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his annual bonus check from the Boston Store; it was $5,000 and to me at that time, it looked very big because I wasn't making much more than that in total although later I was to collect bonuses in the $12,000 to $15,000 range.  But the $5,000 was before the postwar inflation and it was significant.  Bill was a small-town boy from Lyons, N.Y., about half way between Syracuse and Rochester on the New York Central main line.  I don't recall he was a college man but was a shrewd businessman who'd moved up through the dry goods line.  He was friendly, loquatious and without pretence.  He enjoyed drinking and made no bones about it, occasionally getting pretty well lushed.  But he was a lot of fun and I always enjoyed his company.  His wife, Harriet, who was some ten years younger than Bill, was a small-town girl from Vermont.  However, she like to put on a front probably unjustified by her background; moreover, she attempted to keep Bill on a tight leash which was quite ineffectual most of the time.  When Bill would err, Harriet would switch from a watchful-eye stance to one of apparently slightly-pained but tolerant, even faintly-amused acceptance, if you can have both at once.  They had two boys, Billy and David, Billy having taken a shine to Bab at one time while she couldn't stand him for some reason.  Billy went to Princeton and returned to Erie to settle down, married an Erie society girl, went to work for Jim Vickery, now lives in a magnificent Wolf Road home.  I should guess that old Bill's money had some part in Billy's affluence.  David settled down in New York and never married.  Harriet died many years ago from breast cancer.  Billy and David threw a big party for old Bill on his 80th birthday out at Billy's place which we attended.  But after that old Bill went pretty much into seclusion in his big house with a housekeeper to look after him and died at around 83 I think after a long life and merry one.  I don't want to run Harriet down too much because she was really a nice little Green Mountain girl loose in the big cities and all of us liked her and used to kid her a lot.  In fact, when we first me them I thought Harriet was quite something but she failed to continue to thus mesmerize me as it gradually became apparent that she wasn't quite as sweet and genuine as at first appeared.

So that takes care of those seated in the picture and the time has arrived to take on the standees.  Like the Collins, most of these people appear here and there in my diary over the years so this will be merely a sort of a sketchy summing up of their careers as we know them.  Starting on the left, we have [[underlined]]Hal Wilson[[/underlined]] while his wife, [[underlined]]Del,[[/underlined]] stands at the extreme right and the picture certainly doesn't flatter her.  The shot of Hal is excellent.  Hal was in publicity at Hammermill and was a nephew of Normal Wilson, the president.  Other than these bridge club affairs, I don't remember that we "did things" with the Wilsons.  Willie recalls Del as a quiet, reserved girl who was very meticulous and insisted on putting on a fancy lunch whenever she entertained the club although the others did not.