By Nick Diamantides
Staff Writer
It was a happy ending to a very scary story. Ollie Walsh, 70, and suffering from dementia, disappeared on Dec. 29. Five days later, family members found him alive and well, even though he didn’t remember where he had been.
Walsh disappeared from his sister’s house on the 800 block of Olive Avenue, and family members thought he might have decided to walk to his own home at on 21st Street in Signal Hill. His sister, Marjorie Scott, went out to do some shopping and returned to find Welsh gone.
“We think he has Alzheimer’s and had scheduled a doctor’s appointment to have him diagnosed,” said his daughter, Rosalind Walsh, who lives in Westminster. “He had been very forgetful and disoriented for the past several weeks.”
Rosalind and other family members initiated a search for Ollie within an hour of his disappearance, which included walking and driving through neighborhoods between the two residences, contacting the Long Beach and Signal Hill police departments and asking all local print and broadcast news media to publicize his disappearance.
“We just kept searching and going to his condominium in Signal Hill several times during the day and night,” Rosalind said. After five days and nights of desperation, Rosalind went to her father’s house one more time on the evening of Jan. 3. “I noticed that the kitchen light was on, but I didn’t know who might be in there,” she said. “I phoned my brother-in-law and when he came, we knocked on the door and my father answered.”
According to Rosalind, Ollie was happy to see them, but as far as he was concerned, nothing unusual had happened in the last five days. He had the same clothes on that he was wearing on Dec. 29, but he was not hurt in any noticeable way. “We may never know what happened during those five days,” she said. “We’re just very thankful to have him back.”
