A woman of Plaza, North Dakota was reported to have received quite a shock on this day in 1913. The woman, Mrs. Hendricks, learned that her husband had been spotted in Minot, North Dakota after eight months of absence. Gust Hendricks had not been seen since last spring, and his anxious wife had reported the man missing since his disappearance.

Eight months earlier, Mr. Hendricks had informed his wife that he was heading over to a neighbor’s house for a while. The man did not return that evening, and his wife sent a search party out to find him. The party traced Mr. Hendricks’s trail as far as Berthold, but his movements from there could not be discovered. Mrs. Hendricks believed that her husband had been attacked or met with some type of foul play on his way home that evening. She feared that she would not see her husband again, and sent notifications out to every county in the state. She offered a reward of $5 to any person with information concerning her husband’s whereabouts. She also bought several newspaper ads in which to advertise Mr. Hendricks’s disappearance. After receiving no word on Mr. Hendricks for several months, Mrs. Hendricks was certain that her husband had been killed.

So, it was a great surprise to the mournful Mrs. Hendricks when a family friend, Pete Grogan, wired her with news in early November that he had run into Mr. Hendricks in Minot. Mrs. Hendricks immediately hired a car to drive her to the city, but when she arrived, she again found no trace of her husband. Greatly disappointed, the woman could do nothing but return home once again. When she reached her farm, however, she was delighted to find her husband waiting for her safe and sound. It was learned that the man had been working in Canada all that time, and that he returned home with a large amount of earned wages. It was not understood, however, why Mr. Hendricks did not feel it necessary to inform his wife that he was leaving the country for several months.

Source:
Fargo Forum and Daily Republican (Evening ed.), November 13, 1913: p. 2.

--Jayme Job

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