Guilford Carlile Babcock Jr

Guilford Carlile Babcock, junior, the son of Guilford Carlile Babcock and Alida May Kelsey Babcock was born on January 6, 1899 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the first son and third child for the young couple, who had recently moved to the Boston area from Evansville, Indiana. Guilford senior was a taster for the Arbuckle Coffee Company, and later became a salesman for them.

Guilford Carlile Babcock, Junior
Guilford Carlile Babcock, Junior

Carlile, as he was called, was baptized at the Harlem Presbyterian Church, by the minister, Daniel Russell, on October 12, 1902. The family had moved again, this time to New York City and a job with the New York Life Insurance Company. In the Babcock Genealogy published in 1903, the family address is 1917 Park Row Building, New York City.

Mary, Alida, and Carlile Babcock - 1904
Mary, Alida, and Carlile Babcock - 1904

The following year, the family set sail with a private secretary for the Union of South Africa. They spent a year in Capetown, as Guilford organized the office for New York Life. Many pictures were taken of Carlile and his sisters, Alida and Mary during this time.

There is a wonderful collection of snapshots, some from on shipboard, and others from Capetown, including one of Alida in a rickshaw contraption. Carlile is shown with his best friend, a black boy about a half a head taller than he.

Carlile Babcock and his South African friend
Carlile Babcock and his South African friend

Carlile severely injured his hand in a machine, and the family was told that it should be amputated. Taking the child to another doctor, they were told the same bad news, but were given the name of an alcoholic and disbarred doctor, who might be able to save the hand. Carlile's anxious parents put their son in this man's care, which included sending him off into the bush for a week or two, while the doctor went about his business, because only he could do the daily dressing changes. With this treatment, the hand was saved.

The family moved back to the United States, when Guilford founded the Babcock Box Company, presumably in Indiana, since Kelsey, the youngest child was born in 1906, in Connersville, a town not far from Indianapolis. They would move around considerably in the next few years, as Guilford worked to consolidate the patent rights to manufacture wirebound boxes. They ended up living in New Jersey.

While in Summit, New Jersey, Carlile met Dorothy Beck, his future wife, while his sisters attended Kent Place School with her there. The family then returned to the Midwest to live in Evanston, Illinois for several years. They made their final move in 1921 when they settled in Morristown, New Jersey.

Carlile Babcock at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts
Carlile Babcock at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts

After leaving The Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, in the middle of his senior year and lying about his age Carlile enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1916. He was sent to France and served in the Sixth Army, Second Division. There is a story about Secretary of War Newton Baker visiting the front and asking to see his former family friend Carlile Babcock. His wife, Bess Baker, had been a Wilson College classmate of Alida Babcock's and "the fact that he would be able to deliver a message from Carlile in the hometown would put the stamp of authenticity on the Secretary's claims to have seen "the frontier of freedom and the Americans who were holding it."

General James G. Harbord was put in charge of Secretary Baker during his visit to the front, and in his book The American Army in France records the facts of the excursion in detail. At Ligny-en-Barrois, where the party spent one night, Secretary Baker said at dinner that Carlile had enlisted as a Marine - when or where he did not know, and was undoubtedly in France, probably with the latest regiment to arrive. General Harbord made up his mind to produce Carlile. "After dinner he and the Count de Chambrun, representing France with the party, got a French staff officer, who protested that it was not his metier to deliver messages, as he belonged to the Troisieme Bureau. But De Chambrun had a way with him and he finally put through a message to General Bundt to produce Carlile Babcock the next morning. And he did. The next morning, a little spattered by some miles in a motorcycle sidecar, he was cheerful and happy and made the right answers to the questions asked him." A photograph was taken for evidence of the visit for Carlile's parents.

General James G. Harbord and Pfc. Carlile Babcock
General James G. Harbord and Pfc. Carlile Babcock

Back in the trenches Carlile was a victim of the poison gas used by the Germans against the Allies. He returned to the States, started college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and unfortunately was forced to leave school after only a few months, when his sight was lost from the aftereffects of the gas. He later regained his eyesight. During the months of his recovery he started to play golf.

He next returned to Europe as one of the members of the American Relief Administration which was headed up by Herbert Hoover. The ARA was charged with feeding the starving refugees in Europe. After five months in Mariupol in the Ukraine, he returned with a young refugee girl, Alexandra Feofanovna Christophorova, an orphan who was probably ten years of age.

Alexandra & Carlile newspaper clipping Relief Worker Passport

Alexandra had been the fourth of five children born to Anna and Feofanov Christophorova. She would remember later that her father, a banker by profession, had moved his family to the Crimea at the beginning of the Russian Revolution. In Mariupol, they had hidden behind their locked and barricaded doors, putting pillows in front of the windows to keep out the smoke from the shooting outside. When advised to leave the Crimea for their safety, the family took a boat to another city, which was also deemed unsafe, and then returned to Mariupol, where they would stay with her maternal grandparents. The grandfather, being a Russian Orthodox priest, put the family in an even more vulnerable position when the Bolsheviks overran the town. By the time that the twelve Americans from the Hoover Commission arrived in Mariupol, only Alex, her brother, Nicholas and sister, Zenia were still alive. Their grandfather, mother and two sisters had died of typhus, and they had watched their father's body carried away in a cart after his death from starvation.

