The Disappearance of Lee Farnworth

  When I was just a baby my parents lived in Prosser. They had rented a house on a hill. I can’t remember the house or every living in Prosser but I have heard this story many times. My brother Lee came up missing one day.
  My mother was busy with housework and didn’t noticed when her 5 year old disappeared.  She looked into the closets and into each room calling his name, “Lee Vern Farnworth, where are you.”
  She had moved to the outside of the house, looking into the bushes and under the boards from the work my dad was doing on the place. This was the 1970’s in a small town in America. Which meant my mom didn’t have a way of contacted my father, once he left for work. To make matters worse she didn’t call the police because you never thought something bad happened to your children. Unlike today when they call in a Amber alert and everyone gets a message on their phone about the missing child.

  After an hour of looking she had enlisted the help of the neighbors and the police.  They were calling for Lee up and down the sidewalks of that little street.
  Dad pulled into the driveway and park beside the Black and white police car. “
  “What is going on?” he asked.
  “You son is missing,” said the police officer.
  Walked into the house and quickly changed his cloths. Stepping out on to the porch he asked, “Have you checked the house.”
  “Yes,” yelled Pearl franticly.
  “Where did you look?” he asked.
  “Called for him all over the house and checked the closets and all the rooms.”
  My father slipped back into the house and went upstairs and checked the rooms again.  He called my brothers name and stopped to listen before moved on. He checked the attic, he checked the dirty crawl space, before giving up and washing his hands.

  As he stood there looking out over the back yard with the water rushing over his hands he thought about all the other places, Lee could be, before dismissing them out of hand. He stopped and moved back, “No can’t be,” he said before kneeling he opened the cupboard under the sink and nothing was there. His head slowly turned and looked at the draws next to the sink.  Two large draws stacked on top of each other. The top was for pots and the bottom was for linen.
  He moved over and slowly pulled the draw out to find his boy curled up fast asleep. He pushed the draw closed and went and go my mother.
  When she saw him she screamed, “Lee Verne Farnworth, what are you doing.”
  “I wanted to scare you, but I fell asleep,” he answered.
  “You sure did a good job at that,” answered my Dad.
  I once lost my child for just a few minutes inside the Sundome during the Central Washington State fair.  I was freaking out, so I know what my parents were going through.