Julia Child with OSS colleagues

The OSS group that included Julia Child and her future husband Paul found themselves in a flood in mid-August 1945.  But what they were encountering was nothing compared to the civilians.  Chinese villages of mud huts were “melting like chocolate.”  Farmers drowned in their own fields.  As the flooding began to subside, Japan was hit with the second atomic bomb.

The incoming Russian soldiers only added to the Pandora’s box that was already opened in China.  The OSS HQ in Kunming went into overdrive.  Eight mercy missions were launched to protect the 20,000 American and Allied POW’s and about 15,000 civilian internees.

Elizabeth McIntosh w/ colleagues during Kunming flood

All the frantic preparations – for rescue operations, food and medical drops and evacuation – had to undertaken despite the weather conditions.  Adding to the drama was the uncertain fate of the 6-man OSS team dispatched…

The following memories are quotes from “Reminiscences of Alfred D.  Guion, written in 1960 while he was on a four-months “around the world” freighter trip.

            Alfred Duryee Guion

This leads me to another episode which happened a few years later during my senior year at N.Y.U., and which, if followed through, might have made a considerable difference in my life – – one of those “opportunity knocks once” things.

My college instructor in accounting, Mr. Wildman, I personally loved very much.  One evening he asked me to stay after class and then told me a friend of his, private secretary to John D. Rockefeller, Jr,, had asked him to recommend someone for the job of private secretary to John D. Sr, and he, Wildman, had thought of me and asked if I might be interested.  Here was a glamorous opportunity worth looking into, so…

Manchurian operation map

Stalin’s simple purpose for declaring war against Japan was for territorial gain, for which he was prepared to pay heavily.  Before launching their assault in Manchuria, the Soviets made provision for 540,000 casualties, including 160,000 dead.  This was a forecast almost certainly founded upon an assessment of Japanese strength, similar to what the US estimated for a landing at Kyushu.

Since 1941, Stalin had maintained larger forces on the Manchurian border than the Western Allies ever knew about.  In the summer of 1945, he reinforced strongly, to create a mass sufficient to bury the Japanese.  Three thousand locomotives labored along the thin Trans-Siberian railway.  Men, tanks and matérial made a month-long trek from eastern Europe.

MANCHURIA: RED ARMY, 1945.
A Soviet marine waving the ensign of the Soviet navy as Soviet airplanes fly overhead after the victory over the Japanese occupation troops in Port Arthur, South Manchuria…

Kenya and Tanzania – February 1988

Beautiful and promising wall-painting in a petrol station at the Kenya-Tanzania border!

The trip in a few words.

Itinerary

Nairobi City (Kenya) – Ngorongoro Crater (Tanzania) – Manyara Lake (Tanzania) – Nairobi City (Kenya)

Participants

[1] 4WD – driver; [2]Xray – wife and game spotter – in Land Rover; [3]ScoutSpirit – driver; [4]PinkShade – partner and story teller; [5]Khanga – mum of PinkShade – in Isuzu Trooper.

The team getting ready, early in the morning, around the Land Rover (PinkShade missing)

 The trip in detail.

Saturday, 20^th of February – Towards the mythical crater – Getting in the mood and freezing!

In two cars, on a beautiful Saturday morning, we left Nairobi for Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara. A light spirit invaded me as we set off. Initially nothing special to mention, except for the very good road…

At about mid-day on the 25th of February 1645, two weeks after the siege began, Sydenham was informed that a party of Royalist horse was escorting several wagon loads of supplies into Weymouth, and he decided to send out a troop of his own horse to attack the convoy in the hope of capturing a wagon or two of much needed food. It is possible that the wagons were sent by Goring himself as a gift for Dyve, and the two groups clashed somewhere near the little village of Westham, to the west of Weymouth.

Incredibly, Sydenham’s horsemen succeeded in completely routing the entire royalist escort, who fled in disarray off towards their comrades in Weymouth, leaving the Roundhead victors to try and turn the wagons about and head for the comparative safety of Melcombe with their prize. Sir Lewis Dyve had been observing this lamentable turn of events from…

Last June I  read about a Challenge, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, and I was intrigued. I decided to take up the challenge. Some Ancestors may take more than one week, but I still intend to write about 52 Ancestors. I hope you enjoy reading about My Ancestors as much as I am looking forward to researching and writing about them.

(1) Alfred Duryee Guion; (2) Alfred Peabody Guion; (3) Judith Anne Guion

Alfred Duryee Guion

Alfred Beck Guion

Ella (Duryee) Guion

Excerpts From Reminiscences of Alfred D Guion:

In 1884, the year I was born, that part of Fifth Ave., New York City, where my parents lived, was “uptown” which meant somewhere above 59^th St.

                   Alfred Duryee and Elsie May Guion about 1895

From the time I was 3 years old until I was married, we lived in Mount…

The following memories are quotes from “Reminiscences of Alfred D.  Guion, written in 1960 while he was on a four-months “around the world” freighter trip.

            Alfred Duryee Guion

Also about this time I left the Smelting Company and took another stenographic job at a higher salary with the Estate of Collis P.  Huntington, one of the country’s great railroad builders.  His adopted son, Archer M.  Huntington, also a millionaire, used the office for his headquarters.  One day I was called into the manager’s private office and told that Archer M.  wanted me to go down that morning to the American Art Gallery’s auction sale and purchase, in my own name, a set of fine Sheraton chairs which were to be put up for sale, and for which purpose he gave me a thousand dollars in cash.  I had never had as much money as…