AZ AZ- Ann Caldwell, 18, Tucson, Pima County, March 13, 1956

[azure]

I don't think NamUs ever deletes submissions, they just stay restricted.

I tried reaching out to people who knew her brother. These are people who might have known if she was still missing, but wouldn't have known her before she went missing. No one responded to me.

Does Ann have any surviving nieces or nephews? Obviously I don't want you to identify them, just curious.

 

[cenazoic]

@azure - No, she only had one sibling (brother), who didn’t have any children as far as I’ve been able to determine.

 

[Diavola]

How about cousins? Some of them could be still alive.

 

[Diavola]

Palm Springs Desert Sun (April 30, 1957)

Idk if this has been posted but this article says her mother "won" on the TV show. They spent 20 years worth of savings looking for her.
"We have a home in Tucson and Mr Caldwell has a ranch out from there-we did go back and forth a lot-maybe she didn't feel too settled... I don't know. i just don't know"

 

[UnlicensedPI]

Does Ann have any surviving nieces or nephews? Obviously I don't want you to identify them, just curious.

She has step-nieces, but they didn't respond

 

[cenazoic]

@SimsGuy67 - did you say you’d entered Ann into Namus awhile back? If so, did they ever respond?

Just curious because I just happened across a thread from a few years ago where someone said the’d entered a person, then got an email the next day saying it had been deleted because the case was “either a duplicate or unverifiable”.

 

[SimsGuy67]

@SimsGuy67 - did you say you’d entered Ann into Namus awhile back? If so, did they ever respond?

Just curious because I just happened across a thread from a few years ago where someone said the’d entered a person, then got an email the next day saying it had been deleted because the case was “either a duplicate or unverifiable”.

No, this has gone for every MP I've tried entering in NamUs, even those confirmed to still be missing. They were just restricted and never touched again.

 

[victoriarobinson642]

No, this has gone for every MP I've tried entering in NamUs, even those confirmed to still be missing. They were just restricted and never touched again.

I've had a handful go through but 7 times out of 10, it's radio silence

 

[branmuffin]

The very fact of her never even being mentioned in obits for the brother and father suggests that her family wrote her off - and the only thing I can think of that would prompt that response is that she left voluntarily and maybe made no bones about coming back. I base that opinion on the fact that LE say they found her and were going to let her go back home of her own volition, something it appears she chose not to do.

I'd like to think that she lived her life on her own terms and may still be alive, anonymously.

 

[Diavola]

I base that opinion on the fact that LE say they found her and were going to let her go back home of her own volition, something it appears she chose not to do.

Where do they say that?
The last mention of Ann iirc is an 1960s article where police are wondering if an UID is Ann. It was later identified as someone else. Shouldn't this mean Ann is still missing?
Imo whether or not Ann left voluntarily and lived her life elsewhere or had something happen to her she is still a missing person and should be in the databases.

 

[SimsGuy67]

Where do they say that?
The last mention of Ann iirc is an 1960s article where police are wondering if an UID is Ann. It was later identified as someone else. Shouldn't this mean Ann is still missing?
Imo whether or not Ann left voluntarily and lived her life elsewhere or had something happen to her she is still a missing person and should be in the databases.

The article saying police had "found" her was published in 1957, three years before the last article detailing her disappearance, which yes, compared her to a UID, later ID'd as Yolanda Gomez. The article shows the police hadn't closed her case after the Plainview development.

Missing girl Ann Caldwell compared to an unidentified skeleton.

Clipping found in El Paso Times published in El Paso, Texas on 1/20/1960. Missing girl Ann Caldwell compared to an unidentified skeleton.

www.newspapers.com

I also use quotes when I say "found," because from reading the article, it was never stated police made contact with her. It's quoted as saying "Miller (Warrant Officer) said the girl had not been picked up as yet."

Ann Caldwell found?

Clipping found in Arizona Daily Star published in Tucson, Arizona on 3/30/1957. Ann Caldwell found?

www.newspapers.com

Either way, her fate after 1957 still remains unknown, and the seeming lack of contact in 1959 and 1960 is not a good sign.

 

[cenazoic]

The very fact of her never even being mentioned in obits for the brother and father suggests that her family wrote her off - and the only thing I can think of that would prompt that response is that she left voluntarily and maybe made no bones about coming back

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. - 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.

