Finding something today was a struggle. But I eventually found a story that was fun enough on its own, and then I found that it ran across four years and five separate newspaper reports, which made it even more interesting.
Evening Express, July 24 1926
The Headline
This one was strange enough on its own. Two children (who look like they’re in their 30s) caught trying to elope.
Fourteen-year-olds David Coughlin and Nellie Piper vanished from Ellsworth, Maine, and a real search followed, a sheriff's posse and volunteers combing the woods around Whiting. This wasn't a simple disappearance. Coughlin was reportedly carrying real money, having cashed checks totaling $75 that local merchants later alleged were forged. Nellie's parents said she'd slept on a downstairs couch the night before specifically so she could slip out without waking the house.
At one point searchers spotted two figures on a distant cliff, but found no trace of anyone when they reached it. The pair had abandoned their car and disappeared into the woods on foot, taking a tent and camping provisions with them. And this wasn’t their first attempt… or their last. Newspapers reported that this was their second attempt to make it to Canada to marry.
Another Attempt
North Adams Transcript, September 22 1926
Two months later, they tried again, and by this point it was already their third runaway since early summer. They were gone eight days this time, hiding in a woods camp less than half a mile from Ellsworth, living mostly on corn and potatoes taken from nearby gardens until hunger finally drove them home.
The Barre Daily Times, September 22 1926
A third person's story runs alongside theirs in this coverage. Colby Foss, a 20-year-old bookkeeper, had disappeared around the same time in a car allegedly obtained through false pretenses, and was traced to Quebec, where he wanted to come home.
His father was prepared to have him sent to reform school, stating plainly that it was the best way to end what he called the young man's "love affair." Whatever Foss's actual connection to David and Nellie's plans, his father clearly believed there was a romantic entanglement worth breaking up by force if needed.
They promised this was the last time they’d run away.