Every Social Reference

After one of my great-grandfather’s brothers died in the 1950s, it seemed like his wife just disappeared.

Until I went through every newspaper reference in the local weekly newspapers for their children. There was a reference to one a son (by then an adult) who was in the hospital and had been visited by his mother–with her name listed as Mrs. Newhusbandfirstname Newhusbandlastname. Sometimes it can be frustrating to find women listed this way. In this case it was not as I now had the first and last name of her second husband.

All because I went through every social reference to the children.