A haggard woman, back from Palestine in a search for her only son, missing for five years, had almost given up hope yesterday. “God must know here he is. God must know,” she sobbed.
The woman is Mrs. Dora Meyers, who sailed for Palestine in 1926 with her daughter. Her son, Herman J. Meyers, a young playwright, promised to follow if she decided to live in Palestine.
A Jewish Daily Bulletin reporter met her yesterday in the office of Harry Zellman, a lawyer and lifelong friend of the family, who is supervising the search from his office at 45 John street.
SENT MOTHER MONEY
“He was such a good boy, my Herman,” she said. “Every week he sent me a letter with a check for three dollars. He was living in the Bronx on Fox street, near my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Ray Richman.
“In the last letter that I got from him he told me he was writing day and night only for me and his sister. He wanted nothing for himself.
“Suddenly, in 1929, I stopped getting letters from him. I waited. I worried. My daughter, Mrs. Schlome Pollack, told me maybe he was busy. Finally I couldn’t wait any more, so I sent a night cablegram. I got an answer from him by wire. He said he was very busy. He would write soon.
“I waited one month, two months, three months. He didn’t write. So I sent another cablegram. This time Mrs. Richman answered. She said she had written the other message and I shouldn’t worry. She said Herman had walked out of the house and hadn’t come back.
CAME TO AMERICA
“I begged my daughter to let me go to New York. She said it was better for me to stay. Maybe Herman had gone to Hollywood to write for the movies, as he had said he would. Finally I told her, Why do you keep me here to die from worry? Better I should go to America to look for my son.’
“I came here and I cannot find him.” She broke into a flood of tears. “Please help me find my son,” she sobbed, “please write so that if Herman should see he will know if he does not come back his mother will die.
“My Herman was a good boy. Such a quiet boy. Always working. Never getting in trouble. He has to come back.” She sank back into the chair, sobbing quietly. Mrs. Meyers is fifty-nine years old, but the looks older.
MEYERS’ DESCRIPTION
Herman J. Meyers is twenty-seven years old. He is short, heavy set and wears eye glasses with thick lenses.
He was last seen in New York in 1929 by Attorney Zellman, whom he had been accustomed to visit about once a month at the lawyer’s east side home.
Zellman said Meyers was unusually quiet, spending most of his time writing. His leisure time, Zellman said, he spent either on the east side or in the vicinity of Times Square, particularly near the Earl Carroll Theatre. He was well known in theatrical organizations.
In 1929 a skit he wrote, “The Mormon’s Prayer,” was included in the Earl Carroll Vanities, and received favorable mention in dramatic columns. He disappeared soon after the show closed, apparently unable to repeat his success.
Zellman exhibited letters from government agencies, organizations, individuals and the missing Persons bureau, none of whom could furnish a clue to Meyers’ whereabouts.
In answer to a letter Zellman yesterday received a postcard from Walter Winchell, offering aid in finding the missing man through his column.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
