd's household around 1934, helping raise seven children and handling housework, gardening, and canning. He contributed earnings and savings toward enlarging the house. A severe acid burn at work ended his later employment, though treatment healed his leg. The family remembered his affection and help, alongside episodes when Floyd had to retrieve him after drinking. He died of a heart attack in 1953 and was buried without a headstone.
History of the Guild Family · 1925–1965
Dances, Seven Children, and Grampa’s Helping Hands
After moving to Moline, Ethel met Floyd through Mary Hill and married him in 1928. They raised seven children, while Ethel worked several jobs and survived goiter surgery. Ed became a permanent member of their household, contributing childcare, housework and money, despite drinking and a serious workplace injury. Lloyd served in the Army Signal Corps, suffered lasting injuries and eventually lost contact with the family, leaving fond memories and a cocoa-dunking breakfast tradition. The passage gives conflicting dates for Ed’s death and funeral.
History of the Guild Family · 1909–1925
Red Hair, Snowshoes, and a Mother’s Handmade Knickers
Ethel’s early life in Newburg combined material comfort and her Norwegian mother’s skilled sewing with severe winters. Ralph’s death and Agnes’ tuberculosis disrupted the family, sending Ethel and Lloyd on a frightening train journey to their grandparents in Astoria. After Agnes died, Ed’s grief and drinking left young Ethel caring for her family. Friends and dancing brought happiness, but her father refused her wish to attend college and sent her to work.
History of the Guild Family · After Floyd’s death–1988
Cards, Christmas Ornaments, and a Long-Awaited European Journey
Widowed Ethel maintained a full life of handcrafts, Christmas ornament making, evening cards and helping family members after divorces. She visited Diana in Florida annually. In 1979 Bernie fulfilled her dream of Europe with a visit to Carol, Charlie and Chris in Mainz and a family trip to Denmark. Ethel died during her 1988 Florida visit and was buried beside Floyd, with an incorrect birth year on her headstone that had never troubled her.