Oral Guy Layman (1894 - 1964)

Born 12 Jul 1894 in Wheeling, West Virginia

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Died 10 Jan 1964 at age 69 in Newport News, Virginia

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Biography

Oral Guy Layman

Oral Guy Layman had a hard time of it when he was a boy, and his relatives gave up on him. They said he was “going to come to a bad end.” He was born in Wheeling, West Virginia on July 12, 1894. His full name was Oral Guy Layman, but he never liked the name “Oral,” and always used just the initial. He signed his name: O. Guy Layman. His mother, Clara Wilson Layman, died when he was two years old. She was only 27. For the next seven years he lived sometimes with his father, but a lot of time he was staying with aunts and cousins (who thought he was going to end up in reform school).

His father, Sanford Layman, was what they called a “ne’r-do-well.” Not quite a bum, but he never worked at any profession. He didn’t know how to take care of little Guy.

In Clarksburg there is a street called Traders Avenue. Around 1900 it was called Traders Alley and was full of big wagons, called drays, that were pulled by teams of huge horses. The drays corresponded to the trailer on an eighteen-wheeler, and the horses were the tractor.

Little Guy liked horses, and one of his favorite places was Traders Alley. It was a dangerous playground for a six year old boy. He could have been crushed by one of the big barrels that flour and other staples were shipped in; he could have been run over, or he could have been stepped on by one of the horses. Their hooves were as big as dinner plates. But Sanford, his father, didn’t seem to worry about him very much.

One day, Guy climbed into one of the drays to get out of the hot sun and fell asleep on the sacks of feed that were in there. When he woke up, the dray was halfway to Salem, which is fourteen miles west of Clarksburg. The driver eventually took him back to Clarksburg, after he made his delivery in Salem. The round trip took all day, and it was after dark when they got back. Neither Guy nor his father thought this was any big deal.

After this incident, the aunts and cousins started taking him in, but none of them could put up with him for very long. One of the words they used to describe him was “hellion”. When Guy was nine years old, he wrote a letter to his father. At that time he was staying in Grafton, probably with one of the aunts or cousins. Here is what he wrote.

923 Boyd St. Grafton December 12, 1903

Dear Papa,

I received your letter and was glad to hear from you. I am going to school every day. How is Georgie and Madeline? Mary is been sick. My pigs is getting along all right. All they want is plenty to eat. Papa, I want to come out there Christmas. Won’t you come after me? I can’t come by My self. I will let you know later. I don’t know jest when school will let out but will let you know later. I would like to have a new suit. My suit is getting so it is not fit for Sunday school. I have to wear it all the time to school. I went up to town and got a pocketbook for a present but have no money to put in it. Papa, write as soon as you get this and tell me if you are coming after me. Papa, send your letter to 923 Boyd St.

Good by from Guy

Georgie and Madeline were probably some of his cousins. Guy had a brother named Allen, who drowned at a young age. He was delivering The Saturday Evening Post, and fell into a rain-swollen creek. He had one sister, Rose Ella. She married a man named Charles Straight of Fairmont, and had one daughter Bettie. Rose Ella died young, of diabetes. Bettie was living in Fairmont as of the 1980s. She would have been born in the late 1920s.

When Guy was nine he went to live on a farm on Hall’s Run near Salem. The farmer’s name was John Furner. He took Guy in and gave him his “board and keep.” This means that he had a roof over his head and food to eat. In return he had to help with the farm work. The farmer said that if he stayed on the farm until he was eighteen, he would give him a horse and saddle.

He had to work very hard, but the “Old Man” and his wife were kind to him. He went to a one-room school. It may have been called Laurel Run School. He stayed in school for three years after he finished the eighth grade work. Finally the schoolmaster told him that he had taught him all he could, and that he ought to continue his education at the Academy at Salem College. Guy was then sixteen.

He asked Mr. Furner for permission to leave. The “Old Man” hated to see him go, but finally gave him permission. He didn’t give him the horse and saddle, however. A bargain is a bargain.

