The Mystery of Laurie Martin

Laurie, we hardly knew ye. And by hardly I mean not at all.

Because camera-phones did not exist in the 1960s and because we didn’t yet own a Polaroid or an instamatic, the few parts of my childhood that were recorded exist mainly in home movies.

These home movies were taken with a regular-8 camera and enhanced, more or less, with the 5000-watt light attachment that singed the hair of anyone within fifty yards. These movies had no sound but occasionally you could read the lips of someone saying I’m blind I’m blind oh sweet Jesus everything is white and my retinas are on fire.

A handful of pictures exist from what must have been my dad’s old camera from his Navy days. I think it was an Argus C3 (pictured above) but don’t quote me on that. Dad didn’t use it very much and it lived in the walk-in closet for years until one day in sixth grade—April 1972—when I took it to school and got some candid pics like the one below and one where Gary Pyle and George Duncan are recreating that famous scene from All in the Family where Sammy Davis Jr gives Archie Bunker a surprise kiss on the cheek.

A non-mysterious picture from that day in April 1972. Left to right: Steve Felix, Melanie Rice, Gary Pyle, John Curtis, Deena Marlatt, Jill Quirk, Greg Fairchild

At some point that day our teacher Terry Iunghuhn (then known as Mrs York) took us out to the parking lot for a group photo, pictured below. I found that photo recently in the collection of Rubbermaid tubs that serve as my archives, and set about trying to identify my old classmates.

The very mysterious picture from that day in April 1972

That’s my hair on the left side of the back row, just behind John Curtis’s head. That’s Melanie Rice and Jim Frazier and Mark Byers and Curt Chambers and Kurt Krug and Teresa Keller on the front row. I couldn’t remember the name of the girl on the right end of the second row, but fortunately I turned the picture over and saw that I’d written everyone’s name on the back of the photo.

Turns out the girl on the right end of the second row was Laurie Martin.

Good old Laurie Martin. Who could forget Laurie Martin?

I could. And did.

I didn’t remember a girl named Laurie Martin, and I take an overweening sense of pride in my memory. How could I forget someone I’d known well enough to confidently record her name on the back of a picture? I remembered Linda Crabtree, who was in our class but who wasn’t even in this picture because she had moved away earlier in the semester. I remembered Susan Obermyer from fourth and fifth grade. I remembered Jimmy Burks, who knocked me upside down (justifiably) when I chose a dumb moment to walk across the sliding path on a snowy day at Richland Elementary. I remembered the name of the special needs kid who used to tie himself to his chair in third grade.

But I didn’t remember Laurie Martin.

I posted the pic on the Fountain Central Class of 1978 Facebook page and asked if anyone remembered the girl at the end of the second row but withheld her name at first. One classmate guessed Linda Crabtree and I reminded him that Linda had darker hair. Another classmate asked if I were sure it wasn’t Linda Crabtree and I said I was sure because of (a) the hair color and (b) the name on the back of the picture.

It's Laurie Martin, I said.

And there wasn’t one single spark of recognition. Not even half a spark. From anyone.

Someone checked the 1971-72 yearbook and Laurie Martin wasn’t listed in either of the Richland sixth-grade classes. I checked with Terry Iunghuhn but she drew a blank as well. I floated an idea suggested by my sister-in-law that maybe Laurie Martin was a student teacher, but Terry said they wouldn’t have assigned a student teacher to one with only a couple years of experience herself.

I don’t put any stock in spirit photography, and even if I did I don’t think this would qualify because I’m pretty sure the spirits don’t come around later and tell you their name.

So I remain mystified.

Richland Elementary was located in Newtown, Indiana, which had a population just under 300 people. That makes the odds of this scenario infinitesimally slim:

Sixth Grader 1: Who’s that girl wandering around looking like she wants to be in the picture?

Sixth Grader 2: Never saw her before. Hey, you want to be in this picture?

Mysterious Girl: Sure!

Sixth Grader 1: Cool. What’s your name?

Mysterious Girl: Uh—Laurie. Laurie Volkswagen. I mean Camera. I mean Martin. Laurie Martin. I’m a real person, not a ghost or anything.

Sixth Grader: We’ll never forget you, Laurie Martin.

What makes this potentially weirder is that Terry snapped the picture even though I’m sure we would have liked her to be in it with us. What if we had asked Laurie Martin to run the camera?

Not only would the mystery remain unsolved, we wouldn’t know the mystery even existed.