Tomorrow: I show the picture to people who knew Mary Doefour.

Hilda Heren is a nurse’s aide at Queenwood East Nursing Home in Morton. And she knew and cared for Mary Doefour the last several years of the woman’s life.

I hand her the photograph of Anna Myrle Sizer – the schoolteacher missing from Iowa for more than 50 years. And Mrs. Heren studies it carefully.

“Yes,” Mrs. Heren says after looking at the photograph for about a full minute. “This is Mary Doefour.” I’d bet anything on it.”

Mrs. Heren has been at the nursing home since it opened and was at the home when Mary Doefour arrived. She knew Mary Doefour longer than anybody now at the home.

Diana Alvis is the head of nurses at the home. She knew Mary Doefour for a few years. And Mrs. Alvis studies the picture and points out similarities between Anna Myrle Sizer and Mary Doefour.

On the photograph of Anna Myrle Sizer, a vaccination scar is evident on the left bicep.

Mrs. Alvis looks at the photograph. “Yes. She had a scar like that in the same place.”

A secretary at the nursing home says “We ought to compare that photograph to the one we have of Mary.”

When I tried to get a photograph of Mary Doefour 11 months ago, the nursing home said there was no photo. When I tried again a couple of weeks ago, I was again told there was no photograph.

The secretary goes to her desk and brings back a photograph of Mary Doefour. The hair is strikingly similar, even after 50 years. Other features look like they could match.

While age has taken a lot from Mary Doefour and the roundness of her cheeks has disappeared because her left teeth have been pulled, the two photographs look like they very well could be the same woman.

Holding the photographs side by side, it appeared there was a possibility one of the pictures could have been printed backward by mistake.

In the photograph of Anna Myrle Sizer the left eye appears to be open wider than the right. And in the photograph of Mary Doefour, the opposite is true.

But apparently both photos were printed properly. A corsage was on Anna Myrle Sizer’s left side, as is proper. The lapels of the men’s suits in the background of the Anna Myrle Sizer photograph were buttoned properly. And buttons of Mary Doefour’s dress were on the proper position.

Diana Stroud worked at Queenwood East Home when Mary Doefour was there. Mrs. Stroud knew Mary well and said she became convinced that Mary Doefour should have never been institutionalized.

“Her only problem was amnesia. I’m sure of that. A little counseling would have probably brought her out of it. Instead, she was treated as if she were insane.” Mrs. Stroud said when I did the first story on Mary Doefour about a year ago.

Since the original story, Mrs. Stroud has left Queenwood. She now works at the Galena Park Nursing Home, Peoria. I took the photographs to her. She studied them for a while and said, “Congratulations. I’m satisfied these photographs are of the same woman.”

What about the records kept by the state, then? The birthdate would have been wrong. The date she was found would have to be wrong.

Holding up the photograph of Anna Myrle Sizer, Mrs. Stroud said, “If I were you, I’d feel secure in saying this is Mary Doefour. Everything looks the same. Their backgrounds sound the same. I’m satisfied it’s her . . . . . for sure.”

I rush back to the newsroom and tell the managing editor people who knew Mary Doefour have said she is the same woman as Anna Myrle Sizer.

And now I’ve got a photograph of Mary Doefour for comparison. I’m elated. I think I’ve done it. Maybe we can get this damned thing straightened out before her remains are buried.

The managing editors looks at the two photographs and shakes his head. “That’s some story,” he says.

“Yeah,” I said. I think it’s her. I really think it’s her.

“I know,” the managing editor said, and handed the photographs back. “You’ve thought it was her for a couple of weeks.

“Now all you have to do is prove it.”

(I thought that’s what I just did. I thought that’s what I’ve been running all over the Midwest doing for the last two weeks.)

“There are other possibilities,” the managing editor said. “I don’t want somebody coming back and asking why we didn’t check all the angles.” So I drive to Chicago.

Professor Charles Warren is an anthropologist and an expert in identifying skeletal remains. A professor at the University of Illinois’ Chicago Circle Campus, he’s currently busy trying to identify remains found beneath the home of accused mass murderer John Gacy.

