![]() Her freshly laundered jeans still felt warm as she met Maria at mid-block and they raced in the dark to the massive elm tree on the corner. Kathy lived in a white cottage at the end of a long driveway, and her family was the first on the block to own a clothes dryer. She pleaded to go back outside as the first flurries of the season started to swirl in the night sky.Įxcited, she called Kathy on the phone: I can go outside tonight, can you? ![]() ![]() She finished off two rabbit legs, but barely touched her vegetables. Maria's family gathered around the table for her favorite supper: rabbit, carrots, potatoes and milk. It was a favorite spot they hadn't been to since summer.Īt 5 p.m. Maria and Kathy made plans to play there after dinner. Since Halloween, someone had been scrawling obscenities in chalk on a tree and stop sign at the intersection of Center Cross Street and Archie Place. That wasn't Sycamore's only peculiar hint of the dirty and forbidden. Scattered on the sidewalk were half a dozen photographs of nude women. When they emerged, the man was gone - but he'd left something disturbing behind. The girls felt uneasy, so they ducked into a restaurant. After school, they went to Maria's house to cut out paper snowflakes.Ī few blocks away, a man in an overcoat spotted two other girls walking along State Street by the public library and tried to strike up a conversation. It was cold, with a promise of snow in the air. That first Tuesday in December started like any other for Maria Ridulph and Kathy Sigman, with a short walk across the street to West Elementary School. Sycamore and its 7,000 souls felt safe on the morning of December 3, 1957, but the feeling wouldn't last. People didn't lock their doors in this Midwestern farm town because everyone knew everybody else. It was their whole world in 1957, a time when children played hide-and-seek outside instead of watching television. ![]() They lived a few doors away from each other on a side street called Archie Place. Everyone said the second-grader was special and Kathy, who was a year older, felt honored to be her friend. Maria was the pretty one, slight and graceful at 7 with big brown eyes that shined with warmth and intelligence. ![]()
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