My maternal grandmother was born in Boston Massachusetts on May 1 1872 and was accordingly named May Belle. Sounds as if her parents, James D. K. Willis and Ellen Cummings, were delighted.
May Belle as a young mother in Minneapolis Minnesota, April or May 1912
Grandmother May Belle (on the right) in Spring 1940, shortly before she died in July 1940 – Winchester Mass The 2 little girls are her grand daughters, and the other woman is her sister-in-law “Auntie”
my grandmother May Belle in later years, the 1930’s, in Winchester Massachusetts
