A friend sent this to me today.
Mother held out hope for her missing son
Only her death ended 55-year vigil
Frances Sherwood holds an early photo of herself with son, Clifford Sherwood, who disappeared in 1954 at the age of 9 with classmate George Gumby. Her long vigil for the return of her son ended with her death Friday.
For 55 years, Frances Sherwood never gave up hope that her son, Clifford, who vanished in 1954, would one day turn up on her Verdun doorstep.
Sherwood often vowed she would never die until she was reunited with her son.
It was a promise she was unable to keep.
On Jan. 7, she died at age 90 without knowing what happened to her boy. With her death, the mystery of her missing son remains unresolved.
Sherwood always believed her son and another boy, George Gumby, who disappeared the same day, had been kidnapped by her estranged husband.
Even though a badly decomposed torso that might have been Clifford was pulled from the St. Lawrence River one year after both boys vanished, Sherwood was adamant the body was not his.
"Unless parents have been through this themselves, they have no idea of the kind of pain a parent goes through when their child goes missing," Sherwood told The Gazette 10 years ago. "There is an emptiness that can never be replaced. Not knowing is the hardest part, but you can never lose hope, either."
Sherwood had lived in Toronto when she was married. She had four daughters and a son. She said while she was ill in hospital, her husband, known as Nephi, abandoned her, taking their four daughters to British Columbia.
At the time, Clifford was being cared for by his grandmother in Verdun. On Oct. 1, 1954, Clifford and classmate George Gumby disappeared while on their way to school. A police investigation turned up nothing.
There were no further leads until 1987, when the Missing Children's Network determined that a Clifford Sherwood was living in Edmonton. He had the same birth date as the missing boy. But that was about the extent of it.
Sherwood's father was able to prove he was on the West Coast when his son disappeared, and police ruled him out as a suspect.
Sherwood never wavered in her faith that she would see her son again.
"I don't want to interfere in his life; I just want to know he's alive," she said. "I'd also love to see him. Everyone will know when he comes home, too. I'll let out a whoop and a holler."
The case was featured on the U.S. television show Unsolved Mysteries in 1992. But the program only added to the puzzle. Did the boy make a telephone call to his aunt Hilda the day after he vanished? Was Nephi Sherwood somehow involved, and why did he have an alias, Edward Thorne? If he had his son abducted, why was George Gumby kidnapped? And what ever happened to George Gumby?
Frances Sherwood served as a poster mom for the Missing Children's Network, a song was written about her and she and became something of a local folk hero.
"She was an exceptional woman who truly exemplified courage, dignity and strength," Pina Arcamone, the Network's director-general, is quoted as saying on the group's website.
Bless her...
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