Names and Places

Here at the Terry Wants Historical Research Center, one of the resources that we are working is an index of our scrapbooks.  These books were kept by area residents of newspaper clippings of people they knew, for the most part.  Occasionally there are clippings of items of national news that was of interest to them as well.  Charles Lindberg's transatlantic flight for example.  But most are of local news: marriages, anniversaries, enlistments, etc.
The scrapbook I am currently indexing is full of small articles from a nearby town in the county, Newaygo Michigan.  The time frame of this one is mostly early 1940's, the World War II era.  Most of the articles I have come across has been of service men and women: being on service roll after the war, going to training, working with the SeaBees and other gossipy tidbits of friends and family.  Finding so many of the same names repeating, they begin to almost seem like family.
Occasionally though, a series of clippings will really touch me. 
Since the book is not always pasted together in chronalogical order, sometimes I will find an entry about someone attending training, or being shipped to the Pacific or European theatre.  While saving the clipping under their name, I frequently find a previously saved clipping under the same name.  And sometimes the previous clipping provides a poignant bit of foresight.  While saving a clipping that someone was missing, I found a clipping about them being released from POW camp.
Sometimes it may be a clipping about their heading to combat after a leave, only to find one already saved about their memorial service.
Sometimes foresight is the pits.