Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990 TAG: 9003161939
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-1 EDITION: NORTH
SOURCE: MARY JO SHANNON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Looks as though it may have to be grandsons, because this hearty 90-year-old has outlived most of his peers and some of their offspring.
Fifty years ago he and some of his cronies, all born in the year 1900, decided to organize a club - the 1900 Club of America, Number 1, Inc.
"We got a charter from the State Corporation Commission and rented a room at the Patrick Henry for our monthly meetings. We paid dues to cover our expenses. We didn't have any purpose, except to get together and have a good time. All of us belonged to civic organizations, and we didn't see any need to have projects and such for this group," he said.
The men usually played bingo at their meetings. Each one brought a prize to be awarded - fruit baskets, wrapped gifts, etc. George Boone always brought a 1900 silver dollar.
Twice a year the club held Ladies' Night.
"The Grim Reaper broke us up," Guerrant said matter-of-factly. One of the qualifications for membership was a 1900 birth date, so there was no way to recruit new members as the years passed. Guerrant, who celebrated his 90th birthday Wednesday, says he and Lee Hartman, founder of Lee Hartman & Sons Sound Equipment Inc., are the only two members still living.
Hartman, who will be 90 in October, said the men had some good times with the club and credited Guerrant for "keeping us going."
"Saunders was the one who was the real leader," he said.
Guerrant, who was last president of the group, now considers the 1900 Club disbanded. Several years ago he asked Hartman, the treasurer, to send him any funds left in the treasury. Guerrant sent a check to the Presbyterian Home for Children in Lynchburg.
Guerrant is a staunch Presbyterian with a record of 53 years of perfect attendance at Sunday School and a plaque filled with award pins to prove it.
"They don't give out perfect attendance pins at First Presbyterian anymore, but they will send off to Atlanta for them," he said. "I have to admit I've had a little help from friends in order to keep my perfect record."
Once the class came to his hospital room to hold Sunday School. Once he was a class of one in the chaplain's cabin on the U.S. Navy ship America. Once he and his son, Sam, attended a Salvation Army class for 5-year-old girls in Canada because that was the only Sunday School class available.
Although he was born March 14, 1900, in Roanoke, Guerrant moved to Franklin County when he was 4. His mother, a Canadian, died one month before his 13th birthday. His father, a doctor, remarried twice. Each time he returned to Canada and chose a cousin of his first wife as his bride.
"I went with him in 1916 when he married his third wife," Guerrant recalled. "Altogether my father had 10 children. I was the second."
Guerrant attended Lee Junior High School in downtown Roanoke, where the Poff Building is now. "We had to march out two by two at the end of the day, and when we turned the corner I found myself on the inside and my partner, a girl, on the outside. That was not the accepted thing to do. You were supposed to walk on the outside, to protect the girl. Now when you failed to do so, the other fellows would call out `Cabbage!', and sure enough they yelled that at me."
The next day they said, "There's that Cabbage fellow." And the name stuck. After that Guerrant became known as Cabbage.
He boarded in Roanoke while attending Roanoke High School and later attended Virginia Tech, Washington and Lee and National Business College. Now, retired from Mutual of New York Insurance Co., he has been president of numerous civic organizations and mayor of Boones Mill. He also was a charter member of the Roanoke Men's Garden Club.
During the 1930s, Guerrant was educational adviser for the Civilian Conservation Corps in Craig County. That's where he met the Roanoke school teacher, Elizabeth Varner, who has been his wife for 54 years.
"A group from Roanoke went up there to give a musical program and I went along for the ride," she said.
Guerrant's collection of 660 walking canes has brought him a measure of local fame. His wife told the story of one of his recent acquisitions: Mayor Noel Taylor had brought back a cane from Wonju, Korea, and planned to present it to Guerrant on Election Day, 1985.
"Well, the big flood came. Saunders insisted that our son, Sam, take him downtown. When Sam said it was impossible, Saunders said he would walk! We had a hard time convincing him he'd drown if he tried to go," she recalled.
Guerrant retorted, "I always get the last word with my wife - `Yes, ma'am!' "
Later, they learned the presentation had been canceled, but Guerrant received the cane anyway.
His given name, Saunders, comes from his grandmother Saunders, a granddaughter of Mary Ingles Draper, whose story is recorded in the drama "The Long Way Home."
However, Guerrant cautions, "Folks that brag about their ancestors are like potatoes - the better part is under the ground."
What was the highlight of his career?
"That's a hard one. Probably winning the gold medal for first place in a five-mile ROTC race at Fort Campbell in 1919," he said, adding. "Now all I can do is hobble across the room."
His wife would not agree. "Saunders still drives his automobile, and our doctor said he followed him one day and he was as alert and as good a driver as you could hope to see."
What comment could he make about current world conditions?
"Well, it's like the fourth-grade teacher that asked her class what was the shape of the world. One youngster answered, `The damnedest it's ever been in, so Pa says!' "
The symbol he chose to sum up his philosophy is a small wooden duck, because "when it rains on him, he just lets it run off."
The anecdotes and pithy comments on life come faster than they could be recorded, and could explain why Guerrant added "author" to his list of accomplishments. In 1978, after a class in creative writing at Virginia Western Community College, he published "Franklin County Corn," which he calls a collection of country stories.
"I'm inherently lazy," he confesses. "You know, one time I heard a preacher at Massanetta say that it's easier to push a six-cylinder automobile down a highway than it is to push a pen across a piece of paper. I believe him."
Nevertheless, he is thinking about writing another book. So far he has only the title - "Saunders Wanders."
by CNB