PA PA - French Creek State Park, Union Twp, BlkFem 21-28, 349UFPA, bag w/ "FA", "O" & "ATER", Jul'88

[kygal]

What I saw was at the top "FAY ---" and the number 40. Could the letters at the bottom be "cater" instead of "eater"? I was thinking that perhaps it said something about catering? Some stores do that now, so perhaps they did then as well?

 

[FLMom]

This is a long-shot, but I had to post it JIC.

I read another thread today about a missing girl and I got the "aha" that I'd just seen something similar. Big grain of salt with this one as the age estimate is off, but I've seen LE be off before.

Here's our UID:

• The victim was discovered on July 15, 1988 in French Creek State Park, Union Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
• Estimated Date of Death: At least two years prior to discovery
• State of Remains: Skeletonized
• Pieces of a white, plastic bag resembling a grocery bag were found in the grave with the remains. The bag had red lettering. The letters are believed to be "FA", "O" and "ATER".

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/349ufpa.html


Here is the missing girl:

Sherri Lee Truesdale
Missing since June 13, 1970 from Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina.
Classification: Endangered Missing

Date Of Birth: May 15, 1956
Age at Time of Disappearance: 14 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 4'2; 75 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Black female. Black hair; brown eyes.
Sherri told her mother she was going to buy some supplies for school, scheduled to start the following Monday. She had also planned to buy some doughnuts for her older sister, and to make a payment on her mother's charge account at Raylass Department Store.

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/75dfnc.html

Didn't someone here suggest Raylass at some point?

 

[Lucy's mom]

I did a search but couldn't find any other posts with the ward "Raylass." :-(

 

[FLMom]

Sorry! Forgot to include the link to the thread here.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31777

 

[Lucy's mom]

That's why....it's Rayless (not Raylass).

 

[Cubby]

bumping this again, as today I ran across my old coworkers in the redistribution paper and plastic industry.

Someone recognizes this bag when they took the order. This needs to get to re-distributor's and distributors....

I am going to try and contact a former VP with AW Mendenhall. maybe they can be of some assistance.

Cubby

 

[Cubby]

Bump.... and I think I just found something that should be merged.

Well, I just left messages for 2 VP's and a former Pres of one AWM to see if we can find some assistance with at least the names of distributors in the Berks PA area for this Jane Doe.

Hoping for some answers-because someone sold that plastic bag.

Cubby

 

[tatertot]

Famous 40 years later ?
Famous Footwear - I sorta doubt this one, but here's one of their retro logos anyway: http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/search/83916855/56716.html

 

[Teresa Larson]

• 1960 - With a $10,000 loan, 29-year-old Neil Moldenhauer opens "Neil's Factory Outlet Shoes" in Madison, Wisconsin. Neil's concept, "Brand name shoes for less," is decades ahead of its time.

• 1964 - Stock boy Brian Cook is made Neil's Madison store manager. Moldenhauer expands the business to Iowa, opening one store in Cedar Rapids. It is the first store to be called Famous Footwear.

Were there any of the Famous Footwear stores in that area at the time this happened??

 

[pittsburghgirl]

How about Family Dollar on one line, 49¢ Sale on the other. (No idea about "ater..."

Here is a Family Dollar logo--no idea if it is correct era. Colors are red and white but reversed.

http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/catalogue/F/46782.html

 

[:+:MrTT:+:]

Pictures of the grocery bag can be found here:

http://www.pennsylvaniamissing.com/pages/20/page20.html
refresh=1133958325506

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, larger pictures of the bag can be viewed by clicking on the pictures.

is there another place one can see the bag....the first part, without seeing, i thought of the word FAvOrite..........but really need to see the bag and how the letters are formed and or connected.........thank you in advance............

 

[:+:MrTT:+:]

is there another place one can see the bag....the first part, without seeing, i thought of the word FAvOrite..........but really need to see the bag and how the letters are formed and or connected.........thank you in advance............

......Ill look for the link to the bag tonight......in the meantime.......someone want to look for any connection...........FAmOus gATER ...FAvOrite gATER.........

FA___O___eATERy ?.............I don't know if we are dealing with two words or three or one long one...........Ill until a link to the bag is provided, before continuing

 

[STEADFAST]

Here's a blown up picture of the bag from the pics at
http://www.pennsylvaniamissing.com/349ufpa.html

 

[:+:MrTT:+:]

Here's a blown up picture of the bag from the pics at
http://www.pennsylvaniamissing.com/349ufpa.html

.........I sense the bag, without knowing,.....may be turned inside out.....only le could tell us for sure.........but i see what looks a the number 40 under the FA......there appears to be a letter before the A at the bottom.....looks like a E..........the last letter looks more like a U or N......for its not capitalize like the rest, or the letter R would be???????????

