Today I contacted Ruth V. Mortenson, the 97 year-old older sister of Cadet John M. Mortenson. Miss Mortenson lives in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, about a 20 minute drive from my home in West Seattle. I spoke with her caregiver for the last three years, Erlinda, who seemed dubious that I would want to come visit. She kept mentioning visits from CNN [back in 2005-2006 when Cadet Leo Mustonen was found and being identified] and couldn't seem to grasp that I would want to talk to Miss Mortenson since the other body found this year had not be identified. I kept telling her that I was the person that found the second body. Her reply was that Ruth was very hard of hearing.

I was able to convince Erlinda that, living very close to Miss Mortenson, it would be easy for me to come visit. Erlinda said that Miss Mortenson was up by 10 AM every day and took naps around 3 PM. We set up an appointment for November 1 at 10:30 AM.

To prepare for my visit, I printed out photos from my August trip to Mendel Glacier. I figured that Ruth Mortenson would be interested in seeing where her younger brother was killed.

Due to Marge Carpenter's superior research skills I now know where Ruth V. Mortenson [born June, 1910], John Mortenson's older sister, lives. And, strangely enough, she lives in Seattle, about 10 miles away from me.

Between 1941-1945 Ruth Mortenson taught grade school at the E.C. Hughes School in West Seattle and between 1978-1984 worked at the Seattle Engineering Department of Citizen Participation and then the state Department of Transportation. She was involved in a major West Seattle highway project and got a lot of press in the area community newspaper - the West Seattle Herald. I suspect she must have been a local! Ruth Mortenson would have been in her late 60s-early 70s at this time so it looks like she was able to retire from one career in education and successfully embark upon another in public contact. As I think of it, there are a lot of similarities between the two fields!

Evidently she was living in Magnolia with her older sister, Anna [Born in 1907, Died 1/14/89] in 1989. Until I learn more, I suspect that Ruth Mortenson retired from the DOT and moved from West Seattle to Magnolia in the late 80s.

Chuck Perov, along with his wife, M.J. Bishop, organize a bicycling and wine tasting trip every year to the Yakima Valley in eastern Washington. The ride serves as a fund-raising event for the local NPR radio station - KDNA: "La Voz del Campesino." Chuck figures the several thousand dollars we raise every autumn for the station is a great way to make a return to the local community. KDNA plays music and also sponsors social improvement programs and provides services that include food distribution to the hungry and operating a community technology center for farmworkers.

Given that background it’s easy to figure out the kinds of people on the bike rides. All professions are represented including dairy farmers, doctors, teachers, bureaucrats and writers. Chuck is a case worker at the International Rescue Commission and his social consciousness runs deep. We are an interesting and eclectic group and conversations tend to run deep. In an email prior to the trip, Chuck had made sure there wasn’t anyone on the ride that hadn’t heard of my August discovery and plenty of people wanted to know more. One of those people was Mikki Lippi. She’s an artisan jeweler and in the course of telling her about my research, I showed her a photo of the ring.

Mikki examined the ring photo and couldn’t tell me anything beyond her impression that it was a man’s ring and no longer fashionable. She suggested I contact a friend of hers, Karen Lorene, owner of Facèré Jewelry and Art Gallery. Located in downtown Seattle, Lorene shows the work of some 50 or so artists as well as antique and vintage jewelry.

After our bike ride, I gave Mikki a few days to lay the ground work and then called Karen for an appointment.

Meanwhile, Marge Carpenter [my fantastically talented genealogist and internet researcher friend] was trolling the web for ring information. She found a bunch of old newspaper advertisements for men’s rings that were very close in character to what I had found on my aviator’s finger. Most of the rings ranged in price from $12.95 to $33.75. I was grateful for the data but it also suggested that the ring would turn out to be nothing special - not a family heirloom or something handed down from father to son.

I met Karen a week later and after outlining the story basics, showed her my photos. Seeing the disappointment in her face, I knew my supposition wasn’t incorrect. She confirmed the ring was a popular style in the era between 1930-1940 and that the stone was most likely hematite or black onyx though she leaned towards the former since that was more the standard at the time for the intaglio style. She also dismissed it as nothing special except to the owner. When I asked Karen about the special jewelry men wore in the 40s she replied that, "His watch and his ring were probably his jewelry. That’s what men got from their fathers. One at high school graduation and the other at college, if he went to college."

"There’s no particular symbolism to the design," she said, pointing out that it was either a Greek or Roman soldier. "It’s a man’s ring. A warrior." What a perfect explanation for a young man going off to war. And she added that intaglio rings were the most common man’s ring of the period. Karen felt that, though the ring wasn’t likely to be passed to him it still could have been a present. From a girlfriend, maybe?

Next, she turned her eye back to the craftsmanship and ring quality and dismissively told me it hadn’t much value. As for the gold, it was probably 10k like the cheaper versions Marge found in the newspaper advertisements and now only worth, "$300 - mostly to collectors." Not jewelry collectors but to collectors of memorabilia. "The ring would have more value to them if a photo appeared in a book," she added. As for other options, "A 14k gold ring would have a $600 value today and an 18k gold ring, rare, would be worth around $800."

Even without having it in hand, she still felt confident the ring was die-struck. That is, the ring was punched out of a flat sheet of gold and soldered in back. The hematite carving wasn’t done by a master but not done by machine either. "Probably a medium quality carver who went, zip-zip." Her fingers danced back and forth in a limited number of graceful movements to demonstrate for me what she meant. Then, removing several pieces from a display case, Karen showed me the work of a master carver and, for comparison, something less than master. Even my poorly developed sense of style could instantly see the difference in quality, workmanship, design and detail.

I thanked her gratefully for her time and she was happy to have helped. She said, "It’s not much and it’s generic knowledge."

"Yes," I agreed, "but not to someone like me."

"Every little bit of information helps, doesn’t it?" she replied.

That's certainly how I felt.

I spoke with Craig Miller today. He's an independent radio and television producer [www.voxterra.net and www.californiareport.org] interested in doing a documentary story about the "missing airmen" for a National Geographic TV special. "This is a story that covers all the bases," he told me. "Science, forensics, a very human component, adventure..."

At this point Miller isn't sure if the program would be entirely about the Mendel airmen or if it would be one of maybe three or four different stories - all tied together by the Sierra Nevada and lost or mysterious airplane crashes. If he is able to sell the idea, I might be hired on as a consultant to take him and his crew to the glacier.

write to: peter[at]finalflightthebook.com