Ann wasn't mentioned in the obits of her: father, mother, brother, and at least one maternal aunt who died after her parents and brother (and her obit DID mention Ann's brother.). It's just so puzzling (as is this whole case). Why did she leave? What happened to her? Why is there no mention of her in newspapers past 1960 or so (comparison with UID
@SimsGuy67 mentions above)? Her father gave at least 2 interviews with the Tucson paper in the '70s and never mentioned his missing daughter.
I have a sort-of theory that around that time (1960ish) the family did discover what happened to her. Whether they wrote her off (the whole family, though?) due to some scandalous discovery or whether they discovered something else, we don't know. So frustrating.
We do know that:
- Ann never had a social security card (at least not under her name) issued
- I've never found a legal declaration of death statement in the papers, and she's basically non-existent in any Ancestry trees. I created one, hoping to link up with others who might have more info, but as far as this writing, mine has the most info.
![Stick Out Tongue :p :p](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
- Not in FindaGrave.
- there's some question about her last verified sighting. In the article
@Diavola posted above ("Queen for a Day", 1957) her mother states they traced her as far as El Paso. Other reports have her buying a ticket for Amarillo and getting on the bus in El Paso and seen drinking coffee in Alamagordo, NM at a break along the way.
- the Plainview (near Amarillo) report is sort of interesting in that there doesn't seem to be any follow-up. (An reported sighting in Colorado was followed up with 'it wasn't her'.)
I haven't been able to find (so far) any UIDs who are possibly interesting and otherwise unreported in modern DBs, from 1956-1965 in Arizona, NM, Texas, Colorado, or Oklahoma.
My thoughts going forward, because I can't seem to stop checking in on this case every few months or so:
- do more tightly focused newspaper searches in: Arkansas, Missouri, Utah, Nevada, Mexico.
- search border crossing records (if possible)
- email every LE jurisdiction who commented on the search in the papers in the very thin hope they may have remaining case files.
- email Willcox and Tucson, AZ historical societies to see if they have any info on the Caldwell family in general (really digging in the haystacks here, but they were prominent ranchers at the time, and Ann's parents appear in the
Arizona Pioneer Histories, vXIV)
- one day, take a trip to Tucson to dig around the Arizona Historical Society archives, the University of Arizona student newspaper archives (just curious about whether they wrote about her disappearance), the Pima and Cochise County courthouses/historical societies, etc. Basically, a fishing expedition to look for any paper record/trail that isn't online.