The local newspaper gossip column from the 1920s stated that Mr. and Mrs. Dale Loren attended the funeral of “a cousin last Friday” in a town approximately thirty miles away. The cousin is not named.
My first task will be to try and determine who the cousin was. The best place to start would be with local newspapers in the town where the cousin’s funeral was held. Since I have the date of the newspaper in which the funeral attendance was mentioned and that the funeral was held “last Friday,” I have an idea of when to look in the papers of that town thirty miles away. That will make it easier to potentially determine the funeral Mrs .and Mrs. Dale Loren attended. The Lorens may be mentioned as guests in the local newspaper.
It’s important to remember that the cousin relationship may not be that of a first cousin. The connection may be more distant. It is not clear whether Dale Loren or his wife is related to the deceased. It’s possible the relationship is by marriage or affinity instead of biology. It’s also possible that both Mr. and Mrs. Dale are related to the deceased. That also can happen.
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Another consideration in this scenario is whether “Mrs. Dale Loren” is the person you already know as Dale Loren’s wife. It’s possible that he was married more than once and that the Mrs. could be wife #1, #2, or #3. Of course, you may already know that Mr. Dale Loren was married only once.
I always appreciate your tips. Thanks so much for posting them!
We should be thankful the newspapers printed those things. I know tracking them down now is time consuming but guess where our funeral attendees will be recorded. Not in a news paper society column. In our digital age where noting is written on paper and pictures are saved “in the cloud” who will ever know we existed?