[In the following excerpt, Walker relies on biographical information provided by Guest's grandson, Edgar A. Guest III, and from contemporaneous newspaper accounts to assess Guest's poetic legacy.]

"To his generation he was, through the lilt of his words, a bestower of pleasure, a kindler of hopes and an assuager of sorrow. "—The Detroit Free Press on Edgar A. Guest

A regular contributor to the DAC NEWS and Detroit Athletic Club mainstay, Edgar A. "Eddie" Guest endeared himself to thousands with his insightful and witty, yet down-to-earth verses during his more-than-50-year career as a Detroit Free Press syndicated poet.

To show how much members appreciated Guest, the DAC held annual Edgar A. Guest Nights in the 1940s. Edgar A. Guest III, Guest's grandson, says because he never read his verses aloud at home, the first time he heard his grandfather recite his verses was at a DAC Edgar A. Guest Night. He recalls the dining room was packed. "It was the first time I saw him and it astounded me that he could do so well," he says.

Literary critics, however, did not share DAC members' views of Guest's work; they deplored his simple verses aimed at the general public. Dorothy Parker was among the literaries who berated his verses. A Detroit Times article after his death stated the literaries were not who Guest was trying to impress: "First let us admit that people who read Harriet Monroe or Carl Sandburg were not among the buyers of the Guest books. Most of these buyers never read poetry at all, but they wanted A Heap O' Livin'" Similarly, a Detroit News article stated, "he was deeply admired by the mass of men and women who lead quiet lives, pay their debts, bring up their children properly and seldom get their names in the papers except in connection with a goluen wedding anniversary." Although he was dubbed a "poet for the masses," Guest refused the title of poet. His son, Edgar "Bud" Guest II, wrote in a 1966 Free Press article that because his father didn't accept that title, critics' opinions never made him lose any sleep. Guest called himself a "newspaperman."

While running errands, polishing glasses, and tending the soda fountain for Robbins' Drug Store at the age of 14, Guest caught the attention of one of the regulars, a Detroit Free Press accountant named Charles Hoyt, who got him a summer job at the paper as a bookkeeper's office boy in 1895. From that day until his death in 1959, Guest was on the Free Press payroll. Guest's father, who had brought the Guest family to Detroit in 1891 from Birmingham, England after his business collapsed the year before, died when Guest was 16. Because of this, he thought it'd be best to quit school and get a job as a "cub reporter." Among his first jobs in the editorial department was clipping bits of poetry and prose for a column. Along with the clips, Guest would throw in bits and pieces of his own rhymes. It wasn't long before he had his own "Blue Monday Column."

Eventually Guest was put on the police beat, during which he entertained policemen and colleagues with his verses. One of his companions on the beat was a former night engineer at Edison who had decided to build horseless carriages—Henry Ford. Guest would meet Ford for a late-night chat at a lunch wagon in front of City Hall. Eventually, he was taken off the police beat altogether to concentrate on his verses, which the paper began to demand daily. However, not everybody thought Guest should be a "versifier." A copy editor once told him: "It rhymes here and there, Eddie, my boy, but if you cut out that poetry, you'll probably make a fair reporter."

Guest found universal subjects for his verses in everyday life and conversations. He said in a 1956 Detroit Times article, "If an idea appeals to me, I figure it might appeal to someone else. I've just tried to express people's hopes and pleasures. They are pretty much the same for all of us." His most famous poem, "Home," came from an exchange with a construction worker who was building a house next door to his. The man said, according to Bud, "We're building a home for Dr. J. W. Smith." Eddie told the man he couldn't possibly build a home; the worker could build a house, but only a family could build a home.

Guest once wrote a poem based on a conversation he had overheard between two young men on a Detroit streetcar. One of them was said he didn't think he was going to go home for Christmas. Guest didn't say anything directly to the man, but it bothered him because he thought the man was making a mistake. Instead, he wrote a verse which appeared in the Free Press. The next day, he received letters from 30 young men saying they hadn't planned on going home for Christmas, but because of Guest's verse they had changed their minds.

Though Guest was established at the Free Press, no publishers were willing to take a risk on putting his work in book form. In 1909, his brother, Henry, set Guest's first collection of poems in type. Henry could print eight pages at a time, but only if there weren't too many "E's." If there were too many of the English language's most common vowel, those poems would be held until the next eight-page batch. Seven years later, only 3,500 copies of Guest's most famous book, A Heap O'. Living were published. Eventually 500,000 copies were run.

