BY-WAYS - 10/26/50 - Cleveland Visit by George C. Marshall - 12:30 A.M., Oct. 20, 1950

Greetings!

Now that a garrulous tenant has left the hotel office - in search of rye toast and tea - I'll have a chat with you. Probably I'll be a bit garrulous myself, giving you some juicy morsels of gossip. While the air is still full of the ozone of the Pennsylvania hills, let me joyfully record the names of the bearers. Ina and Clyde Lemon made us a surprise visit last Monday - just two nights and a day. Besides bringing home-grown fruits and vegetables and eggs, they always bring good-will, which is something to keep the heart warm long after the visit is ended. A little bird told me that some of you are prodding your relatives, Cleveland-bound, to stop in and see us. Let me state here and now that any friend from Saltsburg, old or new, will always be welcome. Because the home is not ours, we may not be able to invite you to stay all night (much as we'd love to). But you can surely come and break bread with us, see the beautiful antiques, and bring us news of the Old Home Town.

I still have to smile over Mae Hudson McCall's confession last July. She had wondered if we Taylors might be a little "high-toned." She certainly found out that Virgil and I are as plain and comfortable as an old shoe. We are always immensely flattered when some Press reader looks us up. At the end of this letter I'm going to put down our address and telephone number. I hope you'll keep it for future use.

It must be a month since our new Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall came to Cleveland, to address the Red Cross workers and interested citizens. It was a commitment he had made while National Chairman of the Red Cross; he did not allow his new and arduous duties as Defense Secretary to alter that promise. There is a man! Quietly he told of the 35,000-mile tour he made, visiting Red Cross headquarters in (as I remember) 50-odd key cities. He had his finger on the Red Cross pulse of America. And in his brief term as national chairman he must certainly have raised the spiritual tone of the Red Cross as surely as he raised its red corpuscle count. That evening you felt that you were in the presence of a man who is absolutely incorruptible. Shady as our own State Department may be, I should say that never in the history of the world have there stood, in one generation, three men of the stature of Marshall, MacArthur, and Eisenhower.

Now the Community Chest has its lid open in Cleveland - to receive the flow of dollars from the hands and hearts of public-spirited citizens. Our goal this year is $5,800,000. As a volunteer worker in a small section of Hampshire Rd. I have made an interesting observation: The bigger the television set in the home, the smaller the donation.

Now there isn't much space left for "Stories of Night Life in a Big City." Suppose, rather than crowd the space, I reserve these tales until the next issue. With this sample I will leave you: Two sisters, 17 and 19, have run away from home and their widowed mother because an older brother, who seems to own the house, beats these girls and sometimes locks them out. The poor mother has just had a nervous breakdown. These girls, staying here, are my special concern, and their salvation, my mission.

Sincerely,
Florence B. Taylor
2907 Hampshire Rd.,
Cleveland Hts. 18, O. Fairmont - 1-2581

Next - Terminated at the Knickerbocker
BY-WAYS Table of Contents