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Hannah Mitchell (center) recounted the moment she realized the Ericksons kept her childhood things in hopes she would one day return for them. “I looked at my husband and started crying. ‘There’s no way these people have kept my things all these years. What kind of person does this?' ”
Gregg Segal
Computer data analyst Steve Erickson, 67, and master naturalist Patti Erickson, 68, live in Oak Cliff, Texas. Hannah Mitchell, 42, is a stay-at-home mother of four children in Arlington, Texas.
Patti Erickson: From our upstairs window, I saw 12-year-old Hannah following her mom down the street. She looked like she was wearing every article of clothing she owned, and her mom was carrying a suitcase. I ran out the front door, but they were already gone. They just disappeared.
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Steve Erickson: We were very worried. We called the police to report Hannah missing, but they said we weren’t family, so legally, we couldn’t make a missing-person report. When their landlord dumped their belongings at the curb, Patti and I went over and saved everything we could. Three boxes of stuff — Hannah’s schoolwork, report cards, journals, drawings, school photos, stuffed animals.
Patti: As a mom, I was looking at those things like, These are her baby pictures and her baby shoes. I knew they might be important to Hannah someday.
Hannah Mitchell: I remember taking a bus from Dallas to Marshall, Texas. We eventually wound up in Windsor, Ontario. I wasn’t in school. I wasn’t being fed. A neighbor helped me go to the authorities, and I got deported to Detroit and put in foster care.
Steve: We kept Hannah’s things in our garage for 20 years.
Patti: Every time I came across those boxes, there was a voice in the back of my head that said, Don’t get rid of them yet. We’re going to find her.
Steve: Little did we know that she had come back to Texas.
Hannah: I had memorized the phone number of a school friend, and after I called her collect from my foster home, her parents arranged to have me come live with them.
Steve: In 2018, I started searching for Hannah online. I thought, If she’s out there, maybe she’s on Facebook. I found a post from just a few weeks earlier.
Hannah: I’d gone to Lida Hooe Elementary School, and I’d posted a message on their page: “Hey, does anyone have any school photos from 1989–1995?” My husband and I have four kids, and I wished I could see what I’d looked like at their ages.
Steve: I messaged Hannah and included one of the photos we’d saved, a school portrait from fourth grade.
Hannah: I was in church when I got the message. I looked at my husband and started crying. “There’s no way these people have kept my things all these years. What kind of person does this?”
Patti: Yeah, two old, crazy people.
Hannah: When I saw my portrait, I thought, There’s my oldest boy, Jack.
Steve: Now we’ve gotten to know Hannah as a grownup, instead of the young girl who used to come over for sleepovers with our daughter. It’s wonderful to see the strong, confident woman she has become.
Hannah: I had a lot of help, a lot of therapy. And I was very lucky. I’ve had so many people along the way who cared about me more than I’d ever realized. The neighbor who helped me in Canada. The family in Dallas who took me in. And people like Steve and Patti who were fighting for me, even though I had no idea. Trying to report me missing. Saving my things for me. It has taught me to never take an encounter with another person for granted. You never know how important your kindness to them might turn out to be.
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