Thanks to everyone for your suggestions & help. It turned out to be the same thing I had already read on the usgenweb site, and it seems like the newspapers reported local happenings such as illnesses, fires, etc. I was hoping to find a "local girl marries in MO" article, but no such luck. Each time I am just about to give up, I think of what a cousin recently told me - "Think of it as a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle." So I'll keep looking for those pieces. Martha