My Aunt Olive was the oldest sister of my father. She was born 9 May 1920 to Frank (36) and Muriel (24) in Russell, Manitoba, Canada. She would move with her family to North Dakota around 1922 and then to White Bear Lake, Minnesota around 1928, where our Grandpa Frank would minister at an Episcopal church called St. John in the Wilderness. Our grandfather Frank passed away in 1945. I have attached a PDF copy of portions of a history of that church with pages pertinent to our grandfather.
St Johns History with Frank only
From that history I discovered that Olive was first married to James Bernard Baine. James had enlisted in 1941 and served in the U.S. Army Air Force during WWII. Olive and James married 21 May 1943 in Jacksonville, Florida. Staff Sgt. James was killed in action on 24 January 1944 (only 8 months after they were married) and was buried at the Cambridge American Cemetery (plot F, row 3, grave 77) in England. He received the Air Medal and Purple Heart awards. Olive was working as a defense worker according to the marriage certificate and still listed her residence as White Bear Lake, so I am not sure how the Florida thing figures in.
Olive married Donald John McArdell 17 March 1945 and they had four children; John, Susan, William and Thomas all living and a part of my first cousin clan. That first cousin clan is larger than I thought but more about Uncle Mickey and that subject on another post. Olive passed away on 4 August 2002 and Don passed away 29 June 2003.
One last interesting fact about Olive and Don: Olive and Don are sixth cousins two times removed, according to a formula I found and the following information linking them both to a common ancestor:
| 8 | Thomas Davenport 1681-1745 m. Catherine Woodworth 1673-1729 |
≡ | Thomas Davenport 1681-1745 m Mary Pitman 1684-1740 |
6 |
| 7 | Oliver Davenport 1714-???? | Gideon Davenport 1738-1810 | 5 | |
| 6 | John Davenport 1735-1809 | John Davenport 1766-1822 | 4 | |
| 5 | Humphrey Davenport 1773-1859 | Gideon Davenport 1803-1850 | 3 | |
| 4 | Oliver Davenport 1799-1870 | Joseph Davenport 1831-1907 | 2 | |
| 3 | Paul Dudley Davenport 1823-1888 | William E Davenport 1860-1938 | 1 | |
| 2 | Irene A Davenport 1845-1899 | Frank H Davenport I 1884-1945 | ||
| 1 | Minnie Emma Wilkins 1869-1913 | Olive A Davenport 1920-2002 | ||
| Raymond J McArdel 1896-1965 | ||||
| Donald J McArdel 1923-2003 |
For ref. here is the formula:
“There is a mathematical way to identify the degree of cousinship shared by two
individuals. In the description of each individual’s relationship to the most recent
common ancestor, each “great” or “grand” has a numerical value of 1. The
following examples demonstrate how this is applied.
Example: If person one’s great-great-great-grandfather is person two’s grandfather, then
person one’s “number” is 4 (great + great + great + grand = 4) and person two’s “number”
is 1 (grand = 1). The smaller of the two numbers is the degree of cousinship. The two
people in this example are first cousins. The difference between the two people’s
“numbers” is the degree of removal. In this case, the two people are thrice (4 — 1 = 3)
removed, making them first cousins three times removed. “
retravelment.com 