After getting Warren’s name from another university anthropologist, and the anthropologist’s claim that Warren was the best bet for matching the photographs taken more than 50 years apart, I called Warren.

And he agreed to study the photographs of Anna Myrle Sizer and Mary Doefour.

He said he wasn’t optimistic about his chances of definitely matching the photographs. He could prove or disprove the two photographs were the same person only if he had an X-ray of Mary Doefour’s skull.

Warren used a method of identification that has been accepted as proof in court. He puts a skull X-ray over a photograph of a person the skull is believed to have belonged to.

Skulls are kind of like fingerprints – no two are alike. If the skull fits exactly into the features on the photograph, identification is definite.

But I had no X-ray of Mary Doefour’s skull that could be put over the photograph of Anna Myrle Sizer’s photograph. And there was no chance of getting one. Mary Doefour had been cremated 11 months ago.

Still, Warren agree to look at the photographs. “Even without seeing them, I can tell you I don’t think I’ll be much help,” he said.

I hurriedly hand him the photographs. He doesn’t look at them right away. He puts the papers already on his desk in neat little stacks. When he does pick up the pictures, he holds them together, upside down and looks at them.

“Eh, excuse me. But you’re looking at those pictures upside down,” I tell Warren.

Warren turns to me, peers over his glasses, and says “I know.”

Features in faces are easier to compare when they’re studied while upside down, he says. When one looks at a photograph rightside up, one sees a person with a personality. Upside down, one just sees a bunch of facial regions.

After looking at the photographs upside down for a while, Warren turns them rightside up and studies them. He studies the photographs about five minutes. Then he takes his glasses off and says, “I can’t be sure. I’m an expert in bones.”

Using photographs of other dead people and X-rays of pieces of skulls, he shows me how he could prove it with an X-ray. But that seems futile. We don’t have an X-ray and can’t get one. Mary Doefour’s skull is ashes.

Accustomed to testifying in court as an expert witness, Warren is hesitant to make any statements he’s unsure of. He doesn’t even want to make comparisons of the photographs.

“How about the chins? The younger woman has a cleft chin. It looks like the older woman might have a cleft chin,” I say.

“Oh Yes,” Warren says without even looking at the pictures again. “Both women have prominent mental processes of the mandible. She’s wrinkling her chin in the later photograph to hide the fact she’s missing her teeth.”

All right. That’s one more piece of the puzzle.

Thus far, here’s what we know: Both have naturally curly hair. Both have blue eyes. Both have cleft chins. Both have high cheekbones. Both have similar wideish noses. Both have vaccination scars in approximately the same places.

Both have similarly sloped shoulders. Both were taller than average. Both were elementary school teachers. Both had not been heard of by their families for more than 50 years. Both were intelligent women.

Anna Myrle Sizer was believed last seen wandering in a daze along a highway in Iowa in the fall of 1926. Mary Doefour was found wandering in a daze along a highway in northern Illinois about the same time.

Both would have been about 80 when Mary Doefour died last March.

Two women who knew her last said both are the same woman.

Maybe I’ve got enough. Maybe I’ve got all I’m going to get. I go to the managing editor again and rehash all the information.

The managing editor nods his head understandingly, then says “You’ve got to pin it down. I don’t want a story saying this might be her.”

Tomorrow: I go to the Manteno State Hospital

















The Search for Mary Doefour (Part V)

By Rick Baker

Peoria Journal Star, Thursday, March 1, 1979





Manteno – “I can tell you this much,” the assistant superintendent of Manteno State Hospital said. “This woman didn’t lead much of a life after 1926.”

Yeah. That’s becoming obvious.

About 30 miles south of Chicago, the mental hospital at Manteno is a sprawling bunch of red brick geometry which makes up a virtual city that appears all but abandoned.

More than 50,000 people have been institutionalized here during the last half century. Mary Doefour spent 10 years here. When she was here, this place had a population of about 9,000. It now has less than 900.

