The school girl tragedy of Olive Templeton, with it's poignant, snow shrouded mystery, is best told in the words of the news accounts1 that covered her disappearance and discovery:

Badger Girl Gone.

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Olive Templeton of Sawyer Disappears from

Michigan College.

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[February 11, 1905]

Miss Olive Templeton, aged 18, of Sawyer, Wis, a cousin of Frank C. Gottsleben of this village, disappeared from the Adventist College at Berrien Springs, Mich. on the 2nd inst.

Miss Templeton was absent from chapel exercises Thursday morning, February 2.  Failing to find a trace of her that day her classmates became alarmed.  Sheriff Tennant received no intimation of the disappearance until the 8th.  He at once detailed a score of deputies on the case and St. Joseph river was vainly dragged for several miles in the hope of finding her body.

Officers, working on a number of clues, say every circumstance points to murder.

Another theory advanced to account for Miss Templeton's disappearance is that in a fit of homesickness she deliberately walked out into zero weather, inadequately clothed, with the idea of freezing to death.  The girl had discarded her heavy winter underclothing, and had replaced it with light summer wear.  She took no heavy outer wraps, and had cast her leggings aside.

In a letter addressed to her mother, the girl wrote that she was homesick, and wanted her mother to visit her.  She was seen alone on the road half a mile from the college walking in the direction of a piece of woods.  A heavy snowstorm set in soon after, and many people believe the girl's body lies hidden under the snow.

Miss Templeton is a daughter of a rich business man at Sawyer, and came to the college last September.

Her father, in a telegram to the sheriff, says he sent his daughter to college so she could escape the advances of a young man.

She was one of the most beautiful of over 200 girls in the institution and was held as a model among her classmates.  In Miss Templeton's room was found all of her clothing, even to the hat and cloak she was accustomed to wear, her money, and all other belongings.

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And then:

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Olive Templeton's Body Found

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[August 12, 1905]

The body of Olive R. Templeton of Sawyer, Wis., a cousin of F. C. Gottsleben of this village, who disappeared February 2nd, in a mysterious manner, has been found near St. Joseph, Mich.  She died, it is believed, while wandering about aimlessly, homesick.

Miss Templeton's case baffled the authorities for months.  Large rewards, searches under every possible pretense, and on the strength of even the faintest clues, failed to locate her.  She disappeared from the chapel of Immanuel college of the Adventists, while regular exercises were held there.  She entered the chapel but was not seen to leave, nor alive ever thereafter. 

Several letters found a few days later indicated that she had been homesick.  Later her parents showed letters written by Miss Templeton in which she bitterly complained that she could not see her mother.

The body was washed up on the shore by the swirl of the water in the wake of a passing steamer.  The authorities were at once notified and the badly decomposed body was taken to the morgue at St. Joseph, where by certain marks which are still distinguishable, the remains were readily identified as those of the pretty Sawyer girl who, many believed, had fallen the victim of foul play.

With the failure to find the body of the young woman, credence was given the theory that she was alive and that a love affair had caused her to run away.

The coroner will find it is a case of suicide, though a motive cannot be ascribed.  The body will be sent to Sawyer for burial.

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Emmanuel Missionary College is now Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, a few miles north of Michigan's border with Indiana. Berrien Springs remains a small village in a "rural" setting. The college is 12 miles from the shore of Lake Michigan at St. Joseph.

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1. "Kewaskum Statesman," Kewaskum, Wisconsin, Feb. 11, 1905, p. 3, column 3.  [microfiche copy by John Von Haden, transcribed by Ralph D. Jeffords, 2007.] AND "Kewaskum Statesman," Kewaskum, WI, Aug. 12, 1905  p. 3, col 3 [microfiche copy by John Von HADEN, transcribed by Ralph D. Jeffords, 2007.]