My Great Aunt Beulah Johnson Noonan would have turned 80 yesterday. I didn’t know her well—though did get to know her better in her later years when she and Uncle Don would head down to Dewitt, for Uncle John’s Cider Mill’s Fall Craft Show to sell hand tooled leather goods. It always felt like she was the baby of my Grandfather’s family, despite having a younger half-brother. She married Donald Noonan in 1950 and the couple eventually relocated to Walkerville, Michigan—a tight-knit community surrounded by the Manistee National Forest—for their life together. They had two daughters, Barbie Jo and Donna Lee but, sadly, Aunt Beulah outlived both her daughters and Uncle Don.

Happy hunting,

Jess