Coming Home, Leaving Home

While Fremont and Carrie Price had hopes that their fallen soldier would soon be laid to rest in his native land, Melvin Guernsey had hopes of getting away from his native land — specifically, from the cold winters of Lake County, Indiana.


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Melvin Guernsey had been born in 1891 and raised on the farm of his parents, David and Stella Guernsey, in southern Ross Township near the county line. On August 17, 1910, he married Verna* Strong. By the time they were planning their Florida stay, they had two young sons, and would leave behind the grave of an infant daughter who died in 1911.



But they hadn't left yet, so they probably attended the Guernsey family reunion:


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The "home of C.S. Guernsey" would be (I believe) the farm of Chester and Nancy Guernsey, on the southern border of Ross Township, close to the county line.

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[6/19/2013 update] Below is a photograph that, according to handwritten notes on the original, shows a "Guernsey reunion taken about 1920." No one in the photo is identified.


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Image courtesy of the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society.

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*The 1930 census-taker calls her "Thelma," but all other references I can find agree on "Verna." I cannot find Melvin and Verna Guernsey in the 1920 Census.


Sources:
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ Lake County, Indiana, Birth Records Index, 1882-1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 26 Aug. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 19 Aug. 1910; 30 June 1911; 27 Aug. 1920.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 26 Aug. 1920.