 

[branmuffin]

Where do they say that?
The last mention of Ann iirc is an 1960s article where police are wondering if an UID is Ann. It was later identified as someone else. Shouldn't this mean Ann is still missing?
Imo whether or not Ann left voluntarily and lived her life elsewhere or had something happen to her she is still a missing person and should be in the databases.

The 1960s article is a rehash of earlier articles with the timeline adjusted.
I think we need to reconsider what the definition of 'missing' is in this particular case. Not being in contact with your parents doesn't necessarily mean you are missing. When LE said they had found their daughter in Plainfield, Texas, they were leaving it up to Ann and her parents as to what her status would be. That would suggest that she didn't consider herself missing, maybe she considered herself AWOL forever. Her parents considered her missing up until that time period. Because after that, she just seemed to be eliminated from the Caldwell family history: no mention of her in either parents obituary (or prior infant deaths) and more peculiarly for me, no mention of her at all in her brother's obit.

I find it odd, because when her parents were interested in finding their missing daughter they seemed to remind everyone how she was a very good student, and outstanding athlete, etc. but went to radio silence after contact with Plainsview,Texas LE. They went from saying their daughter was a victim of amnesia to saying they don't necessarily want her to come back just want to know where she was.

When I was looking through the yearbooks for pics of Ann I did find a couple of her not posted here. In one of them, which I think is important, she's wearing glasses. It's in the 1953 yearbook in the first page after the sophomore group. She looks younger and more studious. I can't seem to attach it here. Maybe someone else can.

The school she attended was an all girls school with a pretty small student population. So it would be really difficult to have volleyball teams or basketball teams with such a dearth of options so an
'outstanding' athlete would feel pretty frustrated with that scenario. She doesn't have a high profile like some of the other girls. Many are referred to repeatedly in little quips and quotes like you see in old yearbooks, eg.the popular girls. She was extremely beautiful, imo, and in a small environment like that could have been the subject of jealousy.

I looked up the address of the home that was listed on the FBI release of her missing status. I don't know what it may have looked like back in 1956 but it is an extremely humble home. Which makes me wonder how her parents paid for the tuition that was pretty steep at that time. It appears there was some facility to provide tuition fees for those girls whose families struggled during the Depression but don't know if that was continued afterwards. I just know that sometimes kids that go to elite schools on a bursary or scholarships sometimes don't always fit in with the more affluent kids. It was also a boarding school back then so I wonder how Ann dealt with being away from home.

I found this little bio of the school, its origins and mission statements. There's a statement made by the Brigadier General of Fort Bliss sometime in the 1930s when he was invited to a banquet. "Let Radford educate the girls, our young officers will marry them, for the ideals taught girls in the school fit them to be mothers of future generations of men." Yikes, a pretty staid view of girls learning Latin, French, Spanish who have an 'unusual level' of fluency as well as geometry, algebra and physics, etc.

https://scholarworks.utep.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hist_honors

I wish we could find copies of the '55 and year book to see whether Ann had a higher profile as a junior. I also wish we knew why there is no evidence of her presence at the University of Arizona. I'm trying to remember when the whole yearbook thing started gearing up when I was in high school. I think it was definitely toward the end of the school year, maybe March-ish since so many of the pics included images of basketball, football and volleyball games over the year, both intramural and intermural games plus the requisite plays and school trips to museums, etc. Would schools delete images of students who no longer attend by the time the yearbook is issued? Kids moved, transferred, quit. Would they take the time to edit images out of students who no longer attended?

I think the fact we can't find a SSN for Ann is not a red flag for me. We are assuming, if she is still alive or was at least living after her disappearance, that she continued to live in the US. If she was one of those students who was fluent in a foreign language, whether Spanish or French, she may have gone to Mexico and managed to get documentation that could pass muster while traveling. Back in those days it was probably easier to get fake ID. So many stories of people looking in cemeteries for children who died young so they could request birth certificates to create a new persona. The whole issuing of SSN originally was to those already working although many types of employment weren't required to use SSNs like agricultural workers, domestic servants, government employees, and educational institutions so there was a large area where someone could work without having an SSN be issued. Here's a link:

The Story of the Social Security Number

Social Security Administration Research, Statistics, and Policy Analysis

www.ssa.gov

 

[SimsGuy67]

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. - 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.

