1956 :: Death of Annie Talbot Gladdish

Dallas Morning News. Mart, June 25 -- Funeral services will be held here Wednesday for Mrs. Annie Talbot Gladdish, 93, a Mart resident for many years who died Sunday from injuries received in a fall last September. Mrs. Gladdish died at the home of a daughter, Mrs. J.L. Baird, in Marked Tree, Ark. Her body will arrive in Mart Tuesday morning. Services will be Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Littlepage Chapel, Bishop F.T. Goddard of Tyler officiating, burial in Mart Cemetery. Mrs. Gladdish was born Feb. 10, 1863, in Norfolk, Va. She moved with her father to Texas after her home was burned during the Civil War. After graduation from Professor Estill's Academy in Brenham, Mrs. Gladdish moved to Rockdale and worked in the post office. She was married to Henry Allen Gladdish in Rockdale and in 1905 moved to Mart. Mr. Gladdish died in 1930. Mrs. Gladdish was a member of the Episcopal Church. She was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy until the organization disbanded. She is survived by six daughters, Mrs. P.A. Moore of Taos, N.M., Mrs. E.L. Pierce and Mrs. J.L. Baird of Marked Tree, Ark., Miss Ethel Gladdish of San Antonio, Mrs. G.M. Knebel of Scarsdale, N.Y., Mrs. J.D. Tonahill of Mart; six grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren. The Waco News-Tribune (Waco, Texas), June 26, 1956, Page 18 

1956 :: Writer Still Missing

New York Times. December 18, 1956. Writer Still Missing. Connecticut Police Continue Search for Perry. Guilford, Conn., Dec. 17 (UP) -- The police said today that George Sessions Perry, missing writer, was not in the area of his home here. The 46-year-old author and magazine writer has been missing since Thursday. The police searched the woods and two ponds near his home, but could find no trace of him. Joseph Quinlan, police chief, said he was "positive" Mr. Perry was not in the area.

1956 :: Search for Writer Vain

New York Times. December 17, 1956. Search for Writer Vain. George Sessions Perry Still Missing From His Home. Guilford, Conn., Dec. 16 (AP) -- The police may abandon the search for the missing magazine writer, George Sessions Perry, tomorrow. Mr. Perry, 46 years old, has been missing from his home near here since Thursday. His wife found him gone when she returned home from a dentist's appointment. Mr. Perry wrote the "Cities of America" series for The Saturday Evening Post.

1956 :: Helicopter Joins Hunt for Writer

New York Times. December 16, 1956. Helicopter Joins Hunt for Writer. But Searchers Fail to Find George Sessions Perry in Woods Near Home. By Richard H. Parke. Special to The New York Times. 

Guilford, Conn., Dec. 15 -- A wide search of the countryside failed again today to find any trace of George Sessions Perry. The 46-year-old magazine writer disappeared from his home here Thursday. The police and volunteer firemen from Guilford and neighboring communities tramped through miles of field and woodland surrounding Mr. Perry's home on Clapboard Hill Road, about three miles from here. This afternoon a helicopter took part in the hunt. Mr. Perry has suffered for some years with arthritis. He disappeared some time between 12:30 and 3 P.M. on Thursday while his wife, Claire, and Mrs. Milton MacKaye, wife of another writer, were on a visit to a dentist. He was in bed when the two women left. Mrs. Perry told Police Chief Joseph Quinlan that she and Mrs, MacKaye found him gone when they returned. They assumed he had gone to look for his Springer spaniel, Mr. Mutt. The dog, which had been missing for two days, was found last night at the home of a neighbor.


Not Heavily Dressed. Mr. Perry was wearing a tweed jacket, corduroy trousers and loafers when he left home, according to his wife. The Perry home is a large rambling colonial farmhouse that the couple purchased in 1944. They also maintain a home in Rockdale, Tex. They are in the habit of spending their summers in Guilford, and this year, Mrs. Perry said to day, they were considering remaining here for the winter. Mr. Perry, who is almost six-and-one-half-feet tall, has undergone intensive treatment for his arthritic condition and spent some months recently at the Grace-New Haven Community Hospital. Friends said he had shown marked improvement since his hospital stay, although he continued to walk with difficulty. He was said to have been generally in good spirits with only occasional periods of despondency. Mr. Perry has been a contributor to The Saturday Evening Post for many years. He and his wife originated the Cities of America series for the magazine.

1956 :: Hard Rain Limits Hunt for George Sessions Perry

New York Times. December 15, 1956. Magazine Writer Sought in Woods. Hard Rain Limits Hunt for George Sessions Perry in Guilford, Conn. 

Guilford, Conn., Dec. 14 (AP) -- The police and firemen searched rain-sodden woods in vain today for George Sessions Perry, nationally known magazine writer. He disappeared from his home here Thursday afternoon. Mr. Perry and friends said they feared that the 46-year-old writer, who suffers from arthritis, had become lost in the woods while searching for his springer spaniel, Mr. Mutt, lost since Tuesday night. Police Chief Joseph Quinlan said he wanted the searchers to check a pond, partly on Mr. Perry's property, into which the writer may have fallen. The pond was dragged yesterday. However, Chief Quinlan said, "it's so full of stumps and trees that you can't do a very thorough job. We want to drain it, and we opened the dam a little more today; but it's raining so hard that the water runs in as fast as it runs out." Mr. Perry disappeared while his wife and Mrs. Milton MacKaye, wife of a fellow-writer, were on a two-hour trip to visit a dentist. "He was in bed when we left," Mrs. MacKaye said, "and when we found him gone when we got back, we supposed he had gone to look for the dog. We looked by ourselves for about an hour, and then we called the police because it was beginning to get dark. He had no identification on him, and we thought for a while me might have been picked up by somebody who took him to a hospital and didn't know who he was." Mr. Perry was wearing only a tweed jacket, corduroy trousers and loafers when he left home, Mrs. MacKaye said. He carried no wallet. Mr. Perry, who is almost six and a half feet tall, is a frequent contributor to the Saturday Evening Post. He and Mrs. Perry originated the "Cities of America" series for that magazine. They wrote the first several articles in the series.

1956 :: George Sessions Perry Disappears

Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Vol. CVI, No. 1. July 2002. A Brief Peace: The Postwar Years of George Sessions Perry by Garna L. Christian. Whatever childhood or wartime demons hovered over George Sessions Perry as he disembarked from the European front of World War II, the fates appeared to favor his every turn. . . . A scant decade later, this fortuitous future lay submerged with Perry in an ice-bound Connecticut river, claiming the life of one of the most widely read writers in America. . . . Perry disappeared from his Guilford farmhouse between noon and three-thirty on the afternoon of December 13, 1956, when Claire left for a dental appointment. Since he apparently wore only a light coat and a pair of pants against the winter chill, his wife surmised that he had gone out to look for his missing spaniel, "Mister Mutt." After the dog returned alone, a fruitless search by police, firemen, and even a helicopter crew cast gloom on the prospects of recovery. An outpouring of messages of advice and hope included an offer from Post publishers to involve the governor in the search. The local police chief, a friend of the Perrys, recalled George recently "look[ing] remote" and having said, "The best thing I can do in this depressed state is either to jump into the river and swim to the North Pole or run into the woods until I drop." Two months to the day of his disappearance, a bridge inspector found Perry's nude body wedged against an abutment in the East River, several miles from his home. A coroner judged his death "consistent with suicide."