Who needs Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, Charlie Chan, Jane Marple or Hercule Poirot?
We have Beacon Journal and Ohio.com readers who can use their detective skills to solve a few mini mysteries.
So put on a deerstalker cap, grab a magnifying glass and follow this trail of clues.
Happy sleuthing!
Works like a charm
For nearly 25 years, Cuyahoga Falls resident Pat Nagy has been searching for the owner of a charm bracelet. She’s hoping that today will be her lucky day.
The bracelet was found in June 1993 after the wedding reception of her daughter Michelle Nagy and Lane Meeker Vargo at Our Lady of the Elms in Akron.
She asked friends and relatives if they knew the owner. When that didn’t pan out, Nagy began looking for clues in the charms. There are eight of them, including one Alpha Chi Omega sorority charm, one “Big Sis” charm, one pelican charm, one small printed “j” and one large cursive “J.”
There’s also a “1969 senior” charm that is red and black, the colors of Kenmore, Manchester, Norton, Canton McKinley and who knows how many other high schools.
Nagy called the sorority’s national headquarters in Indianapolis as well as chapters in Akron, Mount Union and Miami of Ohio. She called the Akron Board of Education, Kenmore High School and Kenmore Historical Society. She pored over yearbook photos at the Kenmore branch library and took out a lost-and-found ad in the Beacon Journal. Still no luck.
Then last year, Nagy lost her own beloved charm bracelet, one that she had treasured for 52 years, during a vacation to Ocean City, Md. The loss inspired her to renew her efforts to find the owner of “The Bracelet,” as she calls it.
If the charms sound familiar or you can help identify the owner, please call Pat Nagy at 330-618-9396.
Luck be with you.
Carved in stone
Stow author Craig Erskine recently discovered some 90-year-old graffiti near Akron’s Perkins Stone Mansion that piqued his curiosity.
The volunteer was picking up trash from the sidewalk on Copley Road near Trigonia Drive when he noticed initials and a date chiseled into a rock that’s south of the Perkins property. It seems to read “MB - 1926.”
He speculates that a road worker might have carved his initials while taking a break, possibly when the Copley Road grade was being lowered for better automobile access to the hill.
“The patina on the surface of the rocks and interior of the grooves themselves, reflects decades of exposure to the sulfur and carbon-black-laden air that once defined Akron,” Erskine said.
The Summit County Historical Society was unaware of the graffiti. Do you know anything about it? Did your father or grandfather ever proudly point out his handiwork on that rock?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Sharing the Gospel
For decades, Akron resident Beatrice Woolridge has taken good care of a family heirloom. The only problem is that it isn’t her family.
She has been safeguarding a 19th century Bible from the Warner family of Coventry Township. It records the 1800s wedding dates for many couples, including Elizabeth and Adam Warner, Mary and Henry R. Warner, and Elizabeth and Henry E. Warner.
Woolridge believes that her parents, Sam and Marjorie Glinn, discovered the Bible in the 1950s when they bought a furnished house on Fifth Avenue in East Akron. According to a city directory, the previous occupants of the home were Algernon and Gwendoline Marcellus, who apparently left no direct descendants.
Woolridge would like to return the Bible to its rightful heir.
If you have more information, please call the phone number at the bottom of this column and leave a message.
Behind a badge
Stow resident Dennis J. Myers, an Akron native, has a question about a keepsake that his grandfather Clyde B. Myers gave to him long ago.
It’s a deputy’s badge — No. 388 — from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. Myers contacted the office and was told that, decades ago, county badges that began in the “300s” were for “special use.”
A retired machinist from B.F. Goodrich, Clyde B. Myers died in 1955 at age 72. He was a councilman in the village of Kenmore before it was annexed to Akron in 1929. He was born in Lodi, lived 53 years in Kenmore and spent the final 15 years of his life in Munroe Falls.
Dennis Myers wonders if the “special use” category was related to his grandfather’s council years. County records apparently don’t go back that far. He hopes to find out which deputy wore badge No. 388 and if there is a connection to his grandfather.
“I’m 81 now, and I’d really like to close that chapter,” he said.
What is the ‘W’?
We’ll fold today’s column with a mini mystery that was tucked away in an old Akron schoolbook.
Charlie Thomas found a note from Eddie Major, 1927-1928 circulation manager of the Lariat, the school newspaper at West High. In the scolding letter to a student’s parent, Eddie noted that the girl had pledged support to “the ‘W’ book,” which has “over 1,000 subscribers,” but apparently didn’t follow through. The note continues: “We feel that the light consideration of a pledge on the part of young people is an undesirable thing which may lead to great embarrassment in later life.”
An attached pledge slip says “I WANT THE W BOOK” and “Cost not to exceed 25 cents.”
“We are all just curious what this mysterious ‘W’ book is,” Thomas said.
The yearbook was the Rodeo, so it can’t be that. Can anyone confirm if the “W” book was some kind of a student handbook?
Unless we get some answers, these mysteries will remain unsolved.
That’s it for now, fellow sleuths. Thanks for getting on the case.
Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price is the author of the book Lost Akron from The History Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.