by James Rada, Jr.
1915 — David Firor’s Missing Days
On March 2, 1915, David Firor kissed his wife goodbye and told her that he would be back on the evening train from Baltimore. Then he headed into the city to buy Easter items for his store on East Main Street in Thurmont.
That evening, “The train came, but Dave did not come home, and it was taken for granted that he did not get to finish his shopping and remained until next day as he had done on future occasions,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.
When he failed to come home the next day, Firor’s wife and mother began to worry. They began to make inquiries at the places where he typically went, but no one could help them with any information.
Rumors began to run rampant. He had met with foul play in the streets of Baltimore. He was running from creditors because his business was about to go bankrupt. Both of these rumors proved false.
Firor’s brother, J. W. Firor, was a professor at the University of Athens in Georgia. He took a leave of absence from his teaching to join his family in Thurmont. Then he set off for Baltimore to search for his brother in hospitals and other institutions.
Firor was thirty-one years old and had a medium build. He stood five feet, six inches tall and had black hair and dark eyes. He wasn’t particularly distinguishable from among hundreds of men in the city. J. W. made his inquiries, though, and walked through the hospital wards and looked at John Does in the morgue.
No sign of him could be found.
Ten days later, Grace Firor received a telegram from her husband. He was in Jacksonville, Florida.
“Losing all trace of his identity, knowing nothing whatever of his whereabouts until he was put ashore, penniless from a dredge boat at Jacksonville, Florida, and cared for by a family of Italians, David Firor, of Thurmont, last Tuesday for the first time in a week realized who he was,” The Gettysburg Times reported.
The cause of the problem was what Firor called “sleepy-headedness,” and the doctors called aphasia. In recent months, he had started sleeping a great deal of the time, and when he slept, he was nearly impossible to wake. His mother even said that he could fall asleep talking or standing up.
Even after being found in Jacksonsville, he had an attack where he slept for eighteen hours straight.
When asked about what had happened to him, Firor said that he couldn’t remember how he came to be on the boat. The last thing he remembered was speaking with Helen Rouzer, formerly of Thurmont, in a Baltimore department Store.
He also had taken sixty dollars with him to Baltimore when he left Thurmont. It was all missing when he reached Jacksonville. He didn’t remember what had happened to it, but since no orders were delivered to the store, he apparently didn’t spend the money on what he had intended.
Some people suggested that he may have been robbed. While this is a possibility, Firor still had his gold pocket watch on him when he was found. It seems unlikely that a robber wouldn’t have taken it as well.
Firor apparently never solved the mystery of what had happened to him during the missing days. He didn’t even know whether he had been conscious for most of them.
