Euphemia Gertrude Cole, better known as Gert, was born in 1875 in Sanford, Michigan. She married John McMullen when she was 17. The couple lived their early married life in Sanford, Midland County, about 11 miles northwest of Midland and 34 miles from Saginaw. All but one of their children were born in Sanford. In 1913 they moved to Saginaw to live with son George.

A little more than a year after the couple married in 1892 their first son George was born (probably the baby pictured at left.) They went on to have nine children in all, the sixth our ancestor Marcel McMullen, born in 1907. Gert had her last baby, Wilson, at age 37 in Saginaw.

Both Gert's and John's parents hailed from other parts. John was born and raised in Ontario, Canada by Alexander McMullin and Ann LaVeque and had only been in the USA for a few years when he married Gert. Gert's father Andrew Jackson Cole, a farmer, was born in New York, had a 1st family in Pennsylvania, and came to Michigan. Her mother Mary Bartlett came from a large family in Middlesex, Ontario; it's not known exactly how and when she came to Michigan and whether any family members also made the trip.

Joyce McMullen, Gert's granddaughter, recalls "Grandma Gert" as "not the hugger type, but nice. I remember the bread with maple syrup she would let us eat as a treat. We only stayed at their house once or twice. They lived at Uncle George's house until they died. Uncle George supplied the house and my dad provided the money. They were poor." She remembers that Grandpa John liked to play the fiddle in front of a little shack he had in the back yard and never remembers either grandparent having teeth.

Gert and John celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1942. They lived out their lives in the home of their son George. John died in 1952 and Gert in 1960.