A New Family

Wallace Dobbin, Blanche, and Barbara

Wally, Blanche, and Barbara

In May 1929, Blanche was invited to a dance in Washington and there met a Minnesota boy with wavy hair and a quick wit.

Wallace Robert Dobbin or Wally, had recently been discharged from the U.S. Marines having served in the now forgotten Nicaragua police action in 1926. Now he was working as a train brakeman at the Washington terminal. 

They were married on December 6, 1929 and in 1930, on Dec. 4th, along came Barbara Ione Dobbin, my mother.

This was taken at the Shaw farm in the spring of 1931. Did you notice Peter Pan's shadow again?









In this photo from the summer of 1932 the Dobbin's stand in front of Wally's father's house in Glenwood, Minnesota. This was the first of what would be many trips back to Minnesota. Wally had recently been laid off from the Washington terminal and in Glenwood he found summer work on the farms. They drove a car to get there but without today's modern interstate it must have taken several days.

Wally's Gelnwood friends Louis and Lawrence Stoltz who also worked for the terminal encouraged him to return when re-hiring started, and for a while the Dobbin's stayed on the Shaw farm in Pomfret. Wally had to drive daily into Waldorf where the nearest telephone was, to call and check the terminal board for work. Wally's younger brother - Ralph Dobbin married a Stoltz sister.