Memorable nobodies
My mother-in-law beats your Martian hands down. Among the various reasons I've spent twelve+ years researching people who died in the 1903 Chicago Theater fire in Chicago is my discovery that nobodies are oftentimes more interesting than somebodies. Genealogy enthusiasts, doctors, nurses, ministers, teachers and others in the helping professions learn this early on but the recognition came to me a few years ago when my search for online references to my late father- and mother-in-law turned up nothing but genealogical data. How could it be that such extraordinary people left so few footprints? The answer is that they were private people who eschewed publicity. Had they robbed a bank or built one, they'd have left a history trail in the form of media references. In the process, however, they might have slipped over into the land of Martians (aka outliers). Known to others as Bill Cooke and to family as "Skinny," William W. Cooke played college ...