And nobody remembers Mary Doefour here. She was just one more face. One more Mary Doe. There have been 19 Mary Does at Manteno. They either couldn’t remember who they were or decided not to let anyone know.

So they were named Mary Doe. And following their names, a number was attached so people at the institutions could tell which Mary Doe was which.

That seems kind of stupid. There are plenty of female names floating around. Why not give them all different first names, rather than attach numbers to them. It would give them each an identity and make record keeping easier.

“That’s a good questions.” John Steinmetz, the assistant superintendent said. “The medical librarian named them. For a very long time, our medical librarian was a woman named Mary. She apparently liker her first name, and gave it to everyone who couldn’t remember their own.

“Our Medical Librarian now is named Nadine. Pretty soon, we may have a bund of Nadine Doe’s running around.”

Since the institution opened there have been 12 Jane Does. 50 John Joes’, one Charlie Doe, one George Doe, one Sarah Doe, and one Wendell Doe.

And it seems nobody can remember one Doe from another.

There used to be a photograph of Mary Doefour in a file here. And I thought if I could compare the photograph of Anna Myrle Sizer to Mary Doefour as a young woman, I could get some very solid evidence the two were the same woman.

The photograph of Mary Doefour has been burned. She left that institution in the early 1940’s. She transferred to Bartonville. And files at Manteno are kept for 10 years, then burned.

The only evidence of Mary Doefour ever being here is a small index card with little information on it. And some of that information is obviously wrong.

Mary Doefour was probably known as Mary Doe by a different number while at Manteno. A secretary said Manteno records indicate Mary Doefour was a black woman. The Mary Doefour who died in Morton was white.

A woman known as Mary Doefive at Manteno appears to have some of the same information on her card as the woman who died in Morton had in her files. Mary Doefive’s card indicates she was born in 1907 and was from Missouri. That information was also in Mary Doefour’s records when she died.

It appears there were so many Mary Doe’s at the institution, the information could have easily been stuck in the wrong file. Mary Doefive was obviously not the woman who died in Morton. She was released in the custody of the state in 1941, records show.

Mary Lamply has been working at Manteno almost 40 years as a nurse. I show her the picture of Anna Myrle Sizer, and she doesn’t recognize it. “That was a long time ago,” she said. “Back then, there was one staff member for every 155 patients.”

Two other employees who were at the institution when Mary Doefour was there don’t recognize the photographs of either Anna Myrle Sizer of Mary Doefour.

Nothing’s working. Nobody recognizes the women. The records appear jumbled. The photograph has been burned.

“If it’s any comfort to you,” Steinmetz says, “the records that exist from back then have no credibility whatsoever.”

Something’s been nagging me about this story lately. It’s the date state records have her as being found – 1932. Yet she disappeared in 1926.

“She couldn’t have been here since 1926,” Steinmetz says. “This place didn’t exist in 1926. It wasn’t here until 1932. She was probably transferred here from someplace.”

He calls the records office to see if a woman who couldn’t remember her name was transferred from a mental hospital in Kankakee. Yes. One was transferred from a mental hospital at Kankakee. But that’s all the card shows. It doesn’t indicate how long she was at Kankakee.

If Kankakee records indicate she was found about that time she was missing from Iowa, it could be another piece of evidence.

The Superintendent of the Kankakee institution isn’t in. The secretary says he won’t be in for the rest of the day.

I explain my situation to the secretary and hope she’ll find the story interesting enough to look up the date the woman was admitted to Kankakee.

“I can’t do that,” she says. “It’s illegal to give out information like that unless you have the person’s permission.”

“Yeah. But I can’t get her permission. She’s been dead for 11 months,” I explain.

“Then you’ll have to get a court order,” she says.

“Listen, I’ll just give you this date here. It’s November 5, 1926. You take a little peak at that card and just tell me if this lady was brought here about that time,” I say.

“I can’t give out any information like that,” she says.

“But you’re not giving me any information,” I say. “I’m giving you information. All you’d be doing is verifying it.”

“Why are you trying to find who this woman was? Did she leave a bunch of money or something?” the secretary asks.

