Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

On 19 August 1961, William Martin Cole married Beatrice Bethel (Dixon) Dean in Lawndale, Los Angeles, California and officially became the step-father to her five grown daughters, one of which was also getting married that very same day in Palos Verdes! He would from then on be known as "Pop" Cole. William Martin Cole arrived in the world just one year and one day after his parents, Jessie Washington Dillon and Alach Henry Cole, were married. He was born 16 May 1893 in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia. His younger sister Margaret was born five years later. Margaret Ellen Cole, undated. The Cole family rented a cabin on Big Wheeling Creek, near where the Deans lived, so William grew up alongside Chester Dean (Beatrice's first husband) and the two men were friends. This is how William and Beatrice first met organically, while they were each married to their first spouses: William to Wilma Strautman and Beatrice to Chester Dean. William was known to the Dean family as Wi...

On 6 July 1936, my maternal great grand-aunt, Mary Lucretia (Dixon) Stalnaker, who was a widow, married her 2nd husband, Thomas Gilmore Hogg, in West Virginia. She was 43. He was 33 and had also previously been married. Tommy worked as a hired hand for the Dixons. The two had flirted with each other at the store owned by Mary's mother. Thomas was quite a different match from her first husband, Walter, who was 26 years her senior. This time, she'd be the older, wiser one of the relationship. Tommy and Mary (Dixon) Stalnaker Hogg, 1936 In a previous blog post , I wrote about the supposed suitors that Mary had, due to the sheer number of postcards she had received and kept from eligible bachelors back in her prime, before she was married. But many blogs previous to that one, I wrote of a "Spanish influenza" victim in my family tree who just happened to be photographed in front of a big brick house belonging to Mr. Thomas Hogg. To my surprise, Tommy Hogg's niece, Nan...

  OCTOBER 26, 2021 Located in Marshall County, West Virginia about halfway between the cities of Wheeling and Moundsville, Sherrard High School was active from 1911 to 1968 (until it was consolidated into John Marshall High School). Sherrard High had actually been the first consolidated school in all of West Virginia. The area (and school) was named for local landowner Sherrard Clemens, who happened to have been a cousin of the famous author Samuel L. Clemens (aka Mark Twain). Undated photo of Sherrard School. Unknown photographer. Week 35: School Both of my maternal grandparents, Raymond Millhouse and Edna Dean, attended Sherrard, so I’ve heard the school mentioned during several conversations with family members. Plus, I have amassed a small collection of class pictures from family photo albums, which I’ve included in this post. Sherrard School 7th grade class photo, 1936, Marshall County, West Virginia. Standing from left to right is: Pat. Ray, Lee, Tony, Edna Arlene Dean, Glady...