Peoria Pair

Week 4: #52 Ancestors – Favorite Photo

By Eilene Lyon

This is a snazzy portrait of The Putterer’s parents, Cliff and Fran, taken in the early 1940s. I love many things about it: their clothes, the car, the expressions on their faces. I also like how they had it framed:

Clifford Park Lyon, Jr. (Cliff) was born in the small, northern Illinois town of LaMoille on August 25, 1918.¹ Both his parents were born in the same place. Cliff spent part of his childhood in Los Angeles, where his father, Clifford Park Lyon, Sr. (Park) worked as a bank manager.²

After the Lyons returned to their hometown in Illinois about 1935, Cliff finished school and headed for Peoria, where he got a job working for Caterpillar.³ By April 1940, he found lodging at the home of Carl and Cleo Struss, along with another young man, Gene Campbell.⁴ Gene worked at a nearby service station.⁵ The Strusses had an 18-year-old daughter, Frances.

This Google Maps Street View image shows the Struss home in Peoria (right) and the Methodist Church (left) that probably both Frances and Cliff attended on Sundays.

Apparently Cliff’s charms won out over Gene’s, or maybe Gene already had a girlfriend. The two young men filled out their draft cards in August 1940. Cliff’s stats: 5’ 11”, 155 lbs., gray eyes, brown hair, light complexion. Gene’s stats: 6 ft., 146 lbs., blue eyes, black hair, dark complexion. Both soon joined the U.S. Navy.

Cliff’s term of service probably began in early 1941. He became a welder and at some point the Navy sent him to work at the Norfolk, Virginia, shipyard. Either prior to going to Virginia or by obtaining a leave, he married Frances Struss in Peoria on November 15, 1941.⁶

The couple spent the remainder of Cliff’s service years in Virginia, but Fran may have returned to Peoria for the birth of their daughter in 1944.⁷ Before that, they visited Illinois in July 1942.⁸ Thus it’s difficult to be sure exactly when and where this photograph was taken. It looks more like Peoria to me. If you look across the street in the Google image, the houses in the background seem to match this photo. And it seems that Fran may have a ring on her finger, but it’s difficult to tell.