Dorchester Illustration World War One Service Member biography: Guy Frederick Hadlock
At the Dorchester Historical Society, we are in the process of a year-long project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I. Using a collection of photographs we have of WWI Dorchester residents, we will be featuring servicemen in a number of short biographies throughout the year. At the culmination of the project, we hope to produce an online exhibit that highlights these men and their service to our country.
Our next biography features: Guy Frederick Hadlock.
Written by Camille Arbogast.
Guy Frederick Hadlock was born in Boston on June 15, 1890. His father, George Frederick Hadlock, born in Charlestown, was a carpenter. His mother, Emma Esther (Abbott), was from Cambridge. Married in Boston in September 1889, Frederick and Emma also had a daughter, Ruth, born in 1897.
In 1900, the family lived in a rented home on Brook Road in Milton. Included in their household was a servant, 20 year-old Ada McAllister of New Brunswick. By 1910, they owned 16 Ashmont Street in Dorchester. That year, Guy graduated from Boston’s Mechanic Arts High School, located in the Back Bay at Belvidere and Dalton Streets. Guy then went to work as a clerk in the office of the Boston Belting Company at 256 Devonshire Street. Makers of belts, hoses, and rubber goods, the Boston Belting Company was one of the largest rubber manufacturers in the world. In 1914, still working as a clerk, Guy moved to the Boston Belting Company’s factory location, 84 Linden Park Street, Roxbury (the location of today’s Reggie Lewis Center). He was still in this job in June 1917, when he registered for the draft.
On December 8, 1917, Guy entered military service. Six months later, he sailed for Europe, leaving from Brooklyn on the USS Roepat, as a private in Section A, Advance Animal Transport Depot 302, Quartermaster Corps. He returned to the United States on June 28, 1919, sailing from Saint-Nazaire, France, on the USS Marcia. By that time, he had been promoted to Sergeant. He was discharged on July 17, 1919.
While Guy was in the service, his parents died. First, his mother passed away in March 1918. About a year later his father followed, dying shortly after becoming ill while at work on a carpentering job. Returning to Dorchester after the war, Guy again lived at 16 Ashmont Street with his sister Ruth and their aunt and uncle Mary and Charles Jones. He was shipper at a rubber company, perhaps having returned to the Boston Belting Company. His uncle Charles was a railroad conductor. Ruth worked as a clerk for an insurance company. In 1923, at 16 Ashmont Street, Ruth was married to William Botting by the pastor of the Second Congregational Church, Dorchester. By this time, Guy, who was the best man, had moved to Portland, Maine.
Guy appears in the Portland directory as early as 1920. He continued to maintain a presence in the Boston directory, as well, appearing as a salesman living at 16 Ashmont until 1926, when he was listed as removed to Portland. All through the 1920s, he appeared in the Portland directory, first as a manager at 686 Congress Street, then, beginning in 1923, as a reporter out of 31 ½ Exchange Street. In 1923, he lived at 12 Dow Street; in 1925, at 1 Spring Street Place; and in 1927, at 16 Delano Park, in the nearby town of Cape Elizabeth.
On July 27, 1931, in Conway, New Hampshire, Guy married Vera L. Bartlett, a music teacher from Portland, with family roots in Gorham, Maine. On July 31, 1931, their son Guy, Jr.was born. They settled at 24 Quincy Street in Portland.
In the early 1930s, Guy continued to work at 31 ½ Exchange Street, from 1933 until 1935 as a chief clerk. In 1936, he appeared in the Portland directory as a cashier at 4 Winslow Street. After 1937, the directory listings for Guy give no profession. On the 1940 census, Guy’s occupation was reported as “Credit Man, Private Investigation,” but he was actually unemployed and had been for 110 weeks. Vera was working as a music teacher.
Guy died on January 15, 1944. Vera passed away a few months later in May 1944. Their son was killed in a car accident in 1953, while training as an airman at Sampson Air Force Base in New York State. They are all buried in Eastern Cemetery in Gorham, Maine
Sources
Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com
Family Tree; Ancestry.com
U.S. Federal Census, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1940; Ancestry.com
“Graduation Day in Boston Schools,” Boston Globe, 24 June 1910, 4; Newspapers.com
Boston Belting Company: Turgeon, Jason. “The Boston Belting Company, Roxbury India Rubber Company, and Charles Goodyear,” Projects by Jason: Fort Hill History, 8 November, 2011,
<http://www.jasonturgeon.net/forthillhistory/the-boston-belting-company-roxbury-india-rubber>
World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com
Applications for Headstones for U.S. Military Veterans. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives at Washington, D.C; Ancestry.com
Lists of Outgoing and Incoming Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, The National Archives at College Park, Maryland; Ancestry.com
“Dorchester District,” Boston Globe, 23 April 1919, 7; Newspapers.com
“Miss Ruth A. Hadlock and W.T. Botting Married,” Boston Globe, 30 Nov 1923, 22; Newspapers.com
Boston and Portland Directories, various years, Ancestry.com
Marriage Record, New England Historical Genealogical Society, citing New Hampshire Bureau of Vital Records, Concord, New Hampshire; Ancestry.com
Vera Hadlock death: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121448875/vera-l-hadlock
“Airman Killed, 6 Persons Hurt,” The Ithaca Journal (Ithaca, NY) 24 Feb 1953, 1; Newspapers.com