If She's Not Dead, Where is She?

About eight or nine years ago the college my wife graduated from published an alumni directory. The directory listed the current addresses and status of its alumni. By status I mean either living or dead.

One of the persons my wife looked up was one of her former roomates named “A”. “A” was originally from the Lancaster area (where we now lived) and my wife hoped to reconnect. Turning to her name we discovered that her status was “deceased.” There was some sadness and some chatter back and forth between some of their mutual friends. Me, the internet searcher took it upon myself to find out more information and every few years when I thought about it I would do a little searching. One place I looked was on Ancestry.Com. As a paying member I have access to the social security death records, but a search a couple years ago turned up nothing there and I searched again a year later.

This past October we were at Esther’s (my wife) class college reunion and again someone mentioned “A” and how she was dead. I again decided to do some searching, guessing that the search engines were better now than a few years ago. So I began my search. I again looked at the Ancestry social security death index. Nothing. I looked through newspapers and for obituaries. Still, nothing. I asked around. Then I said (maybe even outloud), “if she’s not dead, then where is she?” And I went to facebook and typed in her name and a face appeared. Same college, same year. Turns out “A” isn’t dead after all.