Getting back to it, this is another opinion post I received today:
Thank you for these examples. I think I can account for them all. All of the excerpts, including the one about Putin, have a past time context established. In a past narrative context, "would be" is not anomalous; it is the past counterpart of the "will be" that we use for "present prediction."
The only example that doesn't have a clear past context established is this one:
I am trying to loate my grandfather Harry Rowe, who lived
in Monessen in 1914/5,he would be about 32 yrs old then.
The writer seems to be "ordinary folks," someone who writes as s/he would talk. The construction is common in casual speech. This is my only explanation. Clearly, more remains to be discovered about this usage.
It's very kind of you to provide me these "teasers." I'm constantly reminded, as I observe the English language in use, how much our everyday usage deviates from the traditional grammatical "rules."
"would be" for past
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