Dear Little Daughter (Part 3)
If you missed Part Two, click HERE.
It was Monday morning, and we all returned to work — Kendra and I to our jobs at a “Big 6” accounting firm where the long hours threatened to mute the magic we’d found in the box, except we were already becoming obsessed.
From letters in the box, we learned that by the late 1940s, Elizabeth — the Dear Little Daughter — was living in Tulsa with her husband, Dr. James B. Thompson, and their three children: Jimmy, Bobby, and Patty. We also knew that she had been friends with the famous poet, Carl Sandburg, and was a published author of young adult novels.
We were convinced this box hadn’t been randomly disposed of or deliberately sold, and we committed ourselves to returning it to its rightful owners. So, as often as possible — mostly during our lunch hour or on the weekend — we trekked to the local Library and put our investigative skills to work, combing through microfiche newspaper archives, directories, and high school yearbooks.
We felt like stalkers.
“Harmless little stalkers,” Kendra would exclaim, followed by a laugh that bubbled up from her gut and soon had us giggling like children on Christmas morning.
“Surely we’ll find the family,” I thought.
And in December, just a few days shy of Elizabeth’s birthday, while we didn’t exactly find the family, we found Elizabeth. She had died ten years earlier. Ten years before we found the box.
TULSA AUTHOR DIES; SERVICES SET TODAY
Author Elizabeth Allen Thompson, 69, wife of Dr. James B. Thompson, died Thursday in a Tulsa hospital. Services are scheduled for 1 pm Saturday at Southminster Presbyterian Church.
A native of Syracuse, New York, who grew up in California, Mrs. Thompson held undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan, where she was twice awarded the Hopwood prize for literature for her poetry. Her father, Shirley W. Allen, was professor of forestry at Michigan.
Mrs. Thompson came to Tulsa in 1948 with her husband. She has been active in the Tuesday Writers and other writers’ organizations as well as in the Tulsa County Medical Auxiliary, the Fortnightly Club and Southminster Presbyterian Church.
Writing under the name of Elizabeth Allen, Mrs. Thompson’s fiction for young adults — including “The Loser,” “The In-Between,” “You Can’t Say What You Think,” “The Forest House,” “Younger’s Race,” and “Margie” has been published on both sides of the Atlantic. Her poetry has appeared in prestigious literary journals, and her short stories in such magazines as Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Seventeen, and Woman’s World. Another book, “Yellow Violets,” is scheduled for release in October.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by a daughter, Patty, of Los Angeles; a son, James B. Thompson Jr. of Dallas, and two granddaughters, Joy and Melissa Thompson of Tulsa. A son, Robert E., died in 1981.
Tulsa World, Saturday, September 1, 1984
We pestered my husband, Michael, to drive us by the house where Elizabeth had lived, and he did so too many times to admit. We searched land records and discovered Dr. Thompson had sold the house soon after Elizabeth’s death. We scoured online and hardcopy directories for the Doctor, Patty, and Jimmy but found no trace. (Truth be told, part of me was glad we hadn’t located them for fear that if the box were gone, the magic would disappear, too.)
Then, late one night in March, Michael called while Kendra and I were still at work.
“What’s wrong,” I asked.
“Tweeter (his nickname for me), I think I just saw Elizabeth on the 10 o’clock news,” he said.
Indeed, he had. A story had just run about another Tulsa Treasure, Lewis Meyer — owner and curator of Lewis Meyer Bookstore — who had recently passed away.
The story featured a photograph of Lewis and other well-known local authors, including Elizabeth.
The next Sunday, the Tulsa World ran a story about Southminster Presbyterian Church — Elizabeth’s home church — and its upcoming 50th anniversary celebration. It included a photo of charter member Betty Bates, and talked of others like Lillian Norberg.
“They must have known Elizabeth,” I thought.
I looked them up in the Tulsa Phone Directory, and found Lillian. It took me a few hours to muster the courage to call, but I finally picked up the telephone and dialed her number.
“Hello? Is this Lillian Norberg?”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“Lillian, my name is Denise Chambers, and you don’t know me, but I’m looking for information about someone I think you may have known. Her name is Elizabeth Allen Thompson and she …”
“Oh my! Yes, dear!,” she said. “Elizabeth and I were fast friends, but I wasn’t her fastest. That would be Millie Ladner … what is it you would like to know?”
I explained what Kendra and I had found at the flea market and told her we were looking for Elizabeth’s family.
Astonished, she told me I simply had to talk to Millie and gave me her telephone number.
“She’s in Florida now. After her husband, the Judge, died, Millie eventually remarried, and she and her new husband live in Florida most of the year. But you must get ahold of her … she’ll know what to do.”
Then she said. “You know, dear, it’s serendipitous that you called when you did.”
“Why is that,” I asked.
“Well, of our group, those of us still in Tulsa get together to celebrate each other’s birthdays, and when we do, we each bring the oldest photograph we have of the birthday girl. And just as you called, I was looking at a photograph of Elizabeth.”
Goosebumps.
From then on, it became increasingly difficult for me to focus on my work. The magic in the box had taken root in my heart, and while it was leading me down a path still blinded by heavy fog, in early April, with no identified replacement for my income, I quit my job to follow the box.
Irrational, impetuous, and risky, the box had just changed the trajectory of my life. Yet, still today, I would tell you it’s among the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Read the next segment of this story in Part Four.
