In our emails back and forth recently, my brother, Walfrid came up with some events at home while we were growing up in Andover, Ohio. While I didn’t remember all of them, I did take note so that I can compile a time line of our growing up in Andover, and especially our house at 496 South Main Street.
That got me to wondering exactly when an explosion destroyed the Isaly Restaurant in Andover. I did a Google search for “Isaly Fire in Andover.” Google returned three hits with news reports of the blast and fire. Needless to say, these reports brought back memories of the horror of the event on Aug. 10, 1955.
The first report I looked at, published in a Van Wert, Ohio, newspaper, has a list of victims and I quickly scanned it for a high school classmate, Ruby Shellito, but she was not listed.
I did another Google search for “Ruby Shellito” and found a Find-A-Grave listing where she is memorialized along with her parents in the Padanarem Cemetery (about four miles from Andover). That search result provided the following information:
Ruby H Shellito
Birth: 1938
Death: Aug. 10, 1955
Andover
Ashtabula County
Ohio, USA
Ruby was killed in an explosion at Andover, Ashtabula County, Ohio. She was a waitress working when Andover Islay’s and Gateway Restaurant exploded.
These are just another example of the value of using Google as a genealogical research tool.
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