When Carlile arrived at the house with food, it was taken by the "neighbors." Nicholas went back to the ARA headquarters, and Carlile took the three children under his wing. The next day Zenia contracted typhus, and Nicholas was sent to an aunt in the country who got paid in food. Alex remained at headquarters with Carlile, next door to an orphanage.

When the ARA received notice to end their relief work in the city, Carlile felt that leaving Alex would be dooming her to death by either typhus or starvation, so he set about taking her home with him. They travelled from Mariupol to Odessa in a truck, watching the looting and fighting alongside the road. There, Carlile had to bribe the ship's captain to take them to Istanbul, where after three weeks of daily trips to the American Embassy, he was able to obtain a visa for Alex. From there they took the train to Paris where another visa had to be procured.

Good Conduct Citation front Good Conduct Citation back

They crossed the Channel to London, where more problems awaited them. Carlile made daily trips to the American Embassy trying to get a stamped piece of paper which would get them through the official channels. Finally they boarded the Aquitania, and travelled first class to New York. Carlile took Alex home to his parents in Morristown, and she was adopted by them, changing her life forever.

Carlile went to work for the family company, then called the 4-One Box Machine Makers, probably commuting from the family home in Morristown to the plant in Rockaway, New Jersey.

On October 10, 1925, he married Dorothy Beck, the daughter of Theodore Lewis and Cora Scott Beck, in the Central Presbyterian Church in Summit, New Jersey. The young couple built a house at 158 Bellevue Avenue with a wonderful large garden for the dogs and the children which would arrive at regular intervals for the next few years.

158 Bellevue Avenue, Summit, New Jersey
158 Bellevue Avenue, Summit, New Jersey

Margery Elizabeth Babcock was born May 30, 1927; Alida Kelsey Babcock, on January 16, 1930; Guilford Carlile Babcock III, on April 11, 1931; and Alexander Beck Babcock, on March 18, 1933. They lived in the house on Bellevue Avenue, with Dorothy running a nursery school in the converted garage, until 1936 when the family moved to Bradenton, Florida.

Alida, Margery, Mike, and Carlile The Nursery School Margery, Alida, Carlile, and Mike
Alida, Margery, Mike, and Carlile The Nursery School Margery, Alida, Carlile, and Mike

Stapling Machines Company, as it now was called, had an office in Lakeland, Florida, an important location for a company which did so much work with the citrus industry. The family house was located on the Manatee River. A young black man, named Frank, was hired to make sure that the younger children didn't fall into the unfenced river. He was usually picked up from the drunk tank in the local jail on Sunday morning after church.

In early 1938 Carlile made an extended visit to California and concluded that the box business should open a permanent office in the southern part of the state, close to the large citrus orchards that existed there at that time. Later that same year, the family moved once again to Altadena, California, where they would stay only one year, before moving to 1099 Arden Road, Pasadena, where they would be near the Polytechnic School, where all four children were enrolled.

It was often remarked that whereas Dorothy Babcock always thought of Summit, New Jersey as her home, Carlile was a Californian after six months. Of course his entire life had been one of constant changes of address, so perhaps he was more adaptable.

The family joined the club at the Vista del Arroyo Hotel, and used the tennis courts and swimming pools there during the summers. After Pearl Harbor, Carlile made a trip to Balboa on the Newport Peninsula, and made an offer on a house at 826 West Bay Avenue. From that time on, Dorothy and the children would come to the beach on the first day of summer vacation and return right before the start of the fall semester in September. The children learned to sail, and enjoyed racing with the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, which was located one block away. During the wartime years, the harbor was closed so all racing took place inside the jetty, because of the fear of the Japanese submarines said to be cruising along the coast.

Carlile spent many hours on the road for Stapling Machines Company, and so could visit his family at the beach with regularity during the summer. The family attended the Pasadena Presbyterian Church regularly during the school year. Carlile headed up the USO there with great success during the war years. It was known as one of the most popular operations of its kind in the country.

Carlile died on April 12, 1955, in Pasadena at the age of 56 from a heart attack. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, in the plot purchased by Dorothy's family, the Becks in 1913. Dorothy, who died on September 22, 1982, is buried with him.

Margery, Lydy, Dorothy, Carlile, Mike, and Gil Babcock - Balboa, California 1949 Carlile and Dorothy Babcock - 10 Oct 1925
Margery, Lydy, Dorothy, Carlile, Mike, and Gil Babcock - Balboa, California 1949 Carlile and Dorothy Babcock - 10 Oct 1925