NV NV - Las Vegas, WhtFem 55-60, UP355, in bus station restroom, scar, rings, clothes, Jul'82

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carbuff said:
In July of 1982 almost every town in the US had a bus station.
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Exactly. I took one Greyhound bus trip in my life. It was cross country from Los Angeles to Miami in June 1981. I blew my airfare at Hollywood Park so I had to take the bus. Then my friend loaned me $20 for food during the trip. I decided it would be best to invest it quickly before departure, since a reasonably priced larger supermarket was not far away from the downtown bus station. I bought $15 worth. Then I made a long distance phone call telling my parents when I would be arriving. My back was to the bags of food during the pay phone call. Naturally the bags were stolen. There were dozens of people in that terminal and not one of them bothered to tell me my food was being swiped from feet away. That's the clientele you were dealing with in that era, especially in urban terminals. So when I read that this woman may have had a wallet and other items stolen from her purse, that is par for the course.

I couldn't believe how frequently that bus stopped. Seemed like we made a dozen stops before we got out of Riverside. Then the pace picked up. Every terminal looked exactly the same. There was a full sized Burger King in every one. Burger King must have had a contract with Greyhound in that era. There was a huge fat guy on the bus who dominated at least two Whoppers at every stop. And I'm sitting at the edge of the restaurant with 5 bucks in my pocket to last 5 days. Finally I invested it in a massive bag of animal crackers at the Greyhound in dusty El Paso. Those were old stale crunchy animal crackers but darn did I need them. I goosed that bag for the remainder of the trip.

This lady in Las Vegas had not just finished a bus trip of any length. No chance. Not looking like that even in morgue photos. During the bus trip were all joking at how disheveled we got as the journey progressed. I thought I was a big shot in Los Angeles. Three days later I had a policeman ask to see my ID at the Greyhound terminal not far from Superdome in New Orleans. That's how much I had declined. I had a 3-day beard, oil slicked hair and no doubt I smelled of one Greyhound terminal after another. We had to change buses occasionally. It was hardly cross country on the same vehicle.

I think in a prior post I guessed she might be Hawaiian, due to proximity to California Club. That is still my best estimate. Otherwise I'd say she could have been on a gambling junket from Southern California. Those are incredibly popular, then as now. A person would still look fresh if merely coming from California. Normally those are charter buses but I'm sure smaller groups or even isolated individuals chose to do it via Greyhound.
 
You could turn that description into a very interesting road-trip book :D Thanks for sharing. I never did a cross country road trip but my shorter trips were like that, just not as grueling.

I agree she probably hadn't come any distance if she was arriving. But she could have been getting ready to board to go home to somewhere.

Gambling junket from southern California seems very likely. It's the kind of clothing my grandmother would have worn on such a trip. She usually took a group charter with friends, but I think once she and her friend went by Greyhound.
 
Could this possibly be Thelma Polly Melton who disappeared a year earlier while hiking?
 
Genetic genealogy would certainly solve this. This woman may have had no close living family at that point in her life and more distant relatives likely did not keep in touch or maybe they were estranged and she may have been a widow and went through life at least by her age largely alone. It would certainly seem that way as apparently she was never reported missing despite dying of natural causes at a place that might be known to someone close to her if they knew she was taking a trip. Or perhaps this lady may have had siblings she just didn't keep in touch with much or something. Some families are like that. Her family may actually have looked for her at some point and unaware of where she might be living or traveling found nothing. Now she maybe someone's aunt or great aunt who was never heard from again and family wasn't sure were to look or if she even wanted be looked for, perhaps. The case of the older woman who committed suicide as a Jane Doe in a cemetery around Christmas in 1996 comes to mind. That case was solved earlier this year and of course, that lady wanted to die as a Jane Doe and chose her death. This woman didn't. But maybe this lady too was estranged from family and in her case never thought she would die in circumstances were she couldn't be I'd or perhaps she didn't care if her relatives would be notified if she died. Whoever stole this woman's wallet is or was such a loser(it must have been a woman as it was a woman's restroom, presumably). Stealing cash if she had cash on her is one thing as I can see their line of thought that she wasn't going to be needing it ( in a immediate sense anyway, although funeral costs can be expensive) but taking her ID as well as checks or credit cards that could then be used fraudulently perhaps? That's even worse, probably. This woman deserves her name back and it would likely solve some family's mystery too even if she only had distant cousins who she didn't keep in touch with ( like if she was the only child of only children or something).
 
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summergirl1 said:
Genetic genealogy would certainly solve this. This woman may have had no close living family at that point in her life and more distant relatives likely did not keep in touch or maybe they were estranged and she may have been a widow and went through life at least by her age largely alone. It would certainly seem that way as apparently she was never reported missing despite dying of natural causes at a place that might be known to someone close to her if they knew she was taking a trip. Or perhaps this lady may have had siblings she just didn't keep in touch with much or something. Some families are like that. Her family may actually have looked for her at some point and unaware of where she might be living or traveling found nothing. Now she maybe someone's aunt or great aunt who was never heard from again and family wasn't sure were to look or if she even wanted be looked for, perhaps. The case of the older woman who committed suicide as a Jane Doe in a cemetery around Christmas in 1996 comes to mind. That case was solved earlier this year and of course, that lady wanted to die as a Jane Doe and chose her death. This woman didn't. But maybe this lady too was estranged from family and in her case never thought she would die in circumstances were she couldn't be I'd or perhaps she didn't care if her relatives would be notified if she died. Whoever stole this woman's wallet is or was such a loser(it must have been a woman as it was a woman's restroom, presumably). Stealing cash if she had cash on her is one thing as I can see their line of thought that she wasn't going to be needing it ( in a immediate sense anyway, although funeral costs can be expensive) but taking her ID as well as checks or credit cards that could then be used fraudulently perhaps? That's even worse, probably. This woman deserves her name back and it would likely solve some family's mystery too even if she only had distant cousins who she didn't keep in touch with ( like if she was the only child of only children or something).
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OT:
One of my friends was an elderly man. He lived to be around 100, possibly older, as we always suspected he shaved a couple of years off his age so he could keep driving. He had no kids, but said it wasn't for lack of trying (lol). Only one of his siblings had kids, his sister, and she had only one, a daughter. That was it.
He outlived every single immediate relative, and their children. The only family he had left by the time he died were a great, great, great niece and nephew, whom he discovered and met when he was in his 90s. So there are folks out there who have little to no family.
I miss him, he had some fantastic stories about growing up in the early 1900s.
 
I think there's too many differences. But hers is an interesting case in it's own right. I found her thread on here and commented on it.
 
I submitted the following two missing persons for comparison with this unidentified:

Margaret Peters (Seattle, WA)
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
WA - WA - Margaret Peters, 41, Seattle, 1962

Margaret went missing in 1962, and would have been approximately 60 years old when the unidentified was found. Given the quality of her photo, it's hard to say whether or not she looks like the unidentified, and it should be noted that she's listed as having brown eyes while the unidentified is listed as having hazel eyes, which wouldn't be surprising as hazel eyes are often perceived as either green or brown. What I find compelling is that she is suspected of possibly returning to Nevada, the state the unidentified was found.


Mabel May Chambers (Wilmington, DE)
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
DE - DE - Mabel Chambers, 30-40, Wilmington, Jan 1952

Mabel went missing in 1952, and would have been approximately 61 years old when the unidentified was found. I'm not sure why she'd be in Las Vegas but she does match the physical description, and appears to resemble the unidentified, although her eyebrows seem to have a different shape.

mabel-chambers.jpg
 
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