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Show Run Away from Home tracts the attention of the police, Most husbands who leave home gofor three reasons: money problems, marital friction, and the “other woman.” According to Ed Goldfader, general manager of New York-based Tracers Company of America, the errant husband who flees his money problem usually is an executive, age 44 to 51, with an expense account, five-figure income, suburban home, and a fanatic’s faith in credit and credit cards. (The spurt in the numberof runaway husbands in recent years coincides with the rise in the use of credit cards.) The suburbanite husband -who disappears usually is an “ideal husband and father,” according to his friends and family. He feels trapped under pressure, disillusioned, and confused. Goldfader estimates that the number of husbands who deserted their wives in 1966 increased 35 percent over 1965. Most wives, judging by results of the Northwestern National Life survey, let their deserting husbands get away with it. They are too proud or ashamed to admit that their husbands ‘left them. Most husbands, on the other hand, have their wives pursued. , When the wife disappears, her reason usually is one or more of these three: (1) boredom, (2) another man, or (3) her mother-in-law. When a person breaks away from his accustomed surroundings, he may do something he yearned all his life to do. Norman H.Briggs of Troy, N.Y., was an insurance salesman who became a cowboy. Whenhe was finally found near Newcastle, Wyo., he’d selected a name, Clay Hollister, straight out of a tv Western. Somepeople feign loss of memory,although true amnesia is rare. The claim of amnesia, however, is frequently used as a cover-up for a lost weekend or as an excuse to return home. The strange disappearance of Laurence Bader apparently resulted from oneof the rare cases of true amnesia. Bader was discovered in February, 1965, competing as John F. (Fritz) Johnson in an archery tournamentin Chicago's McCormick Place exposition hall. Psychiatrists failed to disprove his claim that he remembered nothing about his life before he disappeared on May 17, 1957, while boating near his home in Akron, Ohio. He died of cancer in September, 1966. To demonstrate how private operatives go about searching for missing persons, let us say that a business executive has disappeared. Police are satisfied that he hasn’t met with foul play and the police missing-} ms’ buread hasn’t been able to ages in a month. Apparently the Keyed-up travelers they run away—andhowtheycan be found husband has left the jurisdiction of the local police, so his wife retains a private detective. First, the detective interviews people who knew the man’s habits and preferences—his physician, bartender, barber, neighbors, and others. The detective knows that the missing husbandwill take his habits with him and that his habits will betray him as surely as his scent would attract a bloodhound. The detective well knows geographical preferences of people trying to escape their past. Easterners usually head for California or Florida. Westerners like New York. Southwesterners end upin Illinois; and people from the upper Midwest seem to be attracted to California as inevitably as a mothis attracted to a light. For instance, a Cleveland insurance salesman’s habit of eating Chinese food every Sunday tripped him up. The detective headed for the largest Chinese community in America. Sure enough, one Sunday the insurance salesman was found behind a plate of pork chow mein in a San Francisco restaurant. A detective also tracks missing persons through records, knowing that they seldom change their names. He contacts alumni associations when his quarry is a college graduate. In most states, 50 cents to a state motor-vehicle division yields the address of a missing person who is a licensed driver. People apply to oil companies, hotel, restaurant, and motel chains to have new credit cards issued. Other sources of information are voter lists and school, census, and armed-forces rolls. The most important ploy for the missing person who wants to stay that way is avoiding all contact with anyone out of his past. This is extremelydifficult. A man may be tempted to inquire about his family when he passes through the town in - which his family lives, Sometimes people seemingly want to be found, often because they are homesick and want a face-saving reason to return. One man wrote his wife’s friend and ended the letter by appealing to her not to tell his wife where he was. The letter bore his return address! A national clearing house of informa- unwind at Sheraton No matter how youtravel and just about anywhere you go, there’s a Sheraton waiting. Always with Free Parking and Family Pian. Sheraton: great place to unwind. Most have swimming pools. Enjoy wonderful meals, lively lounges, big, quiet, air-conditioned roomsandall the other extra values Sheraton is famous for — from New York to Hawaii and over100 places in-between.Diners’ Club and Shell Oil credit cards honored.For Insured Reservations at Guaranteed Rates, see your favorite Travel Agent or call any Sheraton. tion on missing persons and also a coun- seling service have been suggested. To give the service dramatic appeal, it might be called Runaways Anonymous. People who feel pressures mounting, who are about to abandon their families, could consult the counseling service. The millions who have run away and regretted it and those they left behind would agree that it’s worth a try. Family Weekly, July 23,1967 7 <a Sheraton Hotels & MotorInns ‘to coast in the U.S., in Hawaii, Canada, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Nassau. Opening June '67: Manila. |