Guest wrote everyday, says his grandson. He says his grandfather had a set time when he would work for about three hours and he stuck to it. Even when the family went to their cottage near Port Austin, the younger Guest remembers his grandmother telling him and the other children to be quiet because his grandfather was going to write. "We would just sit there and hear the tippity-tap of the typewriter," he says.

By 1945, Guest had published 14 verse collections and had attracted millions of readers from the 200 newspapers which picked up his syndicated verses. Upon his death, those readers from as close as Fenton, Mich., to as far away as Long Beach, Calif., and Boston, Mass., sent letters to the Free Press bereaving his death and writing of the joy and comfort he brought them. People also got to know Guest over the airwaves on an eight-year national radio show he hosted from Chicago, although people said he sounded more like a preacher than a radio personality. He also appeared in a weekly television program, but did not protest cancellation of the show because he thought commuting to New York City was too difficult. Hollywood also wanted him; Universal Studios offered Guest $3,500 a week to become "Will Rogers' successor." Guest stayed one week, didn't like the scripts and went home. Though he broke his contract, Universal Studios did not pursue it.

Guest, a fairly short man with heavy eyebrows and dark hair in his younger years, was known for his kindheartedness. A Detroit News article once stated he "never wrote an unkind word about anyone, never was unkind to anyone—and, insofar as such things may be known, never harbored an unkind thought about anyone." Guest said in a Detroit Times article that he had no reason to distrust people. He said, "I think people are essentially decent. Even a man in jail didn't start out deliberately on that path." Guest did as he said, also; though he played golf with Cardinal Edward Mooney, he also corresponded with prison inmates.

Possessor of a soft spot for children, Guest was deeply involved with the Boys' Club of Detroit. Once a president of the group, he asked friends to send contributions to the Boys' Club as their Christmas gift to him. Likewise, at his death, memorial contributions were to be sent to the Boys' Club. Because of his devotion to the club, one of the organization's facilities was named after him. Another building, a high school in Roseville, also bears the Guest name. Bestowed in the 1950s, it was one of the few times a school was named for a person while he was still alive.

Though Guest never got more than a sixth-grade education, says his grandson, he was well-read. The younger Edgar's early memories of his grandfather are times when his grandfather read children's books, including Dr. Seuss, to his grandchildren. Later, though, the grandson says he remembers discussing William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar with his grandfather. He says he was telling his grandfather how wonderful the play was when Guest began to quote from the play.

"I remember being very impressed that he memorized Shakespeare," says the younger Guest. "He said,⁴I like it, I read it, I memorized it.'"

Guest was given many honors, including one of his favorites, the Elks' Outstanding Newspaperman of 1906. A state-wide Edgar A. Guest Day was proclaimed by Michigan Gov. Frank D. Fitzgerald in the mid 1930s. In honoring Guest, the governor said, "It is appropriate that Michigan join in this honor to one who had done so much to spread the spirit of cheer and kindness among millions of people." DAC members, along with members from other clubs to which Guest belonged, were among the 3,000 invited guests at the Hotel Statler on February 14, 1936. Mayor Albert Cobo of Detroit also declared a Detroit Edgar A. Guest Day in 1951, complete with honorary speeches and the music of the Belle Isle Concert Band. Even after his death in 1975, Michigan Gov. William Milliken pronounced August 20 (Guest's birthday) Edgar Albert Guest Day.

In the early 1950s, Guest's health started to slip. He had major surgeries in 1953 and 1954. The next year a heart attack incapacitated him for months. Toward the end of his life, Guest had a large-type typewriter and floodlights installed in his bedroom because of his failing vision. But throughout his career, even in times of poor health, his verses appeared every day in the paper. He would write several verses while he was feeling up to it, in case he didn't have the strength later. He kept his writing up so well that on the day of his death, his column appeared.

Guest died in his sleep August 5, 1959, 15 days short of his 78th birthday, of a cerebral hemorrhage. The next day the Detroit Free Press announced his death with a yellow banner across the top of the front page reading, "The Eddie Guest Story." Much of the front section was devoted to honoring him. Detroit Mayor Louis Miriani called for flags to be at half-mast; State Rep. Edward H. Jeffries proposed Guest be named "Detroit's poet laureate." In the days following, the Legislature also passed a resolution calling him "America's most popular and beloved verse writer." It stated he had won "an enduring place in the hearts of his countrymen as their unofficial poet laureate."