He went to Salem Academy for two years. He probably supported himself by working for the Salem electric light company. He helped install the first electric lights in Salem, and this is probably when it was. While he was at the Academy he was on the baseball team. He played catcher and his fingers were strange looking because several of them got broken during this time. He also had his nose broken at least once. Catching was a dangerous position in those days. They didn’t wear the safety equipment that they do now.

He started to go to college, but then decided to enlist in the army. He and several other Salem boys were sent to Texas. The army was then engaged in fighting a Mexican Revolutionary, Pancho Villa. But Guy never went in combat or saw any of the Villas men. He always thought the alkaline water in Texas caused his hair to fall out. Up until then, he had a wonderful head of sandy-colored hair. Actually, it was probably hereditary baldness. He lost most of his hair before his daughter was born. Guy and his friends all returned to Salem eventually, and remained lifelong friends. One of them, Emory Smith, married one of the "Montgomery Belles," a group of young society women in Montgomery, Alabama, later immortalized in the stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Guy was acquainted with Lieutenant Scott Fitzgerald, but they were not friends.

By the time his enlistment was up, the United States had joined England, France, etc., in World War I. Guy stayed in the army, and went to Officer Candidate School. The fighting was over by the time he finished OCS, but he made several trips to France as Personnel Officer of a troop ship, the S. S. Radnor, bringing the troops back home, before he was discharged in October, 1919. At that time he had the rank of First Lieutenant.

During this time, he became engaged to Mary Harkness, who was then living in Salem WV with her mother and sister. She was originally from Washington DC, but in March of 1914, Mary’s father Robert Henry Harkness died suddenly of a heart attack. Although he had a good job with the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., apparently there was no insurance and little or nothing in savings. Her mother, Anna Harkness, was forced to sell her nice home on Irving Street, NW. Her sister Cornelia (Nealie), age 29, who had recently graduated from Madame Von Unscheld's Music School, was able to get a job teaching at Salem College, a Seventh Day Baptist institution. Anna Harkness, then in her 50's, and Mary, age 20, accompanied her. Guy happened to be walking along Main Street in Salem, not far from the college. It may have been one of those lovely soft evenings in May, around Graduation time, when the honeysuckle, the mock orange and the cabbage roses were filling the air with their intoxicating scents. Young Mary Harkness was visiting the Powell house (which later became the Gum house), sitting in the swing on the porch. The young man in uniform came down the street, and they were introduced by mutual friends.

Meanwhile, Cornelia left Salem College and went to teach at Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her mother Anna and sister Mary in tow. Mary got a job in a bank to help out with the family finances. Apparently her engagement to Guy was not viewed with great joy. He was certainly personable and intelligent, but he was a "country boy," and an orphan. Even after he finished his college education in late middle-age, the "country boy" lingered in his speech. Possibly they were reluctant to let go of her, or, just perhaps, they thought she was marrying "beneath her station." Although the family arrived in the U.S. before the turn of the century (the 18th century, that is) they had a very "English" view of class distinctions. Maybe it came of being so well-read. Anna Harkness, Nealie, and to some extent, Mary, remained prim Victorian ladies throughout their lives. They were ladies in "reduced circumstances," of course, but still refined gentlewomen. Mary used to admonish her daughter Rosemary that she was "to the manor born," and should act accordingly. It never occurred to Rosemary that this might have been spoken tongue in cheek. Besides, never having seen it written (until a "Britcom" with that name appeared on Public TV in the 1990s) she thought it was "to the manner born," and meant that one should have good manners come Hell or high water.

But love will find a way, and Guy followed the family to Michigan, and they eloped to Toledo and honeymooned at Niagara Falls. He and Mary had one daughter, Rosemary Theresa Layman.

Eventually, Guy rejoined the Army and became a Colonel during World War II. When the war was over, he retired. He also went back to school at Salem College, and received his degree in the same year that his daughter received her degree in English from West Virginia University.

Written originally by Rosemary Layman Gainer In various documents and letters stashed away. Combined, edited and concluded by Tina Gainer Barton With input from Alice Gainer Standin.

Sources

• U.S., Social Security Applications, Claims Index, 1936-2007 and Virginia Death Records, and Military Record Report of Separation