The day after the article about Forest ran in the Akron Beacon Journal, the story was reprinted in papers all over the country. Eight hundred miles away, a man named Alta Wilhite opened the February 21, 1929 edition of the Kansas City Star and read Forest’s story. “He saw that the man believed he had been kidnapped in Kansas,” the Beacon-Journal wrote. “He read that the date of the abduction was 1891 or 1892. His own boy had been taken from him in 1892.”  

It may help to pause here and introduce Alta a little more thoroughly. He had been born on Valentine’s Day in 1870 in Emporia, Kansas. There, he met and married Mattie J. Cook in December of 1889. Mattie gave birth to a baby boy named George on New Year’s Day, 1891 and subsequently died from complications during childbirth. She was 16 years old.

Alta was distraught over the death of his wife and left the baby in the care of Mattie’s mother, Sarah Lewis. This was unwise, as Wilhite later reflected that Mrs. Lewis had spoken of running away with the child more than once. But he had to support himself and his son, so Alta went to work for the federal government in Kansas City. Each week, he sent money home for George’s care.

Emporia, Kansas. Turn of the century. Picture from https://niceggsk.live/

In early 1893, Alta learned from a friend that Sarah Lewis had left Emporia suddenly. George was missing, too. Frantic, Alta resigned from his job and returned to Emporia at once to find his son but the boy had vanished.

When the US entered the Spanish-American War, Alta enlisted as a quartermaster in the 22nd Kansas Infantry. Each time he traveled to procure military supplies, he scanned the crowds, eagerly looking for his son’s face in the crowd or that of his grandmother, whom he was sure had stolen his child. Wilhite had searched in vain for years, offering rewards, working with police, and putting ads in newspapers and magazines. Thousands of clues flooded in but in the end, Mr. Wilhite could trace little George no further than Columbus, Ohio.

After the war, Alta remarried and now lived with his second wife, Edith, in Kansas City. The couple had one married daughter and a 10-year-old granddaughter. But still he longed for his lost son.

Alta Wilhite was in poor health and he had finally given up every hope of ever seeing his dear boy again when he saw the article.

Go to Part 3