SNGF: Did You Rabbit Hole This Week? Finding News Articles About Thelma Gorrell

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

It's Saturday Night again -

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

 

Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings:

1)  Did you follow a research trail down a genealogy rabbit hole this week?  Tell us about it.

Here's mine:
Last week when searching Newspapers.com for some articles about my father-in-law and discovering he was the executor of his landlady’s estate (which I wrote about here), I decided to see what articles I could find about my mother-in-law. Surprisingly, I found a lot.

She was the executor of the estate of her uncle, David L. Lundquist, and two notices about the estate were found in the Merced Sun.[1] This estate took several years to complete due to almond contracts with Blue Diamond, but I found no more articles on this website.

I found several different letters she wrote to the Sacramento Bee. One was to answer another reader whose cake didn’t rise. Her advice was to check the expiration date on the baking powder.[2]

In 2006, she submitted the recipe to the food section of the Bee for Donna Jo’s Dream Pastry which is a wheat-free pie pastry. I was excited to find this article as I couldn’t find the version she had given me. I had promised to send the recipe to Michael John Neill and was finally able to do so.

The Sacramento Bee had a column written by Tony Bizjak called “Back-Seat Driver” and she had sent in a question about why, when during freeway paving, crews didn’t repave under or on bridges. Her question and answer were provided.[3]

The best letter was to the editor when she commented on another reader’s lament about State Fair food. She gave a long list of food choices that she checked out when she visited the fair. She also added that food was allowed to be brought in.[4]

On a genealogical note, she was also named a deaconess at St. Stephens Presbyterian Church in 1960.[5]

I did a wide search, hoping for an article about one of their visits to cousins in the Midwest. Newspaper research usually brings rewards. I should try the same search using GenealogyBank and NewspaperArchive.

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[1] “Public Notice,” Merced Sun, 3 Nov 1984, p. 2. Also, “Public Notice,” Modesto Sun, 12 Jan 1985, p. 22.

[2] Modesto Bee, 12 July 1995, p. E3.

[3] “Back-seat Driver,” Sacramento Bee, 3 Sep 2007, p. B1.

[4] “Varied Dishes at the Fair,” Sacramento Bee, 14 Sep 2007, p. C1.

[5] “St. Stephens Names New Officers,” Sacramento Bee, 26 Nov 1960, p. A14.

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