In that Pioneer History document, it's mentioned that Ann's parents moved from Cochise to Tucson in 1966 so her two children could attend school there. On one hand, this seems like ample proof Ann was found between 1960 and 1966.

On the other hand, by 1966, Ann and possibly her brother had likely already finished school. They were also living in Tucson in 1956. Maybe a typo on the document's part?

 

[Diavola]

I think we need to reconsider what the definition of 'missing' is in this particular case. Not being in contact with your parents doesn't necessarily mean you are missing.

I agree that there is a good chance Ann left voluntarily for whatever reason.
I hope I'm not coming off too pushy, but with how many UID's turned out to be missing people who slipped through the cracks even when they were reported missing I would really hate to see that happen in this case.

 

[Rush4087]

Some amazing sleuthing in this thread..

If I had to guess (pure speculation), I’d say Ann ran away (if that’s even possible when you’re 18 and in college). Destination? Originally, I think back to El Paso, TX.

I think maybe she’d met a boy there while she was at Radford School for Girls between ‘51 and ‘55 and maybe wanted to continue the relationship (again, all pure speculation).

I know that the ‘50’s were the age of boarding schools, and that it was not uncommon for parents to send kids away - either to prep for the best colleges or just to turn them into fine upstanding young men and women .. but it strikes me as harsh and lonely, and at the age of 13, it might leave a child with a feeling of abandonment, a resentment. El Paso was 270 miles away from Tucson, and Ann was there for at least 4 years.

Even if she came home every once in a while, it would not be surprising to me if she grew to almost feel like a stranger in her own (her parent’s) home. Did they perhaps send her away because she was troubled? I wonder if they also sent Donald Jim to boarding school when he turned 13, and if not, why not?

Imo, Ann clearly lied to her parents when she said she was heading to a sorority party at UA. It looks like she quickly hitched a ride (actually, sounds like two rides with truckers) headed east on what is now I-10 to Las Cruses, then took a bus from there to El Paso - where I suspect she met up with somebody she’d met while at school.

The only other possibility I can think of would be if she’d become interested in joining a religious group/community like FLDS south of El Paso in Chihuahua, or even the Branch Davidians (much farther away to the east however in Elk/Waco). The Branch Davidians were founded in 1955.

While Plainview, TX is a long way from El Paso, TX (320 mi), maybe whoever she’d rekindled a relationship with (IF she had indeed rekindled a relationship) had some sort of ties there? So it would not surprise me if the Painview LE report was true. It’s hard to forget a striking 5’11” blonde girl - who doesn’t want you to tell her parents back in Tucson where she is..

That’d also be quite a story to make up, or be mistaken about, and why? Plainview, TX was 560 miles away from Tucson, AZ. Why would any LE in Plainview, TX back in 1957 even be on the look out for a missing girl from Tucson, AZ a year earlier? Didn’t sound like it was a PI. I think it was a legit encounter (or report).

And if she had been harboring bad feelings towards her parents for shipping her off to a boarding school 270 miles away from home for 4 years when she was just 13, I can see why she might not have wanted to have much more to do with them.

Of course there still is the possibility of foul play. Even though hitch hiking was common back then and into the early 70’s, it doesn’t mean it was any safer than it would be today - in fact, catching a ride with a trucker seems like a sure way to end up a statistic, and apparently Ann had no qualms about doing such.

Lastly, I do wonder just what kind of home life she had before being sent to Radford. Her father starts ranching near Tucson in ‘33 (wonder what drew him there given that he was from Ft. Smith, Ark? maybe his family moved..), they marry in ‘34. Ann born in ‘38, and Donald Jim born in ‘43 (so he was just 7 when she left home for Radford (btw, boy does Donald Jim look like Ann?). Wonder what Donald Jim thought happened to Ann? Did he have a family!

The only thing I can think of now (although a long long shot) that might yield a clue - if they haven’t all passed - would a classmate (or student in any grade) of Ann’s at Radford between ‘51-‘55 remember if she’d had any relationships outside of school in the town of El Paso? Or did she have any interest in LDS?

