MN MN - Mary Brunette Chagnon, 54, Duluth, 23 Aug 1973

Circumstances: Mary left her home to visit friends and attend a Founder's Day Workshop meeting in Minneapolis. She never returned. Her vehicle was later located at 421 1st Ave N in Minneapolis.

First Name: Mary Brunette
Middle Name: Brunette
Last Name: Chagnon
[h=3]Details[/h] Age When Last Known Alive: 54
Race: White
Sex: Female
Height: 65.0
Weight: 170.0
[h=3]Location[/h] City: Duluth
State: Minnesota
County: St. Louis
[h=3]Appearance[/h] Hair: Brown
Eye: Unknown or Missing

http://www.missingin.org/reg11881/mary_brunette_chagnon.htm

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/34983/

There seems to be some variance on details in this case. A report from 2005 ( https://www.policeone.com/investigations/articles/120407-Ga-police-Never-give-up-on-cold-cases/ ) gives her last seen date as August 31 1971 (2 years before current reports) and her age when she disappeared as 55 (rather than 54 in 1973). She was a book illustrator and it is possible to find some of her work catalogued online. I cannot find records of her online (especially in Ancestry) despite her having some public profile as an illustrator and activist. I have tried Mary Chagnon, Mary Brunette (thinking Brunette may be a maiden name and Chagnon her married name) and Mary Brunette (both christian names) marrying a Chagnon. Nothing produces a hit.

I think I found her on Ancestry but I need to do a little more digging and make sure I have the right Mary Chagnon.

Ok, here is what I have found. First, I'm pretty sure that the 1973 date NAMUS has is the correct date for when she went missing.

In Sept 1973 her family published a series of personal ads in the Star Tribune in Minneapolis that said "CHAGNON, Mary: Please .... Your family needs you."



I found this with Newspapers.com
I'm not able to access the entire thing but you can see enough of it with the preview.

Next, in the Duluth public library there is a biography file on Mary and her husband. I can't access these but hoping if I post it here someone local to Minnesota will take the time to get it: http://www.duluthlibrary.org/genealogy/biography-file/

It probably has newspaper clippings from when she went missing and that would be the most valuable for bringing attention to her case, IMO.
I'll post what I know about her family in the next post.

Mary's maiden name was Kuhl. She was born Sep 11 1918.

There are two findagrave memorials for Mary:

One in Maryland in the same cemetery as her parents: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31103551/mary-chagnon

And one in Connecticut in is the same cemetery as her husband: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/71217554/mary-chagnon

The Connecticut one uses 23 Aug 1973-- the day she went missing as her date of death. And it has the following inscription:

"In women's lib she found a cause. Her final liberation beyond how the sexes adjust to top or bottom."



When I saw the date on this I immediately thought it had to be the missing Mary Chagnon but I wanted to be sure. She is the same age as the missing Mary and there is no death record for Mary Kuhl Chagnon with these dates (that I could find) It seems she was never legally declared deceased. If this was another Mary I would expect to find a death record and be able to figure out her family from that.

Next I looked her up with her maiden name and found a reference to her as Mary Brunet Kuhl on google books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Y...AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=Mary Kuhl Chagnon&f=false

Her date of birth is the same as the grave memorial and the middle name Brunet indicates she is the same Mary, IMO.
That link says she married Raymond Chagnon. The same name that is on the adjoining inscription and the same name from the Duluth, MN biography files.
Her Husband died in 1982.

I'll post more about Mary's background in the next post.

Mary grew up on a farm in Bowie, Prince George's County, Maryland. There are pictures of her home and the names of her immediate family on page 5 here: https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/history/SchaferFarm.pdf

Her father was a US Postmaster and her mother was a Schoolteacher and later a Private Cook for another family.
Her father died in 1938.
Her mother died in 1978. The obituary only listed survivors and Mary wasn't listed there

Her sister lived to be about 102 and just died in 2017 (no obituary, just a death notice): http://simplicitycfs.com/book-of-memories/2964989/Harman-Elizabeth/service-details.php

(This just breaks my heart that her sister lived so long and never learned what happened to her sister during her lifetime).

I found Mary listed in Census records with her family in 1920, 1930 and 1940 (all in Bowie, MD).
I'm not sure when she married Raymond Chagnon but she was his second wife and the married sometime in the 1940's.

They moved all over the country.
In 1947 they appear in a City Directory in Mobile, Alabama
In 1951 and 1952 they appear in the City Directory in Indianapolis, Indiana.
In 1954 and 1956 they are listed in the City Directories in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

I suspect that by 1971 they had moved to Duluth, MN.
However, Eau Claire, WI is not far from Minneapolis.

Bumping for Mary...it's now been over 47 years.

Bump for Mary



3 Unidentified Person Exclusions

According to a blurb from Ohio in 1964, he and Mary were married in 1946, they had two sons who would’ve been 17/18 when Mary went missing.

By October, 1975, Raymond was in the Bay Area CA, and gave an interview in 1976 about not being able find a job at his age.

In 1977, he was arrested for shooting a 41 year old woman in the back.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find the outcome of that case!