 

[STEADFAST]

.........I sense the bag, without knowing,.....may be turned inside out.....only le could tell us for sure.........but i see what looks a the number 40 under the FA......there appears to be a letter before the A at the bottom.....looks like a E..........the last letter looks more like a U or N......for its not capitalize like the rest, or the letter R would be???????????

According to a post way earlier in this thread, the bag is laid out as well as LE could get it. It's not inside out, or the "F" wouldn't be facing in the right direction. That word at the bottom looks to me like it's "__EATED." And the number under the "FA" part looks to me like "49" because the circle part looks smaller than the "4."
Earlier posters contacted two web groups that obsess over older grocery stores, but I don't know what feedback they got, if any.

 

[tatertot]

Family Dollar has a history page on its site:

http://familydollar.com/history.aspx

...and in picture #4 at the link below there's actually a good picture of a 1970s-era bag. It's brown and while I can't tell whether it's paper or colored plastic, the letters are uneven, unlike the straight line of letters on the crime scene bag. Also, the logo in the parking lot photo (#5) looks essentially the same as today's Family Dollar logo. The "A" is very distinctive with a break where the left side of the horizontal bar meets the leg of the "A," plus it overlaps the letter "M" a bit. The "A" on the crime scene bag appears entirely detached from whatever the next letter is. Unless FD had another logo in use in the 1980s, I doubt this is their bag, as you'd think the corporate office would issue the same bag for every store in the chain to keep fonts, logos and slogans consistent across the chain.

http://familydollar.com/images/History1970Big.jpg

More thoughts on the bag itself: It appears to be type #2 plastic, maybe the "t-shirt bag" style, commonly used for groceries, take-out food, and lightweight items. Most department stores, at least nowadays, offer the stronger type #4 plastic bags. They're shinier and tougher. In my previous post I suggested Famous Footwear but now I'm not so sure a shoe store would offer a flimsy type #2 bag to carry pointy-cornered shoe boxes that might tear right through. I'd think FF would have a type #4 bag for customers that wanted one. Most mom & pop, non-chain stores I know don't even print their own logo on bags. They either use the generic "Thank You" or smiley face type #2 bags or plain white, black, etc.

This is a "WAY OUT THERE" idea, but so is the author of this post. I used to work at a thrift store and annoyed my coworkers in the clothing department whenever I'd find a donated outfit with a hanger or tag from a long-closed business. ("Zayre's! That closed when I was still in grade school!") People do hang onto clothes for decades, in some cases, before they realize they won't wear them again and donate them. We got a lot of clothes still on hangers with the paper wraps from long-closed dry-cleaning businesses, and invariably the belts and accessories to the outfit would be stored in a plastic grocery bag and hung on the same metal hanger.

If someone could print out a poster with the bag and a short explanation and offer a "bounty" for any thrift store worker who can find a matching bag amongst donated items, maybe it could be hung in the Berks County thrift stores and maybe someone could help us solve our bag mystery.

 

[Beyond Belief]

Just some food for thought. I had worked on this alot sometime ago, but looking this morning the thought that this could be a bag from a "drive in theater" came to mind. There was a "family drive in" in bucks co, but closed in 78.
Just a thought.\
http://www.drive-ins.com/theater/patfam2

 

[chaddylex]

Pittsburgh Girl,

I also agree that it could be a Family Dollar bag. It swear they used to have a "bubble letter logo" that resembled that years back - (I was not even a teenager when the UID went missing, but we have a family dollar in town and we would go there every once and awhile.) Too bad we couldn't contact someone from that chain and find out if they ever had a bag that resembled that...

I know here in Western PA, Family Dollars are all over the place - but who knows about Eastern PA.

I don't know what the "ater" would be though

 

[chaddylex]

http://www.vector-logos.com/logo-en-25348.html Look at this Family Dollar Logo - What do you all think?

 

[gaia227]

Family Dollar has always been the first thing that came to my mind. The colors seem right too. Their motto is "My Family, My Dollar" which doesn't really fit with the _ater.

Here are some google image results for the family dollar logo

http://images.google.com/images?hl=...&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title