In 1931, when I was 6, my friend Marion and I went to the “YMCA” every Friday afternoon for swimming lessons. A car, which looked like my father’s, pulled up at the walk and we ran out of the school. I opened the car door to get in and screamed, “You’re not my daddy!”
Mr. Walton, the school custodian, came running down the walk, and the car sped away. Mr. Walton told us then should it ever happen again, to try to remember the license number.
On Monday there was a school assembly. A policeman told us about the dangers of child molestation and emphasized license numbers.
On Saturday afternoon the Presbyterian Church opened its big gym to roller skating.
On a beautiful October Saturday in 1932 my younger brother and I started walking home, bus stop to bus stop.
At the first stop a man pulled up in his car and asked if we wanted a ride. Told “no”, he pulled away. But- I noticed his plate number. At the second, third, and fourth stops, he pulled up and asked us if we wanted a ride. “No.”
At that point we came to the Federal Meat Market. I went in and asked Mr. Doudell to please write down the number on a paper for me. As we left, I heard him on the phone asking my mother why I would want a license number written down.
Three more blocks. The man stopped each time. Then we were at our street, Legion Drive. My brother wasn’t allowed to cross Delaware Ave. So he stood just off the walk in some tall vegetation.
When I went in to the police station, I asked the deputy if Police Chief Mang (a neighbor) was there. He heard my voice and came out of his office. I gave him the slip with the number and told him our “tale”. He told his deputy to alert all the patrols while he made sure we got safely home.
That night after dinner he came to our house. He asked my parents “Who taught Sally to remember license numbers?”
It seems a patrol spotted the car and made an arrest. The man was a child molester who had escaped the Buffalo State Mental Hospital that morning and stole the car!
Some things never change.
Sally Ann Helf
York