Another message in a bottle mystery is upon us!

Today’s message in a bottle mystery comes from Connecticut. A young woman named Amanda “mailed” this message in a bottle on the Quinnipiac River in Connecticut back in April of 2007:

Hey person who finds this, my name is Amanda! I’m helping my best friend ever Shantel babysit her kid sister and brother. We bought a six pack of root beer + decided to write notes and put them in the bottles. This bottle started out in Southington, CT. Tell me where it ends up!

4/26/2007

My Cell Area Code 860-538-7544

or myspace: www.myspace.com/mandatatertot

PS I’m 15

In May of 2017, according to myrecordjournal.com, “Michael Wieloch, a volunteer with the Quinnipiac River Watershed Association (QRWA), found the glass root beer bottle during a cleanup event on April 15 and could see the note inside”.

Apparently, QRWA volunteers have hauled “old tires, crumpled beer cans, shopping carts and construction debris from the river,” but not messages in bottles. Of course, I find this kind of trash washed up in the Caribbean, too. It is amazing how much garbage people dump in waterways.

Quinnipiac River from bridge in Meridan. Photo: Arthur Dutra IV / Wikipedia

And yet, this message in a bottle feels special–not at all like garbage, as pointed out by president of the QWRA, David James: “To a lot of people, (the river) is an avenue or medium that takes things away. It’s a trash disposal,” James said. “For this person, it was a means of reaching out.”

Where is Amanda?

Well, Amanda reached out all those years ago. One spring night in 2007, she sent a message in a bottle in hopes of connecting with someone somewhere. But no one in the QWRA was able to find her because the phone number didn’t work. And, as you can see by trying her MySpace address, her profile is no longer in existence.

So, where is Amanda? This is the question we have to solve in this message in a bottle mystery… Let’s find her, y’all, and let her know that her message in a bottle has been found!

Map of Quinnipiac River. Credit: Wikipedia.

As a sidenote, I have certain fondness for messages in bottles that began their journeys in rivers, since I found one that turned out to be very meaningful to me. In fact, it started out in the Delaware river, but made it all the way down to the Caribbean! Click here for that story. Oh–and there’s another super cool story about a message in a bottle found in a river, and it was 97 years old! Click here for that one.

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1915 Message in a Bottle is Found After 97 Years

Imagine diving into the murky depths of the St. Clair River that separates Michigan from Canada, and spotting an antique bottle stuck in the mud–with a handwritten note inside. A message in a bottle! I think I would have a heart attack on the spot! But Dave Leander did it in 2012 and lived to tell the tale. He is an avid diver and owner of Great Lakes Divecenter in Shelby Township, north of Detroit.

When he emerged from the St. Clair river with the bottle he found in the mud, he realized it was a 97-year-old note in a bottle.

Written by Tillie Esper and Selina Pramstaller of Detroit, the 1915 message in a bottle is lovely and simple and joyful:

Having a good time at Tashmoo

Selina Pramstaller

377 Wabash Avenue

Detroit, Michigan

Tillie Esper

141 Maybury Grand Avenue

Detroit, Michigan

June 30, 1915

Spending a leisurely day at the Tashmoo Amusement Park would have seemed like a simple joy at the time, though World War I was underway in Europe, and it wouldn’t be all that long before America joined. In a way, this message in a bottle captures some of the last peaceful moments for America in the 20th century.

(By the way, in 1989, a Detroit boy sent a message in a bottle just across Lake St. Clair from Tillie and Selina’s bottle, and it was found after 28 years. Click here for that story)

The Search for the Senders’ Families

Dave Leander and his wife Pam embarked on a detective mission to figure out who these women were, and whether they had any living family. Incredibly, they very quickly found dozens of living family members–grand children, great grand nephews and nieces, and so on.

Eric Schiebold and Janet Baccanari, grandchildren of Tillie Esper, provided this photo of their grandmother:

Tillie Esper. Phot: Eric Schiebold / Janet Baccanari

Then, Dennis Pramstaller, great grandnephew of Selina Pramstaller, provided this photo of Selina’s family from 1916:

Selina and Tillie seem to have been spending a fun day together at Tashmoo amusement park, and probably threw their message in a bottle over board from the popular cruising ship, the Tashmoo.

After this amazing message in a bottle was found, USA Today reported that dozens of the descendants of Tillie and Selina were planning on getting together for Tashmoo Days in 2013, and that’s exactly what happened–even Tillie’s 88 year old daughter, Patricia Esper Leone, and Selina’s 85 year old nephew, William Morrisrow attended and were reunited with the message in a bottle! The gathering was documented on the Tashmoo Days Facebook page.

Tillie’s 88 year old daughter, Patrica, is in the middle-left wearing pink; Selina’s nephew is in the middle-right, wearing red with blue stripes. At right is Pam Leander, wife of Dave Leander who found the message in a bottle. Photo: Tashmoo Days Facebook Page.

If you ask me, the mere fact that this 1915 message in a bottle survived at all is a near miracle. But on top of that, it gives us a glimpse into a very different time–a quieter, slower, arguably happier time. And on top of that, Tillie Esper’s daughter got to receive one last note from her mother who had been gone a long time–if that’s not magic, I don’t know what is!

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