Search has echoes from Milton's past

It is a troubled time, a time when communities rally to provide comfort and support. It matters little whether the community is large or small. We were in Toronto years ago when the entire city seemed to hold its breath during the search for a little girl who had been a friend of our daughter's. The worry about a lost child is agonizing.

The village of Milton went through those agonies over 70 years ago, and I thought of that when in Bridgewater last week, where people were talking about the girl and what could have happened to her. In July of 1929 three little girls went missing in the woods near Milton. The girls were Hazel Hall, 7, Mildred Martin, 5, and her sister Doris, who was four.

More than 500 people scoured the woods for days, the search even involving an airplane and search dogs. By the fourth day, people were heartbroken. The woods surrounding the homes of the little girls was dense, and searchers could find no trace of the children. The entire province was waiting with bated breath for news.

Late in the afternoon of the fourth day of searching, Raymond and Freeman Whynot were with a party of searchers two and a half miles deep in the forest when they decided to strike off on their own. They stopped moving to pick some berries for sustenance and heard a noise, which they thought was a bear. The noise had come from a thicket. They listened, then heard the children crying for their mothers and fathers. The two young men crashed through the undergrowth and saw the children. They were bunched up by an old log, hidden to their shoulders by the bushes.

The girls were wearing light summer dresses and still had ribbons in their hair. Their arms and legs were torn and bruised by brambles and falls. When Raymond and Freeman came upon them, the smallest girl was afraid, and tried to run away.

Raymond was bigger than Freeman, and he stooped down and picked up the two older girls. Freeman picked up the smallest one. They made their way quickly back to their search party. George Berriman, the leader of the party, greeted them, then turned and ran out of the woods to spread the word. On the way he met Hazel's grandfather, Clarke Hall, who then ran in the opposite direction, to his granddaughter, so that he could carry her out of the woods.

As each child was carried out, guns were fired to let searchers know that the children had been found. Word spread around the community like wildfire. In the twinkling of an eye, newspaper reports said, heartbreaking anxiety was turned into rejoicing, as word came that the children were safe. When Clarke Hall came out of the woods, carrying Hazel, he said he felt like a man 30 years old, whereas a few minutes earlier he had felt he had reached his limit, and could not trudge a step further.

There was not a dry eye in the crowd of people in the clearing by the woods when the children were brought out. As soon as possible, their mothers gathered them into their arms. Dr. T. R. Ford, who had been waiting in the clearing, stayed with the children until they were tucked in their beds, after feeding them milk and cookies.

He told the press that the children would be running around in a few days. "They took care of themselves remarkably well."

We do not, as of this writing, know the outcome of the search for Karissa Boudreau in Bridgewater. We can only hope it will be as happy.

- Tom Sheppard can be reached at twsheppard@gmail.com