Person Record
Metadata
Name |
Wilson, Ian |
Notes |
Marjorie Van Wickle Lyon began her 40-year service to the Red Cross in 1917 when she followed her husband, George, to Columbia, South Carolina. George was in training for war preparedness at Camp Jackson and Marjorie moved to Columbia to be close to him. Since she was only able to see him for a few hours each week she began to look around for useful war work, and was hired to establish a new Home Services Division of the Red Cross. It was the beginning of 40 years of service, in war time and in peace time. In 1940 Marjorie was working for the Red Cross in Boston as a Motor Corps Driver. As a Red Cross Officer, she helped arrange temporary homes for wartime evacuee children from England. She took in two twelve-year-old boys herself, welcoming Ian Wilson and Bob Sproule into her home and into her heart. They became members of her family - the children she had never had - and she referred to them as her adopted sons. Neither Ian nor Bob returned to England after the war, and both took out American citizenship. Bob Sproule went to college in New Hampshire where he met his wife, Lois. The Sproules and their children spent extended time at Blithewold every summer and in 2010 their youngest son, Fred Sproule, visited Blithewold and reminisced about his family and their summers at Blithewold. Ian Wilson joined the US navy in 1946 and went to Trieste, but he returned to live in Bristol where he became a keen ornithologist. He was a gifted artist and several of his works are preserved at Blithewold. Marjorie Shaw Jeffries remembers him as an intelligent, bright, and engaging young man. But Ian suffered a brain tumor in the 1950s which changed his personality completely. He remained in Bristol, moving into his room at Blithewold whenever Marjorie Lyon was in residence. Marjorie supported him financially for the rest of his life. Margaret Whitehead, Blithewold Curator, January 2011 |
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