Ray in Dibble's Update

As you may recall I was confused as to the age of Grandad in the photo in Dibbles. The date on the picture was 1919 which would have made Ray 23, but he looks older than that. Some of the confusion has cleared up through the diligence of Debbie. She, as have others, looked at the various items in the picture and noticed boxes of Wheaties. But through her research and then through my own, we've discovered Wheaties were not sold until 1924.

The following is a quote from the official Wheaties site:

The popular cereal flake in the orange box was born
when a Minneapolis health clinician accidentally spilled
some wheat bran mixture on a hot stove, creating tasty
wheat flakes. The idea for whole-grain cereal flakes was
brought to the attention of the head miller at the
Washburn Crosby Company (General Mills’ predecessor),
George Cormack, who perfected the process for
producing the flakes. In November 1924, the ready-to-eat
cereal known as Washburn’s Gold Medal Whole Wheat
Flakes during its development was ready for the market.
The cumbersome name was shortened to “Wheaties” as
the result of an employee contest won by Jane
Bausman, the wife of a company executive.

So there you have it; Ray is at least 28 in this picture. My understanding is that Vala identified the people and event and Mary Grace recorded the information. They probably did this at least 40 years after the fact and probably a lot more years.

This incident illustrates one of the hazards of researching, falling too much in love with one fact and not taking into account the other clues.