Dear Commons Community,
Today is the beginning of the Memorial Day Weekend when many Americans will be traveling around the country for mini-vacations and visits with family and friends. A popular activity will be to enjoy the outdoors for hiking, camping, boating, etc. Various media are reporting the sad story of 66-year old Geraldine Largay, who became lost and died while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Her body was not found until two years later. The last entry in her journal was:
“When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,”
As reported by the Washington Post:
In the summer of 2013, officials in Maine launched one the most exhaustive missing person searches in the state’s history
They were looking for Geraldine Largay, a 66-year-old hiker who’d gotten lost while traveling the Appalachian Trail.
Sadly, she wasn’t located until years later. Among the deceased woman’s belongings was a note reading, “When you find my body, please call my husband and daughter.”
That and other tragic details about what ended up being her final days were recently revealed in a more than 1,500-page report about the incident, according to the Boston Globe.
Among the more shocking discoveries is that Largay lived for nearly 4 weeks after she’d lost track of the trail.
Though she’d tried to send text messages to her husband, she was unable to get a strong enough signal.
It’s believed Largay died “from exposure and lack of food.”
Both her remains and the campsite she’d set up atop a knoll were found by Maine wardens over 2 years later.
A sad story indeed!
Tony