Neil Barman needs you to look for his mother.
It’s as simple as that. Gladys Barman, 82, has been missing since Thursday. The police have exhausted their investigative tools, searches by friends and family have found no trace of the Oak Bay woman and, frankly, she could be anywhere.
“It’s just a matter of having more people look,” says Neil.
Her disappearance is worrisome, out of character. Gladys is a bit of a legend at the Times Colonist, where she has been a carrier for 23 years, doing three routes a day, on foot, just because she likes to stay engaged and active. Never misses a morning. Never calls in sick. Totally dedicated.
In fact, it was the stack of undelivered bundles of newspapers outside her home that led a worried neighbour to call Oak Bay Police last Friday, July 6. Police pinged her cellphone, only to find it in her house. A search of her banking and credit card activity led them to the Petro-Can on West Saanich Road, where closed-circuit video footage showed her gassing up her car, a dark green 2002 Honda Accord, at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 5. That was the last time she was seen and the last time her credit card was used. She missed a hair appointment that day, too.
Police ran through their checklist, alerting B.C. Ferries, B.C. Transit, taxi companies. … Deputy Chief Ray Bernoties figures every police agency on Vancouver Island has followed up on tips. The most promising came from Cowichan Bay, where the RCMP took a statement from someone who thought they saw her Thursday. So now police are urging people to keep their eyes open for both Gladys and her car — the licence plate is 940 RGA — not just around Greater Victoria, but up-Island, too.
That’s a daunting task. As Bernoties notes, Vancouver Island is full of places where a fairly nondescript vehicle could sit unnoticed, either because it’s off the beaten track where few see it, or because it’s in a busy lot surrounded by other unremarkable cars.
Neil stresses that his mother — who was last seen wearing glasses, jeans, a teal windbreaker and white shoes — could appear to be just another senior going about her life. “She may very well seem fine at first glance and in a simple conversation,” he says. “She’s socially capable. She’s smart. She’s very good with people.”
It was only in the past two or three weeks that signs of confusion began to show. Gladys had trouble getting from point A to B if she didn’t stick to her regular route. After dropping in on the Mustard Seed Street Church, where she had volunteered until a couple of months ago, she couldn’t remember where she had parked her car. She thought something was wrong with her old flip phone, forgetting that it needed to be powered on. Neil and family, concerned, had been trying to figure out what action to take — a tricky proposition given Gladys’s vigour and nature. “She has been very capable and independent.”
Gladys grew up in farming country south of Portland, Oregon, trained as a legal secretary, then went to work for the U.S. foreign service in Africa, Rome and Montreal, which is where she met her husband. She did customer service for the Bank of Montreal there before moving to Vancouver Island close to 30 years ago.
Volunteerism became a big part of her life here, where she has been on her own for a couple of decades. She worked at the Ten Thousand Villages store for several years and, as mentioned, at the Mustard Seed. Every Tuesday for 25 years she has pitched in with Sendial, the program that connects Thrifty Foods to shoppers who can’t make it to the stores. Missing a shift there would be a big deal. “She’d feel like she was letting people down,” Neil says. “She knew that she was in good shape for 82, and she didn’t want to be sitting around doing nothing.”
Gladys has also, for the past 19 years, volunteered at the Times Colonist book sale, where she has proven popular, vibrant and fun to be around, with a mischievous sense of humour. This May, she was in on a practical joke where volunteer sorters tied up a few copies of a book I had written and threw them in with the Harlequin romances, which sell for a buck a bundle, the cheapest deal at the sale. Then, eyes twinkling, she waited for me to notice. Cracked me up. Please keep an eye out for her.
There’s a Finding Gladys Barman page on Facebook now.
Anyone who sees Gladys or her vehicle is asked to call Oak Bay police at 250-592-2424.
