Okay. Now I can start to tell you why
I was so geeked out last week.
If you recall, I had a moment of
serendipity last week regarding a newspaper article I wrote for the
Mining Journal. It was totally unrelated to writing the article,
which came out yesterday. So here's what I'm going to do--
Today, you get to read the article,
which is a sad and tragic—and very true—story, part of the
history of Marquette. Tomorrow, I'll tell you why I geeked out. And
how serendipity can be, well, very serendipitous.
If that's even a word.
(jim@wmqt.com)
*****
THE MYSTERY OF BILLY POWERS
On a Wednesday afternoon, an 8-year old
boy came home from school, changed his clothes, and went outside to
play.
His family never saw him alive again.
While that may sound like a plot from a
best-selling mystery or a ripped-from-the-headlines TV movie, it
actually happened in Marquette, in March of 1944, to a young boy
named Billy Powers.
Despite the fact that World War Two was
going on strong, and despite the fact that a presidential election
was being waged, the disappearance of an 8-year old boy galvanized
Marquette. Front-page newspapers stories were run daily, hourly
updates were broadcast on the radio.
For two months, residents of the city
followed the saga of a missing boy. And it all started on March 1st,
1944.
Billy Powers was a third-grade student
at the old St. John’s School in Marquette, a block away from where
he lived with his grandparents. His dad, William, was serving in the
Army, while his mother was living in Detroit. He came home from
school on that fateful Wednesday, changed into play
clothes--including brown army mittens--and went out to play in the
snow.
He was observed by several people in
the next hour, including at the 5th Street railroad
crossing, where he was noticed in the company of an older boy. When
he failed to return home that night, his grandparents, obviously
concerned, notified authorities. In the next two days, searchers
combed the city, looking through vacant buildings, garages, even the
Lower Harbor ore dock, but found no trace of Billy. They asked bus
drivers and train conductors if they had seen the boy; none had.
They searched through the wreckage of the Piggly-Wiggly grocery store
downtown. The store had burned down several days earlier, and some
thought Billy might have fallen into a flooded cellar. They even
contacted his mother in Detroit, who said she had not heard from him
in some time.
Police were stumped. Billy was a
bright kid who, in the words of then Police Chief Don McCormack,
“knew the city like the back of his hand”. They talked to
Billy’s friends, who said they knew of nothing out of the ordinary.
They had last been with him playing by the downtown railroad trestle.
He was wearing his brown army mittens, and seemed to be in good
spirits. They also could not help police in determining the identity
of the “older boy” who had been with Billy at the railroad
crossing.
Over the next week, the search
intensified. Billy’s picture was published in all U.P. newspapers,
and WDMJ broadcast updates to the search, even putting his
grandparents on in an attempt to contact anyone who had any
information. Authorities were also interested in the disappearance
of a Manistique boy two weeks prior to Billy’s disappearance; no
trace of that youth had been found, either. The FBI joined the
investigation, while Billy’s father William received an emergency
furlough to return home. Still, no sign of Billy was uncovered, and
the identity of the “older boy” was a continuing mystery.
Marquette residents and authorities
became alarmed as March stretched into April, with still no break in
the case. Billy’s picture was sent out by the FBI to several
states around Michigan, and while he hadn’t been found, several
young runaways had been discovered because of the search. Billy’s
classmates and friends were questioned over again, and a new
investigation failed to turn up any sign of the “older boy” with
whom Billy was last seen.
Then on May 1st, 1944, a
Marquette father and son were fishing in Lake Superior by Gaines’
Rock, and noticed something floating in the water. Pulling it to
shore, they noticed it was a body, and called the authorities.
Immediately, the police determined it was the body of Billy Powers,
still dressed like he was ready to play outside. In fact, his brown
army mittens were still on his hands.
Investigators found no sign of foul
play on Billy’s body, aside from a couple of superficial bruises.
They have no idea how he got into the water; the currents in the area
were not very strong, so his body obviously hadn’t traveled very
far. Unless they could find the “older boy”, they concluded,
they may never know what happened to Billy.
They never did find the “older boy”.
And to this day, no one knows exactly what did happen to Billy
Powers on March 1st, 1944.
Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the
only tragedy in the Powers’ family in 1944. Three months after his
son died, William Powers had to write home to tell his parents that
his brother, John, had been shot and killed while serving in the Army
in France.
He was the victim of a Nazi sniper
while standing in line to get his lunch.
