The (STILL) unsolved mystery of a little girl who vanished in 1938

A year after I published a story about Marjorie West’s disappearance on Mother’s Day, questions remain

Over a decade ago, I started reading old heartbreaking stories around the web about a 4-year-old girl who had disappeared during a Mother’s Day picnic in the Allegheny Forest in 1938, while she and her sister were picking violets for their mom. While any unsolved disappearance is tragic, it seemed sadder that it happened on that holiday. For the family of Marjorie West, what should have been an opportunity for celebration each year afterward instead became a cruel reminder.

Her listing is the second oldest in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database.

On the morning of May 8, 1938, parents Shirley and Cecilia West took kids Dorothea, 11, Allan, 9, and Marjorie, 4, to church. They lived in the oil town of Bradford, Pa., in a house a few blocks from the refinery where Shirley worked. After church they drove to a clearing in the Allegheny Forest for a picnic and some fishing. They met up with a couple from town, Mr. and Mrs. Akerlind.

If Marjorie West is alive, she turns 86 this month.