If Georgie White Clark and I had crossed paths, I have a feeling we might have been fast friends ... [re: Glen and Bessie Hyde mystery]

Raising Jane 'blog ^ | Posted on September 3, 2014 | MaryJane

[SunkenCiv]

"For all her notoriety, Clark remains something of a mystery to even those closest to her. Evidence discovered at her home the day of her funeral raised the possibility Clark fabricated portions of her past, giving rise to a new element of the Georgie legend," reports GrandCanyonTreks.org. "While the theory is discounted by several associates, there is a faction of friends who are puzzled by connections that suggest Clark was in fact Bessie Hyde, who vanished in 1928 along with her husband, Glen Hyde, while the Idaho couple were on a honeymoon adventure floating the Grand Canyon in a wooden boat."

GrandCanyonTreks.org continues, "Speculation about Clark's connections to Bessie Hyde began when friends were going through her personal effects following her death ... for starters, her birth certificate showed her real name was Bessie DeRoss, not Georgie. Clark, as well as another surname she sometimes used, White, were the last names of divorced husbands. While her 1977 autobiography waxed at length about a childhood in her native Chicago, she was actually born in Oklahoma and raised in Colorado."

Friends also found a copy of the Hydes' marriage license and a pistol that may have belonged to Bessie DeRoss in Georgie's lingerie drawer.

Truth? Fiction? Really, who's to say?

But I'm looking forward to learning more about Georgie's life and legend in her biography, Woman Of The River: Georgie White Clark, Whitewater Pioneer by Richard Westwood.

[SunkenCiv]

Rare footage of the legendary river runner Georgie White in September 1989. I didn't shoot this; the original footage is by Mike Jensen. I was loaned a copy of it by Susan Ferguson, another passenger. Thanks to them for permission to edit and post. It's cool to watch Georgie's movement and expression and to hear her, after seeing only photos. Wait, I take that back--I have seen video of her in one place only: her birthday party at Hatchland in Don Briggs' "River Runners of the Colorado." And now there's this.

Georgie White "Tell 'im I get wings!" | Joanna Joseph | Published September 30, 2008

[SunkenCiv]

...Georgie Clark claimed that she was actually Bessie Hyde, and that she stabbed her husband after they got into a fight. Bessie wanted to leave, because she felt that the trip had become too dangerous. Glen began to beat her, so she grabbed a knife and stabbed him. This woman said everything so matter-of-factly, everyone around the campfire believed her. One of the men in the group found Georgie Clark’s phone number, and called her afterwards to see if she would do an interview to talk about the story. The old woman denied everything, saying that she never claimed to be Bessie Hyde, and hung up the phone.

Of course, if she really was Bessie Hyde, she would have to say this. She confessed to murdering her husband, after all. However, this does not explain why she decided to leave all of their belongings behind in the boat. If Bessie truly did kill Glen, she would had been alone in the middle of The Grand Canyon, miles away from civilization in the middle of winter...

After Georgie Clark passed away, her best friends requested to search her home to look for clues. Clark had also told her best friends that she was Bessie Hyde, and yet she never showed them any proof. Stranger yet, she never let her friends come over to visit her house. When they went through their belongings, they found a mixture of evidence that makes the mystery even more confusing.

Georgie Clark had a birth certificate that said her real name was Bessie DeRoss. They also found a marriage certificate of Bessie and Glen Hyde. In Clark’s underwear drawer, she had a pistol. These three pieces of evidence may be enough for some people to believe that she had been telling the truth. However, all of the photographs of Georgie when she was younger look drastically different from Bessie Hyde. They are not the same person.

The Disappearance of Bessie and Glen Hyde Remains One of the Most Puzzling Unsolved Mysteries

[SunkenCiv]

It's very unlikely that there will ever be a solution to this disappearance. OTOH, I'm very doubtful that any kind of effective and theorough forensic investigation has ever been done near where the boat was found intact, with Bessie's diary of the unfinished trip still on board. 92 years later, we've got bupkis. Long after the disappearance, a skeleton of a male was found with a bullethole in the skull, in a canoe stored in an outbuilding of a more or less local guy, after he'd died of natural causes. It can be seen on the old Unsolved Mysteries episode from about 30 years ago, check YouTube.

This is a rare Thoroughly Modern Miscellany topic ping within GGG.

[SunkenCiv]

BTW< sounds like Georgie was a bit of a nutjob, and/or perhaps pulled off some ID thefts, or maybe a double indemnity job or two.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.grandcanyontreks.org/canyon04/spencer1.html

[snip] River Mile 232 is where Glenn and Bessie Hyde lost their lives. The Kolb Brothers found their unoccupied Drift Boat there in an eddy. [/snip]

[21twelve]

Somehow I got recommended to the 411 Missing People Reports on Youtube - people vanishing in the wilderness. Or found 10 miles away in good condition in rugged terrain and terrible weather. Maybe Glenn and Bessie were the first!?

Makes for interesting campfire stories. My campfire stories out in the woods usually centered around Bigfoot. Kind Bigfoot when the kids were little (rescuing a lost child, etc.) and as the kids got older, Bigfoot got a bit more menacing - but it was just because he wanted to be left alone.

[SunkenCiv]

Their boat was found trapped in an eddy -- could have slid down the river to that point without anyone aboard, but it's difficult to see how they'd have been kicked out into the torrent without overturning the boat itself.

[SunkenCiv]

Whoops, to continue... [blush] there's a raft of creepy stories (all fabrications) on YouTube. My favorite for sheer ridiculousness is the claim that National Park employees encounter unexplained staircases.