This is maddening.







Tomorrow back to Iowa













The Search for Mary Doefour (Part VI)

By Rick Baker

Peoria Journal Star, Friday, March 2, 1979





Lisbon, Iowa – It’s Feb 7. This morning I drove to Iowa for the second time in 10 days thinking I could well seal the identity of Mary Doefour and she could be properly buried – that after 50 years of anonymity in state institutions, something would finally be done.

I had information that I thought could convince the missing schoolteacher’s brother that the woman who died in a Morton nursing home last year was in fact his sister. If he was convinced of that, we would sue the state of Illinois for further information.

Two weeks before, the brother had said he simply wouldn’t accept Mary Doefour and Anna Myrle Sizer were the same woman. He said that acceptance would be too painful and that he couldn’t believe his sister was in Illinois institutions for decades without his family knowing.

But since I’d talked to him last I’d gathered a lot more information – stuff that I thought may well make him accept his sister was Mary Doefour.

I’d carried a photograph of Anna Myrle Sizer, taken in the mid 1920’s, to two women who knew Mary Doefour well before she died. And the two women said Anna Myrle Sizer appeared to be Mary Doefour.

Everything seemed to fit. Naturally wavy hair. Blue eyes. Cleft chin. Same nose. Full Face. Anna Myrle Sizer was an elementary schoolteacher. About all Mary Doefour could remember about her life was that she was an elementary schoolteacher.

Anna Myrle Sizer was reportedly last seen wandering in a kind of daze along U.S. Route 30 in eastern Iowa. Mary Doefour was found wandering in kind of a daze near Chicago about the same time Anna Myrle disappeared. US. Route 30 goes to Chicago.

Both had vaccination scars on the lower left bicep. Both were intelligent and articulate.

And if we could get records now being kept in the George A. Zeller Mental Health Center in Peoria, perhaps we could get more information to link the two. But mental health records are private.

One wanting to examine mental health records needs the consent of the person the records are about. And Mary Doefour was dead. But a judge could allow a relative of the person’s to see the records.

For the relative to see the records, he’d have to sue the state government. And the newspaper was prepared to help Anna Myrle Sizer’s brother do just that.”

Richard Ney is a reporter for the Peoria Journal Star. Ney is also a licensed attorney. And he said he would gladly represent Harold Sizer for no charge. Sizer wouldn’t even have to appear in court.

All Harold Sizer would have to do would be sign a form appointing Ney as his attorney. Then Ney would go to court and attempt to convince a judge to turn over the records to Anna Myrle Sizer’s brother. Ney said he thought chances of a judge agreeing to do that were good.

But this morning, Harold Sizer said the information I had didn’t convince him Mary Doefour was Anna Myrle. He said he didn’t see any similarity between a photograph of Anna Myrle and Mary Doefour. And he said he didn’t want it pursued any further. He would not sign the retainer agreement.

He’d accepted the fact that his young, pretty sister was abducted and murdered more than 50 years ago. He’d learned to live with that acceptance. “This is just rubbing salt in the wounds,” he said.

“I don’t want anything more to do with it. I want the picture of my sister back,” he said.

Instead of helping a family, as was the intent of this whole thing, I was instead irritating a family. My information was obviously traumatic for Anna Myrle Sizer’s brother. He’d said from the beginning he didn’t want any part of the search – that he would rather let old wounds stay closed.

But I insisted on opening them. I had telephoned him several times. I appeared at his door unexpectedly. Each contact was obviously painful for him.

And I wasn’t going to push it any more. Instead of bringing relief, I brought pain. Instead of helping the situation, I was apparently hurting it.

All the angles had been covered. Everything that could be done had been done. Almost a year of on and off searching had been, for all practical purposes, an exercise in futility.

While I remained near certain Mary Doefour was in fact the young schoolteacher who disappeared from Iowa more than 50 years ago, I couldn’t prove it.

The search was over. The case was closed. The managing editor said he didn’t want a story that said “this might be her.” But that’s what he got.















