Week 25, FAN Club: Helen McDougal Woodis
- jujsky
- Jun 22
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 22
Week 25 of 2025's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is "Fan Club."
If you’ve done more than dip your toe into genealogy, you’ve likely heard of the “FAN Club” concept. Coined by the highly regarded genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills, the acronym “FAN” stands for friends, associates and neighbors. People new to the hobby often overlook these important individuals because they’re not family but ignoring them is a mistake. Our friends, associates, and neighbors sometimes shape our stories more than our blood relatives .
It drives me crazy when I can’t identify everyone in my family pictures. I sift through photos of my grandparents and great-grandparents surrounded by unidentified people, often nameless friends. Some pictures are casual – arms are linked or thrown around one another, their smiles easy and relaxed. Other pictures are goofy where they’re striking poses, dressed up in crazy costumes, or mugging for the camera. They all have one thing in common: the connection shining out of those photos transcends time. My ancestors were close to these people – maybe even closer than they were to their own family members. When the same, familiar faces pop up in picture after picture, I sometimes ask with a note of frustration in my voice, “Who are you?”
My grandmother Helen was a fun, lively girl and attracted a large circle of friends. You can easily tell who her best friends were by the number of times they appear in her (unfortunately) unlabeled photographs. My uncles recognized a few of them but hopes of identifying the rest were slim. Fortunately, one couple wanted to be found and remembered.
In a 1941 newspaper article, my grandmother was listed as the sole bridesmaid for one of her friends. I gasped when I saw pictures of the bride and groom! Despite the grainy quality of the newsprint, I immediately recognized the headshot of the bride-to-be. Her long, thin face appeared in many of my grandmother’s photos. There’s a picture of her unabashedly sitting on an outhouse toilet holding a roll of toilet paper in her hands (Side note: the Ladd family produced many people-on-toilet pictures for some wild reason – like, an excessive amount I can neither understand or explain). In an earlier photograph, she appears in a long skirt, standing shyly next to my great-grandmother. In my favorite picture, she and my grandmother are pretending to hitchhike, cigarettes loosely hanging from their mouths as they flash some leg. This young woman seems most at ease pictured with a handsome young man strumming a guitar -- with good reason. That man with the lopsided grin was her fiancé. Now I could finally put names to the faces: Helen McDougal and Roland Woodis.
Helen McDougal was born in Gorham, Maine on February 5, 1916 to Miles McDougal and Marian Paige. By 1920, she was living in Westbrook on Brown Street, a few houses down from Helen Ladd’s grandfather, Eugene. Maybe the little girls met there, but if not, their lives intersected many times over. The girls were the same age and attended Westbrook schools. In 1930 when they were 14, they were members of Order of the Rainbow for Girls, a Masonic organization that taught leadership and charity through acts of service. The McDougal and the Ladd families were both active in Westbrook’s Methodist Episcopal Church where the Helens performed together in various pageants and plays. 1n 1932 they were founding members of a church service organization called the Helpers. Helen McDougal was President and Helen Ladd was Vice President. It’s unclear when they became friends, but they certainly knew each other.
Helen McDougal was bright and an excellent student. All top 10 graduating seniors from Westbrook High School’s Class of 1934 were women, and Helen was one of them, ranking #8 out of 72 students. She took the commercial track in school and went on to work at the S.D. Warren Paper Company as a secretary, along with Helen Ladd who like many at that time, opted to leave school early to enter the workforce.
On March 15, 1941, she married Roland Woodis in a small ceremony and the newlyweds moved into a home on Main Street. They had no children. Roland worked several jobs over the years, and passed away unexpectedly in 1972. Helen continued to work at the mill and remained active in various social organizations. She passed away in 1995.
It appears Helen McDougal Woodis and my grandmother eventually grew apart as life took them in different directions. My uncles couldn’t identify Helen in any of the pictures and had never heard the name. After 1941, there’s no mention of them together in the newspaper and pictures of Helen McDougal Woodis stop shortly after WWII began. One of the last pictures of them together show the two Helens, Roland, and Helen Ladd’s boyfriend at the time, Jack Foley shortly before Jack left for the war. Though it appears they didn’t remain lifelong friends, for several years the two were inseparable, and from their bright smiles and the wild glimmer in their eyes it’s easy to tell that the years they did have together were full of laughter and fun.
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