When two teenage girls vanished from Washington, D.C., their parents feared the lure of the circus had carried them away.
Seventeen-year-old Edith Holmes and fifteen-year-old Fredericka Dorr had both been seen around a carnival and circus playing at 15th and H streets northeast. The bareback riders, the sawdust ring, the lights, and the promise of a traveling life may have seemed exciting enough to pull them from home.
By midnight, neither girl had returned.
Their worried mothers went to the police, and officers quickly turned their attention to the circus company, which had packed up its tents and left Washington during the night for Richmond.
Two Girls Missing; Parents Fear They Left With Circus
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Fearing that Seventeen-year-old Edith Holmes and her companion, Fredericka Dorr, who is but fifteen, have felt the call of the sawdust ring, after watching the bareback riders of a carnival and circus playing at 15th and H streets northeast, the parents of these girls today asked the police to search for them.
Both girls have been missing since last evening.The Dorr girl left her home after dinner last evening to go to her work at the Bon Marche, and about the same hour Miss Holmes told her mother she was going to attend the carnival in company with some friends.
When Mrs. Dorr’s daughter failed to return by midnight the mother went to Mrs. Holmes’ house only to find her almost prostrated with grief at the disappearance of Edith.
The mothers went to No. 6 precinct station and the police today have asked the authorities at Richmond, where the carnival plays next, to watch out for the girls.
“I learned last evening that my daughter had spent Friday evening at the carnival with Miss Holmes,” said Mrs. Dorr today, “and I now believe she went there several evenings last week, though I did not know it at the time. She had no reason to leave home that I know of, and I am sure she has not eloped, for she never cared much for boys.”
It is the belief of the police that the two girls, attracted by the circus life, were persuaded to join the company, which packed its tents and left Washington last night.
The Washington Times. Washington, D.C. October 1, 1911.
