wfn.org | Missing Presbyterian Elder Is Found After Three Weeks

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26-March-1999 
99125 
 
    Missing Presbyterian Elder Is Found After Three Weeks 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A Presbyterian elder who had been missing for three weeks 
has been found alive but disoriented, more than 1,000 miles away from where 
he was last seen. 
 
    Harry Swarts, 51, a longtime member of the St. Andrew Presbyterian 
Church in Davenport, Iowa, was found on March 25 on a bench in a shopping 
mall on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, according to the Davenport Police 
Department. He had disappeared on March 6. 
 
    Swarts is currently hospitalized in the Dallas area, to which his wife, 
Ann Calvert Swarts, and their three daughters are en route. 
 
    "We don't know how he got there ... but it does appear that this is 
strictly a medical problem," said Dennis Kern, public information officer 
for the Davenport police. 
 
    Swarts left home driving his daughter's 1991 Mazda Protege. The car - 
which had been vandalized - was found outside a shopping mall in Des 
Moines, Iowa, on March 13. Police said then that there was no evidence of 
foul play. 
 
    "The bottom line is: Once he was lost, but now he is found. And the 
road back home looks promising," said the Rev. Jim Clark of St. Andrew, 
Swarts' pastor and friend for many years. "We're all very relieved he is 
not dead. And we think there are possibilities for healing that we'd not 
seen. 
 
    "For three weeks, it has been awful." 
 
    When Swarts disappeared, church members began distributing 
missing-person posters and caring for the family. Clark told the 
Presbyterian News Service that Swarts is disoriented and has lost his 
memories of more than a decade. When he was interviewed by paramedics in 
Dallas, he was unable to recall the names of his immediate family, but he 
did recall the name of his church and pastor. 
 
    "It's interesting that the church was there," said Clark. "Everybody 
[here] is practically cheering and crying. There is overwhelming relief. 
Tears of joy are everywhere. ... 
 
    "I'm calling this [March 26] my Good Friday. And it is going to be a 
better Easter." 

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