Bertha Beatrice Smith, born Bertha Beatrice McGary in Texas in 1913, disappeared after sending a letter from Phoenix, Arizona, in June 1944 stating she intended to return to Texas. She had married in 1931 and had five children, then divorced in 1942 and reportedly moved to Arizona. Reports say she may have remarried a man named Smith, but details about that marriage and her life in Phoenix are scarce.

After the divorce, custody of her children went to her ex-husband; when he enlisted in the army the children were reportedly placed in orphanages. The June 1944 letter is the last contact her family received. No one in her family saw or heard from her after that letter, and there is no record of how she planned to travel back to Texas or whether she reached any stops along the way.

The Phoenix Police Department is listed as the investigating agency, but the passage of decades has left the case cold with few concrete leads and the identity of the man she may have married unknown. If anyone knew Bertha, her life in Phoenix, or the man she may have married, please share what is known.