The Human Web!

Six degrees of separation (also referred to as the ‘Human Web’) refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, ‘a friend of a friend’ statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer. It was originally set out by Frigyes Karinthy and popularized by a play written by John Guare.
Source: Wikipedia, 2011.


When we planned our 25th and our 50th STA reunions, we were unable to locate our classmate Margaret Maloney. It wasn’t until this February that Peggy Maloney was located on the Austin High School Reunion site. It not only listed a Margaret Maloney in the class of 1964, but it added a new last name --McGreal.

We then searched for her in Google and in many other online resources. We looked for her with a birth year of 1946 and hoped she was still in the Illinois area. Searching for a Margaret McGreal, a much more unique name, proved considerably easier than hunting for Margaret Maloney.

Amazingly, we identified a Margaret McGreal, associated with a Maloney, after just a few minutes of searching. The associated Maloney turned out to be her sister, Patti, also a graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas. But what was more amazing was the address provided. It was the same address we had for another classmate.

This classmate was contacted to see if he knew Margaret McGreal. And, he did. She lived across the hall from him! Though not close friends, they did know each other, conversed in the hall, exchanged Christmas treats and had no idea they had spent several years together at St. Thomas Aquinas.

The rest is history. Both Margaret Maloney McGreal AND her neighbor, Dan Carr, joined us for the gathering at St. Thomas Aquinas/St. Martin de Porres on March 13th. And we did it in only ONE STEP!