"Cool Gunmen Rob City Cafe: Pair Escapes Police Following $30 Holdup".

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 41

Oct 7-13
#52ancestors
Prompt: Newest [find]

 

"Cool Gunmen Rob City Cafe: Pair Escapes Police Following $30 Holdup".

Thus started a search that I finally solved while in lock down for COVID-19. My newest find solved the mystery of the newspaper clipping found in my Grandparent's pictures. The article details a time when my Grandpa Golightley was robbed while eating breakfast at the Farrell's Products Co. Cafe. It mentions how upset he was because he couldn't pay for his breakfast after the robbery.

There were clues in the article, but I could not find where this might have happened. There wasn't a date on the clipping, nor the name of the newspaper.  The article mentioned that John Golightley was 42 at the time which meant

 it would have been in the year 1948 as his birthday was on January 1st, 1906.  Since Grandpa was a truck driver, it could have been anywhere.  I searched the internet for this Farrell's Products Co. Cafe, but it must be long gone. I had searched for other people and things mentioned in the article on Ancestry and the internet, but up until now I didn't find anything. 

 The name of the manager, J. B. Adams, was mentioned but that name gave me too many search results. The two police officers who investigated the crime were A. F. Blackshere and R. F. Gaylon.  Bob Owen Stewart was also mentioned as having had a run in with these robbers outside Stewart's tavern.

 The last time Newspaper.com ran a special, I decided to get a 6-month subscription.  After all, that 2-hour commute that I wasn't doing during the lock down could be put to good use doing research. 

 I started searching for the two police officers.  First I found A. F. Blackshere, a city policeman, in the 1954 Oklahoma City Directory.  Second, I found a sympathy notice in the December 28, 1951 issue of the Oklahoma Star, Portland Avenue Baptist Church edition for the death of R. F. Gaylon, Jr., Patrolman. This newspaper was published in Oklahoma City which put both officers mentioned in the article in Oklahoma City.

 Then I found my Grandpa in the 1948 Oklahoma City Directory, "Golightley, John, driver Gilmore, Gardner & Kirk.  He was also listed in the 1952 Oklahoma City Directory, "Golightley John (Eva), driver Gilmore Gardner & Kirk rPO Box 1069 Ponca City". 

 I still don't know the exact date he was robbed or in which newspaper it was published, but I do know it was probably in Oklahoma City, probably in 1948 but certainly before 1951. I haven't given up because new information pops up every day and I have found one more place where my Grandparents lived, if even for a short time.