KY KY - Mary Hammonds, 17, Southshore, 11 Oct 1949

[Romulus]

Age last seen: 17
Age now: 82
Race: White female
Hair color: Blond/Strawberry; dishwater blond. Down around her neck
Eyes Color: blue
Height: 64.0 to 65.0
Weight: 140.0 to 160.0
Scars and Marks: Nothing

No photos disponible

Apparently left home when she was sixteen but stayed in the area. A family friend allegedly saw her running from one house to another near a railroad track in Greenup County in early 1980. Exact date unknown.

Anyone that has seen or may know the whereabouts of Hammonds is asked to contact Kentucky State Police Post 14

Namus https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/20133/2

 

[Tulessa]

Thank you Romulus. Here's some more information.

http://missingpersonsdata.com/usa/Kentucky/missing-recent/case-details/20133

This is a very good read!
Clyde Hammonds of Ashland does not know what became of his sister, Mary Marie, or if she is even still alive, although he holds on to hope they will soon find one another.

Hammonds, 80, said his sister left home when she was 16 and seemed to vanish afterward.

http://www.dailyindependent.com/new...cle_df20f5b5-1a93-5fa5-85c2-f6fe5841c450.html

 

[Tulessa]

Mary's brother Clyde, holding pictures of Mary. This is from my previous link.

 

[Gardener1850]

View attachment 98680

Mary's brother Clyde, holding pictures of Mary. This is from my previous link.

Hi Tulessa, thanks for the link and pic but those pictures confused me for a minute because they are not of a 16 year old girl and were obviously taken after 1949 based on the type of photo. Looks like 1970's and 1980's photos to me (JMO).

Here's what the caption says at the link: "Clyde Hammonds, 80, of Ashland, displays photos of his mother and another sister with a strong family resemblance to his long-lost sister Mary Marie Hammonds, who he has not seen since she left home at the age of 16."
Hoping she’s still alive

So it seems there are no photos of Mary.

I'm going to see if I can find anything on Ancestry...

 

[Gardener1850]

Sadly, Mary's brother Clyde passed away in Oct 2016.

Mary isn't mentioned at all in his his obituary, but I know it is his because it names the same parents named in the above article. One sister was surviving as of 2016. I hope someone in the family has contributed DNA for Mary's NAMUS profile (no way to check if she has DNA complete since the NAMUS update).

 

[Gardener1850]

Several of Mary's siblings were born in Branchland, West Virginia. I found the family in the 1940 Census living in McComas, Cabell COunty, West Virginia. They had moved to McComas by 1935. Mary was born in WV as well according to the census and was very close in age to another sister. She and another sister were both listed as 6 years old in 1940. I checked to see if they were twins and the sister has a different DOB from what was given in the above article. It's possible they were just very close in age single births. However, I cannot find Mary's birth record to verify the DOB given by Clyde.

I can't find any yearbook pictures of her but hopefully the above background might given a clue on where to look. I'm not sure when the family moved to Ashland, KY. May want to check WV yearbooks as well as Kentucky.

Here's a map showing city locations for reference: Google Maps

 

[4SAM]

It says that she was spotted in the 80's near some houses. Did anyone ever ask the people living there if they knew her?

 

[Coffee56]

It says that she was spotted in the 80's near some houses. Did anyone ever ask the people living there if they knew her?

I was wondering how good of a look they got as she ran between houses. Enough to recognize someone they hadn’t seen in 30 yrs? This has me wanting to ask all kinds of questions.

 

[CastlesBurning]

The whole story seems a little odd to me, like there is some crucial bit of info we aren't getting.

It's said that Mary left home at 16 but remained in the area until she was 17...why? Her brother Clyde says she always wanted to leave at 16 and did. IMO that seems like more than just a teen who's itching to be independent, but rather like there was something/someone at home she wanted to flee.

Also, someone upthread said Mary and her sister both seemed to be born in 1933...well, the article with 80-year-old Clyde was printed in 2013. That would mean he too was born in 1933??

 

[CastlesBurning]

Bumping for Mary...it's now been over 71 years.

 

[DS2021]

I was wondering how good of a look they got as she ran between houses. Enough to recognize someone they hadn’t seen in 30 yrs? This has me wanting to ask all kinds of questions.

Direct quote from article up thread describing the sighting. It was
" an eyewitness report from a railroad worker who believes he saw her in South Shore during the 1980s"

Doesn't sound like anything extremely credible imo.

 

[djc351]

As of today, Kentucky has approximately 310 missing persons cases, some of which are literally decades old such as Mary's case.

The Kentucky State Police has removed the missing persons cases from their website, or at least had the last time I checked which was last year. And a lot of the missing persons cases have grown cold and have been forgotten. Mary's case is no exception.

So last week I decided to bring some of these old cases back to the forefront, in hopes of bringing a resolution to the families. I have started creating flyers for some of these cases and are posting them around on social media. I am the admin for the Facebook Group "Eastern Kentucky Cold Cases" and the moderator for the Facebook group "Missing People & Cold Cases In Kentucky."

Thanks to one of my group members, within 5 hours of posting Mary's case on my group, we were able to find some pretty solid information regarding Mary's case, which we forwarded to the authorities and to NamUs. I won't go into a lot of detail as to what we found, but she was still in the area in the mid 1950's.

 

[StrangeOne]

View attachment 98680

Mary's brother Clyde, holding pictures of Mary. This is from my previous link.

These are pictures of Mary's mother and another sister.