Michal Naffah, son-in-law of the late Mary Frances Miller Myers, Class of 1951, made the Wall Street Journal.

Karen Myers Naffah, Mary Frances’ daughter, wrote:

“My Husband, Michal, and Mallory & Jeff's
wedding reception cookie table made the WSJ today!”

The promo for the article was atop the WSJ’s front page.

Michal is owner of the Embassy Banquet Center in Youngstown. When Karen and Michal’s daughter, Mallory, was married in 2015, papa went all out.

“There were tens of thousands of cookies” on the nine banquet tables, Michal recalls.

Mary Francis must have been beaming down from Heaven. She so loved her days at Monongah High. And the Monongah High Alumni Reunions that followed over the decades.

My encounters with Mary Francis were heartwarming because we shared our appreciation for our Monongah High days and the friendships that blossomed there and flourished for the rest of our lives.

Even while she was nearing the end of her life in Canfield, Ohio, she instructed her daughter, Karen, to pass along information about her health to me so that I could put it on this Monongah High Alumni blog, which I did.

After Mary Frances and husband Bill passed away, I carried out her final wish: To share her memorabilia of Monongah High with Lions no matter where they live in the world.

Karen mailed me Mary Francis’ considerable memorabilia, which included the 1949, 1950 and 1951 Black Diamond yearbooks, programs and scripts for the senior and junior high plays that had Mary Frances in the cast and autographs and graduation cards from her fellow Class of 1951 classmates.

After using most of it in Monongah High Alumni blog articles I mailed Mary Francis’ treasured Monongah High mementoes to Monongah High Alumni Association treasurer Donna Davis, with instructions to give them to a 1951 classmate who would preserve them and honor Mary Francis for years to come.

Devotion like that is rare and cherished.