Here is a strange coincidence from 85 years ago. I was searching for the obituary of my grandmother, Margaret (Dickinson) Reese, when I stumbled upon this newspaper. It was the December 5, 1930 edition of The Genoa Tribune, printed ten months after she was born. Her father - my maternal great-grandfather, Rev. W. H. Dickinson, is mentioned in the column on the right.
William H. Dickinson and his family helped establish Assembly of God churches throughout New York and New Jersey and lived in Genoa briefly from 1930-1933. They had moved from Oakland, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. Margaret was just a baby when they moved to Lansing and the following year, her future-husband, Lloyd N. Reese was born in Groton, within 11 miles of Margaret's home at the time. Lloyd's family actually became acquainted with Margaret's family during this time, due to their mutual involvement with the church, but both Margaret and Lloyd were babies and when she was three years old, the Dickinsons left Lansing, moving 209 miles east to Glens Falls and subsequently to Asbury Park, New Jersey and elsewhere. In 1950, when William's daughter, Margaret, was in her last year of college at New England Bible Institute in Framingham, Massachusetts, she met and captured the heart of Lloyd and the couple were married in 1952. Their only daughter was born in 1953, and then, tragically, Margaret died from cancer in 1954.
Fast forward seventeen years to 1971 and Margaret's daughter married a grandson of Albert Leonard. What's so strange about that? Well, Albert Leonard is also mentioned in the news clipping below from 1930. In summary, this one newspaper article from 1930 contains two separate stories about two of my great-grandfathers - one paternal and one maternal. Interesting?
Search free newspapers online for your ancestors in the news! Click here.