A Greystone Family Account—Part 2
If you missed Part 1 of our feature story on Mary Lynne Arthur’s family story, you can read it here.
Times were changing in the onset to the Great Depression, and though Russell and Mary Arthur had each other, still they suffered as much as anyone in the uncertain economy.
However, a particular bright spot came in August of 1938, as they welcomed their first-born daughter, Mary Lynne, in Santurce, Puerto Rico.
At the same time, Edwin Griffith’s health was worsening—until eventually he could no longer receive regular medical treatment at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington and still manage his groves. This period of unrest brought multiple sacrifices for the family, including the fact that Edwin was forced to sell major land holdings in Trujillo Alto for only ten percent of their actual value. Unable to wait around for a better offer, he left his beloved Puerto Rico for the last time in 1940, never to return, and he passed away in September 1942 at the hospital.
For a frame of reference: It was just a few years before this next account begins (1935) that Lucy Armstrong Moltz and her daughter, Lucy, Jr. officially donated the Armstrong House in Savannah to be used as a school of higher learning.
The grandbaby that Lucy is holding in the photo was Walter Johnson, Jr.; according to the Savannah Morning News, Walter Johnson Sr. held the child up so that he could pull the cord to open the curtain. Lucy Armstrong was pregnant here with the couples’ second child, Loran, and in fact, went into labor later that same day. Read more here.
Meanwhile, for part of 1940 and most of the following year, Russell was on another prolonged business trip across South America. Upon his return in August of 1941, Singer offered him a transfer (and promotion) to Barranquilla, Colombia. Among many other tales in her memoir, Mary Lynne recounts one that her mother shared with her about this time:
“ My mother and I [a toddler] were living in New York while my father was away…and she was four months pregnant with her second child. My father retrieved us from New York, and we returned to Puerto Rico to pack for transfer.
It was December 5, 1941, when we set sail. Inclement weather had delayed the ship’s departure a day. On December 7 a radio transmission received in transit revealed that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The country was now at war with Japan.
Then a German submarine was detected in the Caribbean where we sailed, and all ships at sea were instructed to maintain “black-out status.” So we sailed in the dark for two nights and arrived in San Juan just in time to pack for the transfer.
The war was on in Europe and all American military families were leaving the island. We Arthurs had to pack all our belongings for transfer to Colombia.
Mother felt ill with her pregnancy, and heavy lifting didn’t help. We flew by seaplane to Venezuela and from there, it took a one-day boat trip to our new home in Baranquilla.”
Unfortunately, sad news came next: “Mother recalls the first two weeks there with great sadness. One night she awoke to a sharp pain. She lay in bed, sheets sticking to her abdomen, curled into a ball of pain. Cramps struck first and then came contractions until, several hours later, she miscarried. When my father returned from work, she implored him to seek help. The doctor arrived and examined the fetus. ‘It was a boy, Señora. I’m sorry to say that you have lost a son.’ The doctor took the dead fetus with him, and there was no funeral.”
Mary Lynne nonetheless remembers vivid and happy details of their new home:
“The new house, a Spanish colonial villa, was built on one floor with a long hallway down the center. From it a living room and a dining room ran the length of the house, from front to rear. French doors opened onto the hall and several bedrooms ran along the other side of this corridor.
There was a veranda at the front of the house and a chicken coop in the back yard. The kitchen and servantsʼ quarters were also at the back of the house.
Butterflies fluttered about the gardens in a profusion of color, and huge palm trees, like emerald combs, shaded the house from the relentless equatorial sun.
I remember those butterflies. They fluttered about like pieces of colored tissue paper. Scorpions, centipedes, tarantulas and other exotic varieties of arachnids accompanied the butterflies. They hid in every corner corner─on the walls, in the bathtub and especially in shoes. There were also the occasional caiman or alligator and many poisonous reptiles.”
Twenty percent of the planet’s butterfly species call Colombia home.
The stay in Colombia was short-lived—just six months. With the momentum of the war increasing, Russell Arthur received a charge for active duty as a Second Lieutenant to the Army at West Point.
With his prior ROTC training at Depauw University, he would be immediately commissioned as an officer. And since he was bilingual, he was assigned a language teaching assignment at the Academy and sent ahead to the States with priority status.
Mary and Mary Lynne, meanwhile, would have to wait for transport. Many Americans caught unaware by the war had been on vacation or working in Colombia, and the demand for seats on any Stateside-bound flights was high. Eventually it was their turn.
At first, Mary and Mary Lynne stayed in Bethesda, MD, with her parents. It wasn’t until summer 1942 that they were able to join Russell in Highland Falls, where he still awaited assignment of living quarters at the U. S. Military Academy.
During this time, Mary became pregnant, and her father Edwin’s health began to fail (he passed in mid 1943, just months before the birth of their second son, Johnny, on October 22, 1943).
In her memoir, Mary Lynne recounts many typical childhood memories, with just a brief nod to the activity happening all over the globe: “The years at West Point were relatively sheltered from the war, with only an occasional blackout air raid practice…when the sirens went off, West Point would be blanketed in darkness.”
She further recollects: “We left West Point in June of 1946, after the atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war finally ended. My father had accepted a position with Westinghouse International, and his assignment was in their Mexico City office.”
Part 3 will be coming soon!
Read Part 3 a href=”https://historictoxaway.org/mary-lynne-arthur-2/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”here.
