Albert Clark Reed, photographed at his mother’s Glendale home in 1958.

nd here’s where we meet Alfred Cole Reese in 1958. He’s lanky and muscular; tough and wiry and completely bald. He’s wearing jeans and a heavy denim work shirt with sleeves rolled up, exposing muscular arms. Alfred looks like a hardened endurance runner. His face is lean and his eyes are tired and sad, The Times said. 

Alfred could fill in some of the missing pages of his life–what he did after he disappeared–but he couldn’t explain why.

After selling the car that morning, he took a bus to Phoenix, where he got a job through the Teamsters moving freight. Eventually, he wound up working with horses and became a racetrack groom, migrating from Del Mar to Santa Anita to Hollywood Park, wherever there was a job.

Horses, he said, are “wonderful, intelligent, sensible creatures. I enjoy working with them.”

No one suspected he had ever been a leading scientist, The Times said. In fact, nobody around the racetracks ever showed much interest in what he had done with his life. All they knew is that Alfred had a good way with horses. “One of the best grooms I ever had,” his employer told The Times. If it hadn’t been for a new law that racetrack employees had to be fingerprinted, Alfred’s earlier life might have remained a secret forever. 

In looking at Albert’s story, some people saw a rebel courageously abandoning the 1950s rat race run by the men in the gray flannel suits.

A Times op-ed piece by Al Thrasher said: “Albert gave all the normal indications of being perfectly willing to follow the accepted pattern of behavior–hit the ball hard; make as much money as possible; climb as far and as fast as possible and try not to step too hard on the faces of others as you mount; join the right organization and whoop it up for progress and conformity; keep your affairs in order; make a will and be ready to lean quietly forward over your desk and expire from either a heart attack or a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 52.

“But one day Albert Clark Reed looked around him and said: ‘Nuts.’ ”

A reader replied:

“Any major change we make in life, especially a drastic one, takes courage… but to abandon one’s family, to run away from any responsibility or obligation can hardly be classed or praised as wise and courageous.”

The only man who could actually explain his behavior was at a total loss for why he vanished.

“Time and time again, he closed his eyes for long seconds after a question, his facial muscles working, his tired mind focusing futilely on blurred pictures,” The Times said.

“And time and time again, he answered softly:

” ‘I can’t recall …

” ‘I don’t know …

” ‘I’m so confused.’ “

At first, Albert said he intended to keep on working with horses. He had a warm reunion with Timmy, but decided that his son was better off with relatives.

By 1959, with some refresher classes at UCLA, Albert was once again in the aerospace industry, at Del Mar Engineering Laboratories, which made weapons training systems for interceptor pilots. He was living with a family in Brentwood and had bought a horse. “It seemed to me that maybe I could contribute something to our national security,” he said.

He still couldn’t provide an answer to the eternal question of why he vanished.

An anonymous reporter asked whether he thought he might someday return to the stables.

“You can never tell,” he said.

And with that, Albert disappeared from the pages of The Times.

Postcript: After Florence died, an attorney handling her estate discovered that she had a secret life as well. Using the name Florence Green, she had hidden $17,500 ($133,571.50 USD 2007) in cash and jewelry in five Pasadena banks.

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