This is Part 2 of a Vanishing. Click here to go back and read Part 1!

The city offered a $250 reward to anyone who could solve the mystery of Gertrude’s disappearance, which expired on March 1, 1903. Even when the reward was doubled, no one came forward with any information.

Two clairvoyants turned up: one Edward Chase and a Frenchman named DeBeau. The paper seemed enamored with DeBeau, describing his long hair and full black beard. He had a good record of finding stray animals, stolen money, and other things. As a credential, he submitted a plan of the Strassburger home, a rough map of the place where Gertrude disappeared, and a description of Mr. and Mrs. Strassburger, all of which he seemed to have no way of knowing. DeBeau theorized Gertrude had skated up toward the dam and back to the bridge, removed her skates, and walked up Broadway. He believed she had been abducted and was being forcibly detained in a building nearby. But with no new information, DeBeau accepted defeat and went home. Chase’s theory was that Gertrude was in the river near South Crookston Bridge. He too left when no proof was found.

Two days before the reward expired, the Red Lake Falls Gazette wrote, “Every effort has been made by the police and the sorrowing family and their friends to find some clue to the missing girl but up to date not the remotest clue or traces of her has been found. A large number of false alarms and supposed reliable clues have been probed to the bottom with very discouraging results. A great many are of the opinion that the missing girl is in the river under the ice but there is no reason for believing such is the case unless the futility of the search, which has been conducted so vigorously the past three months, leaves room for no other conclusion. Others think the girl is alive and well, etc., but there really is nothing from which to draw any kind of a conclusion. It is a most mysterious case.”

Had she been under the ice, Gertrude’s body would have surfaced when it melted but no trace was found. Sightings of Gertrude were plentiful but when they were run down, it was always a case of mistaken identity. Her parents had no idea what became of her but after many months, they accepted that she must be dead.

The strangest part of Gertrude Strassburger’s story, perhaps, is the consensus that people landed on. Her disappearance was called a “fading away” or a “dematerialization.” In other words, she had moved to the spirit world without dying. Even a well-known judge publicly subscribed to this theory.

Lurking spirits were accused of carrying her off.  More especially, the spirit of Will, her lost fiancé. Gertrude’s friends said she told them she learned to live with Will’s absence knowing it was “only a question of time” until she joined him. The remark the girl had made to her friend just before disappearing now seemed significant.

Initially, I thought this would be another case that had nothing behind it, similar to the 1905 hoax regarding Maysie Tichnor and Henry Ziegland, and the tale of the Patient Bullet. But I found plenty of evidence that Gertrude Strassburger existed and disappeared, just as the papers said.

1900 U.S. Census

What are your thoughts on this strange story? What do you think happened to Gertrude?