A Mother's Desperate Search for Her Son
Three years after a family separation in Montana, a mother travels to Colfax hoping to find a man who was once spotted with a traveling photography business.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mrs. McClanahan of Palouse City was in Colfax Thursday in search of her son, John Johnson, who she learned was at Colfax last September with a traveling photographic business, and who is thought to have spent the winter here and probably has a wife in this city. She is very anxious to learn his whereabouts and begs anyone knowing anything of him to communicate with her at Palouse, or with The Gazette. They became separated three years ago at Marysville, Montana, and neither knows where the other is.
“She is very anxious to learn his whereabouts and begs anyone knowing anything of him to communicate with her at Palouse, or with The Gazette.”
Missing persons reports in local papers were the social media 'missing' posts of the 19th century. In a pre-internet age, the local newspaper was the only viable search engine for locating transient family members.
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