JOHN WILBUR LAMBING July 17, 1891 -- August 16, 1968 Born: Corry, Pennsylvania Buried: San Diego, California Spouse: Never Married

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CONTENTS

• A BIT ABOUT WILBUR'S LIFE
• WILBUR TALKS ABOUT HIS LIFE
• WILBUR'S MOVE TO CALIFORNIA -- A LETTER HOME -- WINTER OF 1942
• WILBUR LAMBING'S RECORDED GREETINGS TO THE 1947 BLILEY FAMILY REUNION
• FAMILY HISTORY CORRESPONDENCE OF 1938-1939
• TECHNICAL NOTES & TROUBLESHOOTING SOUND RECORDINGS

A BIT ABOUT WILBUR'S LIFE

John Wilbur Lambing was born and raised in Corry, Pennsylvania, a small town southeast of Erie. His father, John, was a partner in a bedding company with his brother-in-law in Corry, but he died at a fairly young age of 58, and later, his mother, Barbara Bliley, at the age of 75. He took care of his mother until her death in 1928. Wilbur, as he preferred to be called, was a perennial bachelor, a traveling shoe leather salesman, and later a life insurance agent from which he retired.

In 1942, he became tired of the eastern climate and life in his hometown and decided to move west to San Diego, California, which he had visited while on a business trip before World War II.

He had two siblings who died young: Charles Bliley Lambing (B: 1883, D: 1917 @ 34 Years) and Belle C. Lambing (B: 1888, D: 1931 @ 43 Years).

Wilbur partnered with several relatives in researching their common family history. They were his cousin, Sam C. Wagner or Rochester, NY, and his uncle, Frank Anderson Bliley or Erie, PA. We have two audio recordings of Sam on phonograph records. These are provided below.

WILBUR TALKS ABOUT HIS LIFE

Wilbur's uncle, Frank A. Bliley, was a lawyer and seriously interested in family history. He made almost ten phonograph recordings on his son's home record recorder during the 1940s. This recording is a good example of those. Ironically, he recorded an interview with Wilbur, just two weeks before Wilbur headed west to San Diego, California, where he lived for the rest of his life. The recording is a summary of Wilbur's life and career. Recorded February 15, 1942.

Voices of: Wilbur Lambing 1943

Audio: AIF / 3.0 Mb / Length 4:30 Click to Download & Listen

Text Transcription Not Available

Names Mentioned: None.

WILBUR'S MOVE TO CALIFORNIA -- A LETTER HOME -- WINTER OF 1942

In the late 1930s, Wilbur decided he had had enough of the cold and snowy winters back east in his home town of Corry, Pennsylvania. He traveled a lot in his two careers and yearned to move to sunny California. In 1942, he sold his house, packed his car, and drove cross-country to a new home in San Diego, California. He had a job, but no prearranged place to live. Apparently, he was not worried and was drive to get out of town. Along the way, he made many stops and saw family and friends.

This story was told in great detail in a 10,000-word/18-page "letter" home a couple of months after he arrived. It is a great letter and well-worth reading as a snapshot of life in the USA during World War II.

 Download the PDF version of the letter.

• High-Resolution Images (23 Mb)
• Low-Resolution Imges (650 Kb)

FAMILY HSITORY CORRESPONDENCE OF 1938-1939

Wilbur was one of the family members that actively worked on the Bliley and Mead family histories in collaboration with his relatives. Below is a link to a PDF of several letters written to them.

 Click here to download the PDF version of these letters. (6 Mb)

WILBUR LAMBING'S GREETINGS TO THE 1947 BLILEY FAMILY REUNION

Wilbur Lambing was not able to attend the 1947 Bliley Family Reunion held in Erie, Pennsylvania at the home of his cousin, Frank Dawson Bliley. This recording was made at a local recording studio in Wilbur's hometown of San Diego, California. It was played to the assembled group at the reunion. Wilbur is the son of John S. Lambing and Barbara Bliley Lambing. Recorded: June 19, 1947.

Voice of: Wilbur Lambing 1943

Audio: AIF / 3.0 Mb / Length 6:42 Click to Download & Listen

Text Transcription Web Version Plain Text (.txt) 0.8 Mb

TECHNICAL NOTES & TROUBLESHOOTING SOUND RESOURCES

Audio Characteristics

The recordings are available on CD-ROM by request. The quality of audio files on this site are a compromise between file size and audio quality. The sampling frequency is 8 kHz and with 8-bit encoding. This makes them a bit baser than the original but produces a sampler file that is much quicker to download, even on a high-speed connection. I apologize for the slight degradation in audio quality.

Troubleshooting

It is possible that you may have some problems with various audio resources on this site. Here are a few of the problems that I have encountered so far.

• The computer system uses a different audio player resource than I had during development of the site. Your system offers to download compatible resources from the Internet or presents a control panel that is visually distorted.
• Blocks of text are moved to unassigned and illogical positions on the page.

This site may not be fully compatible with all system software configurations and audio processing resources. Try listening to the recordings on another computer system or with a different application to see if the files/resources are really damaged. Most likely there is nothing wrong with the CD. If there is, please send me an e-mail with the details of your problem.

The sound recording can be listened through the use of several multimedia tools from Microsoft, RealAudio and Apple Computer. Apple's QuickTime audio/visual resources are available free on the Apple Internet site. This will provide resources to listen to various sound and to view video clips. The software is free and available for the Macintosh and Windows operating systems.