Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

Summers were known to be the time of year when the extended Dean and Millhouse families (my maternal branch) could all come together in West Virginia for their respective reunions. The tradition began at least by 1949 for the Deans in Wheeling Park, but likely much earlier. For as often as these gatherings probably took place over the years, I have very few photographs to document them. I, myself, only recall attending one "reunion" at Oglebay Park in 1999, but it was really a 50th anniversary celebration for my great aunt Thelma and Melvin Mays. It feels a tad awkward showing up to these events and really only recognizing a handful of people out of the throngs who attend. Having to strike up that initial conversation with a "stranger" is never easy as you blurt out, "So how do you fit in to the tree? Who are you? How should I know you?" So that's just one of the excuses my introverted self makes for not going. Gary and Kira Foltz being anti-social, Og...

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...