Sixteen-year-old Mary Ann Switalski was last seen on the evening of July 15, 1963, after attending a carnival at St. Priscilla’s Catholic Church in Chicago. She lived with her parents, Eugene and Matilda, and a younger sister on West Cornelia Avenue, had just finished her junior year at Notre Dame High School, and worked locally to earn money. At about 10:15 p.m. she was wearing a black sleeveless blouse, white shorts, and straw sandals and never returned home.

Two days later a letter postmarked from Oak Park arrived at her parents’ house saying she was fine, describing a strange but educational experience, promising to send money and asking not to be interfered with. The handwriting looked like hers but the style did not, and no further contact followed. Investigators later found a lead that she may have joined a traveling magazine-selling group bound for California; the couple who ran the group gave conflicting accounts about whether she had left with them.

Her disappearance is classified as an endangered runaway and remains unresolved. Did anyone in the Chicago or Oak Park area have contact with Mary Ann or remember a traveling magazine group passing through that summer?