Teens Missing for Over a Week in 1957: No News Update on Homecoming
Theresa M Kendall: 1941-2007 (Maternal Second Cousin)
Sometimes
news articles leave the reader with more questions than answers. Such is the
case with a short news article from the September 7, 1957 edition of the Salem,
Oregon Capital Journal. The headline reads “Sheriff Seeks Missing Girl”
and reports that a fourteen-year-old girl from Dallas, Oregon was reported
missing from her home on August 28, 1957, which means she’d already been gone for ten
days. After describing her and the clothing she was last seen wearing, the
article notes her parents were offering a $50 reward for her return.
Then comes
the link to my family tree:
“She may
be accompanied by Theresa Kendall, 15, who also has been reported missing.”
Theresa
Kendall was born in Minnesota on December 11, 1941, to parents Nellie Laird and
Charles Kendall. She was the oldest of their six children, and grew up in Polk
County, Oregon.
So what
happened in 1957? Fortunately, the two girls must have returned home after the
news article came out, although the newspaper didn’t mention their return.
However, both girls appear in school photos the following year, and move on to marriage
and jobs as they entered adulthood.. They seem to have run away from home that
August for some unknown reason, but were able to work things out with their
families upon their return.
 |
| Theresa's junior year yearbook photo |
What
really strikes me is the difference in the way the sheriff’s office and
newspaper treated Miss Slagle, the other missing girl, and Theresa. The sheriff
is seeking only one girl, not two. Why doesn’t he seem to be concerned about
Theresa’s fate? And why are her parents not matching the reward offered by the
Slagle family or at least pleading for Theresa’s safe return? Why was there no
description of Theresa and her clothing? If the girls were friends and had
apparently run off together, why were they treated so differently by everyone
in authority?
And where
were the girls? Were they hiding out on their own, or were they with someone?
They were too young to drive, so did they hitchhike, or did the sheriff and the
girls’ families have a good idea who they were with—boyfriends perhaps?
Today
there are still disparities in how missing children are treated by law
enforcement, depending on their race and socio-economic status. Well-to-do,
pretty young white girls get plenty of press attention when they have
disappeared, but missing black or Latino girls or unattractive poor white girls
don’t get the same coverage on the evening news or the newspapers, and the
police don’t spend as much time investigating. I suspect something similar was
happening in 1957 Dallas, Oregon. Perhaps Theresa was from the wrong side of
the tracks, or perhaps she had run away before. Perhaps her parents were not
comfortable dealing with law enforcement. Whatever the cause, the police did
not treat her disappearance with the gravity that they treated Miss Slagle’s.
This
article provides the least information about poor Theresa, and it leaves me
with the most questions. I wish I knew why the two girls left home, when and
why they returned, and where they were and who they were with while they were
missing. At least I know Theresa survived her runaway adventure and went on to
have many more---she ended up with at least five husbands!
Sources:
“Sheriff
Seeks Missing Girl” The Capital Journal, Sept. 7, 1957. Accessed through
Newspapers.com.
“Police
Hunt Polk Girls”. Sunday Oregonian, Sept. 8, 1957. Accessed through
Newspapers.com.
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