All jmo

 

[cenazoic]

In that Pioneer History document, it's mentioned that Ann's parents moved from Cochise to Tucson in 1966 so her two children could attend school there

I took that as a typo for 1946, which makes a lot more sense. Both Ann and Don would have graduated high school (Ann in 1955) by 1966. Ann attended Tucson schools until she went to Radford in 1951.

 

[cenazoic]

agree that there is a good chance Ann left voluntarily for whatever reason.

I don’t think there’s any question that she left voluntarily. The questions are: why? Where was she headed? Where did she end up?

I take the point @branmuffin made about the lack of a social security card not necessarily being a red flag (living outside the country), but for me, it’s the absolute totality of silence in the intervening years about her fate. There’s not a whisper of her existence after about 18 March 1956 (when she was seen in El Paso). Her parents alao said that she didn’t contact any friends or acquaintances while there.

wonder if they also sent Donald Jim to boarding school when he turned 13, and if not, why not?

They did not - he attended Tucson public schools for his entire secondary education.
(But I’ve wondered why, as well). Tiny hunch: they’d lost 3 children at this point: 2 stillbirths, and Ann. Maybe they just wanted to keep their remaining child ‘safe’ at home.

Plainview, TX was 560 miles away from Tucson, AZ.

Plainview is about an hour south of Amarillo, where she was supposedly headed from El Paso. There were paternal relatives living there at the time (Guillams, related to the uncle in Dallas).

wonder what drew him there given that he was from Ft. Smith, Ark?

He spent the 1910s and 20s as an ocean-going radio operator, and had family in the Tucson area when he left the maritime service. (I’ve done a ton of side research on her father, because he was a ham radio operator (as am I) and there’s a fair amount of info about him out there.) The purchase of the ranch in 1933 can be found in the Pioneer Arizona Ranchers linked above.

Wonder what Donald Jim thought happened to Ann? Did he have a family!

He was married several times, but didn’t have any children that I’ve been able to find.

The questions about religious groups are interesting, but I’ve never seen anything that indicates Ann or her family were particularly (or at all) religious, which doesn’t really mean anything, given how little we know.

Other questions:
She left with $50-100 in cash, so why hitchhike?
Was she actually with another girl outside of Las Cruces?
What was the catalyst for her departure? Her parents said she was acting out of character for a couple of weeks before she left, eg quiet. The truck drivers also said she was untalkative.

Various theories I’ve come up with as a catalyst:

- she was sheltered, goes to UofA, meets a boy,”gets in trouble”. Left to get an abortion. Problem of interest: a boyfriend or any sort of dating life is never once mentioned.
- she was very accomplished in high school-valedictorian, various academic and athletics awards, participated in theater productions, played piano, fluent in Spanish. Given her absence from the fall and spring sorority rush lists at UofA, she experienced ‘failure’ for the first time and it sent her into a depression (or some sort of mental health crisis)

 

[cenazoic]

hen her parents were interested in finding their missing daughter they seemed to remind everyone how she was a very good student, and outstanding athlete, etc. but went to radio silence after contact with Plainsview,Texas LE. They went from saying their daughter was a victim of amnesia to saying they don't necessarily want her to come back just want to know where she was.

You know, that’s a really good point. While we don’t know if that was actually Ann in Plainview, the parent’s narrative changes slightly, as you mention.

There was a 3-year anniversary article in 1959, then the comparison with the skeleton found in NM in 1960, and that’s the end of the line of newspaper mentions of Ann. The 1960 comparison argues in favor her still being missing at that point, though, imo.

I don't know what it may have looked like back in 1956 but it is an extremely humble home. Which makes me wonder how her parents paid for the tuition that was pretty steep at that time.

They also owned a cattle ranch in Cochise County (Wilcox); if I remember correctly the Tucson house was originally purchased as a place to stay when the family came to town, and then later so Ann and her brother could attend public school.

 

[mst]

You know what really bothers me about this whole thing? The fact that the other sitings can't really be proved. The truck drivers, the bus station, even the police who say they believe they knew where she was in TX (sounds like they never actually saw her). This was all assumed true but was it? Truck drivers could easily have had her confused with someone else or not be forthcoming. I assume the bus ticket story came from a cashier but again I don't know that for sure. This is a time period before cameras or any digital footprint. Mom says she was going to a part at UOA and spending the night. Did she ever even make it there?