Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

  Although my mom's father was older than her mother, he was held back a year in school, placing the two in the same graduating class at Sherrard High School in Marshall County, West Virginia, back in 1940. Their "meet cute" did not spark an instantaneous love connection, as they each went their separate ways after school wrapped up, but this was where their paths first crossed. Edna Arlene Dean & Raymond Lee Millhouse, circa 1947  (after both had served separate tours of duty overseas in World War II) I wrote a previous blog all about Sherrard High, which included all of the school portraits, class pictures, and classmate/teacher names I could find in my grandparents' albums. You can read that one here: https://contagiousgenealogy.blogspot.com/2022/10/sherrard-high-school.html However, at the time the blog "went to print," I had lost track of my grandparents' own graduation pamphlet. I've since recovered said document and decided this article wo...

This year marks the first in which I've discovered, or more so, realized that the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade has a "never on Sunday" rule and will, therefore, be held on Monday, January 2nd of 2023. Yet, that's not the mystery I'm set on solving here, but merely a fun fact to kick off this puzzler. The older woman on the right of the above photograph is my 2nd great-grandaunt, Mary Ann Wells (Miller) Webb, the sister to my 2nd great-grandmother, Margaret (Miller) Hinman, on my father's side of the family. The Miller siblings were born in New York in the mid-1850s, migrated down to Iowa, and eventually both came west to California. The pretty young woman in the crown and gown on the left side of the photograph is Mary Ann's granddaughter, my 2nd cousin 2x removed, Mary Madeline Webb, who later became Mary Hendricksen. Here (above) she stands in a picture labeled with the year 1931. The description?  Princess at Rose Bowl Parade But herein lies the ...