The Little Girl Dressed in Blue

Julia “Marg” Koebert Burns was born in the 1920s and grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and she was Clarksburg, West Virginia’s first and only little newspaper girl during that time. In an era when little girls usually wore frilly dresses and giant bows in their hair, Marg wore blue overalls and a beanie. After school, Saturday nights, and even after Mass on Sunday morning, the folks of Clarksburg could buy a local or out-of town newspaper from the pint-sized tomboy. Judy’s childhood led her from one hair-raising adventure to another, from climbing telephone poles on dare to checking out the crime scene of Clarksburg’s bloodiest serial killer; and from stomping grapes for wine to being kidnapped by white slave traders. Fearless, and perhaps even foolhardy, Judy experienced more in her first twenty years than most people experience in a lifetime.