News: Neillsville (Child lost in the Woods - 31 Mar 1911)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Gloff, Meyers, Mihalski

----Source: The Granton News (Granton, Clark Co., WI.) March 31, 1911

Neillsville Area (31 March 1911)

It is probable that this vicinity never experienced more intense and prolonged excitement than existed here from Thursday afternoon of last week until early noon Saturday.  Herman, the little son of Mr. and Mrs. Emil Gloff who live a short distance south of Hutching’s Corners, was during that time lost and wandering in the woods. The boy had been sent by his mother to call to dinner the father, who was working on the back part of the farm.  The father states that he heard the child calling and went as quickly as possible to where the call seemed to come from, but found no one. On discovering that the boy had been sent out, and had missed him, he started to search for the boy and finding no trace of him, he called in the neighbors who came from all sides to join in the hunt.  All night long from seventy to eighty men with lanterns went back and forth through the woods but found no sign of the lost child.

For two days the search was continued and pushed farther south than the day before, and in the forenoon of Sat. the lost boy was discovered by Albert Meyers, hidden in the grass on Mike Mihalski’s marsh, one and ¾ mile south and west of the Gloff home.  Contrary to all expectation, the boy was alive and not much the worse for his 48 hours of fast and his long exposure to the cold and the terrors of the wilderness.  It is stated that after being brought home and made comfortable he told that the searchers the first night came close to him with their lanterns but that he ran from them, and that twice the next day people passed near him but he kept hid for fear of them.  In fact when found, he was apparently hiding from those who had passed by and was only seen by accident by the Meyers boy.  It is probable that the child had become utterly bewildered by being lost. - Rep. and Press