She was “very bright” and talked like a girl older than her age. She was considerate and helped with a church missionary fund. She was pretty and had skin without blemish along with “perfect teeth.”

But after March 20, 1913, she was never seen again.

The Catherine Winters mystery that captivated and traumatized a community 100 years ago continues to intrigue people today.

On Sunday, March 24, a 2 p.m. event is planned by the Henry County Historical Society revisiting a case that made headlines all across the country. Three people who have studied, written about and literally lived with the Winters’ story will share what they know and answer questions at the New Castle-Henry County Public Library.

Colleen Steffen, a transplanted East Central Indiana resident, has written a book about the case. Dr. Donnie Hamilton has given presentations and written magazine articles about Catherine. Lisa Perry-Martin is a daughter of author Charlene Perry and once lived in the same house as Catherine on North 16th Street.

The public is encouraged to attend. There is no admission charge but donations will be accepted.

A sunny day off from school

It was a sunny Thursday in New Castle on March 20, 1913. Catherine normally would have been in school. But as fate would have it, classes were canceled that day because of a measles outbreak.

So, with her stepmother’s permission, Catherine left to sell sewing needles for a church missionary fund. She stopped at a home along Vine Street and played with her stepcousin, Jane King, in the 700 block of South Main Street. Catherine was instructed to return by 11 a.m. for lunch but newspaper reports said she was last seen peering into a store window at an Easter Display near Broad and 16th streets shortly before noon.

Sadly, missing children are all too common today, with as many as 800,000 cases reported annually. But in 1913, it was rare. Catherine’s disappearance not only triggered a citywide house-to-house search involving more than 600 people, but also made headlines from New York City to Cincinnati and Chicago all the way to Seattle.

On March 24, Mayor George M. Barnard, only the second mayor in New Castle history, signed a resolution requesting citizens to meet at the courthouse that evening and search “all the premises of the city” for Catherine.

Several theories

Since then, the search for answers as to what may have happened has been conducted with similar vigor.

n Did the gypsies take her? This reportedly was what Dr. W.A. Winters always believed, because a band of gypsies passed through New Castle that morning. Witnesses claimed there were five wagons, but authorities later concluded there could have been only four. Winters himself visited some gypsies in the Hagerstown area and questioned them. A bewildered gypsy father asked policemen what he would do with another child, considering that the caravan already had nine. Yet Winters’ belief that gypsies had taken his daughter took him to as many as 55 other gypsy camps. “I was taught to beware of gypsies because of Catherine Winters,” area resident Mabel Grace McKinney wrote in a letter to the editor reflecting on her disappearance.

n Why were a red sweater and a red hair ribbon concealed in the cellar wall of the Winters’ home? Catherine was reportedly wearing a red sweater the day she disappeared. On May 27, 1914, New Castle police, at the urging of a private detective, obtained a search warrant for the Winters’ home while the couple was in Terre Haute visiting relatives. Police found not only the sweater and the ribbon, but also a piece of cloth with a suspicious stain stuffed in a furnace ventilating pipe. These discoveries led to the arrest of Catherine’s father and step-mother as well as W.H. Cooper, a one-armed telegraph operator and former boarder in the Winters home. A grand jury would hand down three indictments for conspiring to murder Catherine and collect $3,000 from a trust fund set up by her mother, who died in 1909. But on July 10, 1914, little more than a month after the indictments, charges were dropped because of insufficient evidence.

n Did she die in the great 1913 flood that began shortly after her disappearance? The body of a young female flood victim was exhumed in Urbana, Ill. But after examining the body, Dr. Winters declared the victim was much younger than his daughter.

1913 film to be shown

As part of the March 24 presentation, a 10-minute film will be shown, one that features New Castle residents leaving work to search for Catherine. The film was obtained through the help of local historian Doug Magers who had made acquaintance with Terre Haute resident Jane King, a cousin of Catherine who had been playing with her just before the disappearance. King said Catherine’s father’s last words when he died in 1940 and were “now I’ll find out what happened to Catherine.”

On Sunday, Oct. 17, 2009, a memorial service was held for Catherine in South Mound Cemetery. Henry County historian Richard Ratcliff spoke at the ceremony and summed up the mystery this way. “Although she would be 100 years young if she were still with us, for us, she is still an innocent little 9-year-old girl. A girl whose life didn’t reach beyond the confines of New Castle, a girl who loved life, who enjoyed playing with dolls with her friends, a girl who had no idea that not everyone was good and kind.”

The Gorbett brothers’ song, “Where did Catherine Winters Go?” paid tribute to New Castle’s Rose City reputation while posing the ultimate question of the day. The last line of the song said “Roses bloom in all their beauty but will Catherine ever return?”

Darrel Radford is executive director of The Henry County Historical Society. Special thanks to Richard Ratcliff, the late Herbert Heller, Doug Magers, Eldon Pitts and Donnie Hamilton, whose research and writing made this column possible.