Karen L. McCafferty

Summary

Karen L. McCafferty, a daughter of John “Bing” McCafferty, served as commerce secretary and reporter for the Beaver Island Flying Club in January 1971, graduated from Beaver Island School on May 24, 1974, and married James L. Wojan at Holy Cross Church on September 28, 1974.

History

The January 1971 Beaver Beacon names Karen McCafferty as commerce secretary and reporter for the newly formed Beaver Island Flying Club, among a fifteen-member roster of teenage boys and girls that also includes “Jim McCafferty” as a separate member. Three and a half years later, the May–June 1974 Beacon names Karen McCafferty among five seniors receiving a diploma at Beaver Island School’s commencement; the same issue names “Bing and Madonna McCafferty” as chaperones on the school’s Lansing/Detroit trip. That September, the Beacon reports the September 28, 1974 Holy Cross wedding of Karen L. McCafferty and James L. Wojan, naming her brothers Daniel McCafferty (ringbearer) and James McCafferty (groomsman) and her sisters as matron of honor Mrs. John Martin and bridesmaid Mrs. Lawrence Kubic.

Evidence and limits

The 1971 flying-club member and the 1974 graduate/bride are treated as one woman. The bridge is a matching sibling pair named independently in both sources: the 1971 flying-club roster lists a “Karen McCafferty” alongside a “Jim McCafferty,” and the 1974 wedding report independently names Karen’s brother as “James McCafferty” (groomsman). A teenage club member in 1971 graduating high school three years later is also age-consistent. No source states outright that the two are the same person, so this rests on the sibling-pairing bridge rather than a documented statement — the same kind of bridge that identified Kevin McDonough across two of his own episode records, where matching named siblings, not a shared name alone, established the identity.

The wedding report names Karen’s parents as “Mr. and Mrs. James B. McCafferty,” but no McCafferty father of that name otherwise appears in the held corpus, while her brothers at the wedding — Daniel McCafferty (ringbearer) and James McCafferty (groomsman) — are independently documented in 1975 as sons of “Mr. and Mrs. John (Bing) McCafferty.” This record treats “James B.” as a probable typographical error for “John B.” and identifies Karen as Bing’s daughter on that basis, rather than as an established fact. The wedding report also names sisters serving as matron of honor and bridesmaid (Mrs. John Martin and Mrs. Lawrence Kubic of Chicago), neither of whom has a separate record in this archive.

Added 1 August 2026 · revised 4 August 2026. Recent changes