Like a silhouette in a dense fog, the image is fading. The memory of a young woman from Jeanerette who disappeared from the Houston area 50 years ago is growing faint. The mystery of her disappearance Christmas 1968 remains unsolved. 

Born in 1928, Germaine Gomez was called “G.G.” and “Germ” by her sisters, Betty Lou, Tommie Nell and Dixie Lee. She attended school in her hometown of Jeanerette, then earned a degree in chemistry at Southwestern Louisiana Institute, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 

Her only surviving sister, Tommie Gutzman of Colorado, remembers her older sister as a take-charge person.

Germaine’s first job was at a chemical plant at Weeks Island, then at a paper plant farther away. She moved to Texas to head up a lab in the Harris County Health Department’s Air and Water Pollution Section in Pasadena, Texas. She took an apartment convenient to work and the University of Houston where she was studying toward a law degree. Her closest companion was a dachshund pup.

In 1968 as Christmas approached, on Monday, Dec. 23, Germaine, then 40, left an office gathering telling her colleagues, “I am going to stop at the Law Library for a book then pack up to go home to Jeanerette tomorrow for the holidays.”

 Christmas Eve as dusk fell on her hometown in Louisiana, several hours drive away, her family, who lived above their dry goods store, began to grow anxious. She was never late. As the hours grew later, the family’s anxiety turned to fear. 

“Germ should be here by now,” they said. 

Word of the situation spread quickly, starting with those attending Christmas Day services. Nearly everyone in town shared the family’s concern. Her father, Tom Gomez, contacted law enforcement agencies. Despite the family’s attempts to find out about the missing person investigation, they learned little.

Germaine’s day had started routinely on Monday. She had been seen by neighbors walking her dog. She told her co-workers about her plans to spend Christmas in Louisiana. The staff at the Law Library told police they hadn’t seen her. Her beloved dog was found in her apartment, unattended.

Law enforcement in surrounding states were alerted. Before the end of the week, the FBI had joined in the search, according to a headline in the Jeanerette newspaper later that week. The authorities in surrounding states were on the lookout for Germaine who was described as “having slight (sic) greying dark hair, 5 ft. 8 in., blue eyes, weighing 145 pounds. She was driving a green Volkswagen with Texas plate MTG11.”

Finally, after two weeks, a co-worker in the Environmental Lab recognized her car at a Sinclair Oil Refinery parking lot. As far as we know, that was the last clue to her disappearance. And now it is 50 years later.

Her parents continued to grieve. There was no memorial service. To do so would have put “The End” to Germaine’s story. Life continued at the Gomez Army Store and in the living quarters on the second floor. But always the waiting continued.

They waited for the day when the bell above the front door would ring, swing open and G.G. would arrive home, finally. She never has.

JULAINE DEARE SCHEXNAYDER is retired after a varied career in teaching and public relations. Her email address is julaines14@gmail.