428DFCA Madeline Anna Babcock

No one saw her in her life; and no one saw her in her death.

Circumstances of Disappearance

On a Saturday of June 1968, Madeline (or “Lyn” as called by her friends) called her mother & sister. She informed them she was planning to visit them the following day and would be driven the 20 miles by a friend. She never mentioned who this friend was. This was the last she was ever seen or heard from. She failed to show up at both her jobs. She worked the assembly line at “Plastic Glide” and as a barmaid in “Fred’s Tavern” both in Santa Monica, CA. All her things were missing from her apartment. After her separation from her husband Madeline turned to drink and became an alcoholic.

Doe Network

The lady I met that day in a dingy room at the Riverside Motel room was kind. I didn’t see her as a threatening alcoholic. Her spirt was soft. Her words were sweet as she gave them to me.

I drove to Goldendale, Washington, and obtained her divorce records. Here’s a peak into her world in 1965:

If this is the woman I met that day 52 years ago, the allegations in this court document match the women who let her anger show at my father, too.

I watched the woman my father rape, scurry away from him, backwards, up the bed – trying to regain her composure when he was done with her.

She was furious.

Maybe she drank. Maybe she’d been terribly mistreated before and was angry. Maybe she shouldn’t have been in that room.

It makes no significance!

She deserved her voice that day. I enjoyed her screeching at my father. He deserved that and more. She lost her life that day, but she didn’t go down without a fight. The only thing she had left was her voice — and she used it.

Madeline loved playing the guitar and could sing with a fine voice. She was very close to her family and it was out of the ordinary for her not to have regular contact of some form.

con’t from “circumstances of disapperance” doenetwork.org

Today, the value she taught me in that room is to not just listen to the music, but sing with it. And, of course, scream your story! It’s not a burden, it’s my right.