Joyce Grimmett Got Lost

From the personal history of Joyce Grimmett Duggar Porter:

The most important incident of 1932 was my being lost. This is from my mother’s letter.

“Oh say I never have related the terrible scare we had June 22 when we lost Joyce. I had just come home from Grimmett’s and hadn’t been home 10 minutes when she disappeared. I searched everywhere and as I’d dashed out by the canal to bring in some butter and hadn’t locked the gate I thot she’d followed me and slipped into the canal. I simply gave up all hopes of ever seeing her alive and had a sort of dead feeling inside. Couldn’t even wring my hands nor cry. I was sitting on the porch in a daze when I heard a faint ‘Mama’ as if a voice from the dead. Up I started and with another call bounded into the house to the clothes closet and pulled out an almost drowned Joyce, with perspiration. She had crawled back under the clothes and had fallen asleep in 10 minutes time. Being so close and hot in there had awakened her. What a rejoicing there was. I let loose of myself and howled with joy. Believe me, it was a happy daddy and mama that night. Now it all seems like a dreadful nightmare and I try not to think of it any more than I can help.”

This is the clipping that was in the local paper. “Moreland had quite a scare Wednesday. The three year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Grimmett was missing. The alarm was given after her parents had searched the house and did not find her. Before the child was found safe half the town had joined in the search.

While the family and friends thought they had searched the house carefully, she was found asleep in a clothes closet; clothes had fallen hiding her from view.

Friends rejoiced with the family over the happy ending of what appeared to be a tragedy.”

I also found a clipping that was in the Aberdeen Times about this incident.

“Many rumors about the drowning of the little girl of Dick Parrish’s were reported, friends and neighbors turned out to help, but the Parrish family was safe at home eating dinner. Then came the story that the three year old daughter of Mr. and Mr. Wayne Grimmett of Moreland was missing and thought that she had fallen into the canal. All the ditch riders were alerted to help and E.H. Neal was ready to turn out the water. But the little girl was found asleep in the closet”

(This is a story that I was told about my mom when I was young. There was a small detail missing from this account that I called my mom to confirm. Apparently, my mom spilled mercurochrome on the new dress she was wearing and feared getting in trouble. She went to the closet to hide and because it was hot in there, she fell asleep.)