Paul Gordon Love, age 22, disappeared from Galesburg, Illinois on October 2, 1947.
Paul was last seen in downtown Galesburg, when he entered a record store with his roommate and attempted to cash a check so he could buy a record. Just prior to this, he’d left some friends on a downtown Galesburg street corner, saying he was going to run some errands. He was traveling on foot.
The clerk was unable to cash the check, so he asked the clerk to put the record aside, so he could come back later to purchase it.
It is not specified which record store he was in, but I am fairly certain it would have been Lindstrom’s on Main Street. It’s the only one I can confirm was in Galesburg in the 1940’s. The store actually still exists to this day, although it has relocated and now sells appliances instead of records. It remains in the same family. He could possibly have been in another store called The Platter, which has been mentioned as a competitor to Lindstrom’s. I cannot find any evidence that The Platter existed prior to 1959, although it’s possible that it did.
Paul and his friend walked to the bus stop, where they’d catch a bus back to the University, but Paul suddenly decided to go back downtown alone.
Paul was never seen again. Despite massive searches, no clues to his whereabouts were found.
The $20 check from his mother was never cashed. He left behind $1400 in a bank account and it was never touched. He’d also left clothing and money in his locker.
Paul was a student at the University of Illinois at the time of his disappearance. He had previously served in the Army during World War II. He’d mailed a letter to his parents the day before his disappearance. Although they did not receive it until after he had vanished, the letter indicated that he was in good spirits.
Friends of Paul’s, however, had noted some odd behavior. Paul reportedly talked about suffering from “battle fatigue” from his time overseas. He spoke of a mysterious “Hill 606” in Italy, and wanted to return there. While Paul did serve overseas during World War II, police checks of his military record showed that he was never in combat.
Paul had also spoken of wanting to go to California. A friend of his from Pennsylvania had invited him on a trip to the west coast, but Paul declined, explaining that his parents wanted him to finish school.
Although initial articles indicated that groups were searching for a body, police received a letter from a Mt. Pleasant, Illinois resident. The author of the letter stated that he had picked up a hitchhiker on October 8, 1947. According to the author, the hitchhiker fit Paul’s description, and had told him that he lived in a suburb of Chicago, and was headed to Hollywood, California. It’s never been confirmed that the hitchhiker was Paul.
A woman had also reported to police that she’d seen a man stagger from a car to a street corner, where he slumped to the ground. She then saw a few other men get out of the car and repeatedly punch the man before being pulling him back into the car and speeding away toward Lake Storey. She described the man as wearing a sleeveless sweater, which was not something Paul owned. The man also was not wearing glasses, as Paul normally did. Police did not believe the man was Paul, but they searched tbe lake just in case. They found nothing.
The woman had been a passenger in a taxi when she witnessed this, and the cab driver confirmed her story.
Paul’s parents and brother lived in Hinsdale, Illinois. Paul and his family had previously lived in Iowa, where his father had held executive positions within the Boy Scouts organization. Paul’s maternal grandfather was a former Iowa senator.
His parents at first thought him to be an amnesia victim, but later told the media that they believed he was deceased.
If alive, Paul would be 93 years old today.
Paul at right.
Sources:
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Interesting story that I’ve never heard about. When I lived in the Chicago suburbs and went to school at Western Illinois University in Macomb, our train would stop in Galesburg. Just to clarify a small point, Paul would have been attending the University of Illinois Galesburg Campus, a 155 acre site located just north of town. This was an extension program of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana which is about 150 miles away. Started after WWII in the Army’s surplus Mayo General Hospital, it was active from 1946 to 1949. The hospital was then used as a mental institution, and today parts of it still exist and have been repurposed into a mixed-use development.