ANDREW CARNEGIE WHITFIELD-MISSING 4/17/38 from LONG ISLAND
Andrew Carnegie Whitfield Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance Missing Since: April 17, 1938 from Long Island, New York Classification: Missing Age: 28 years old Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian male. Andrew's nickname is A. C. Details of Disappearance Andrew departed in his small silver and red Taylor Cub monoplane from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York sometime after 9:00 a.m. on April 17, 1938. He planned to land at an airfield in Brentwood, approximately 22 miles away. He was only supposed to be in the air for fifteen minutes, but Andrew never arrived as scheduled. His plane has never been recovered. He had 200 hours of flying experience at the time of his disappearance and was described as an accomplished pilot. His plane had enough fuel for a 150-mile flight. After Andrew's disappearance was discovered, it was discovered that he checked into a hotel in Garden City on Long Island under the alias Albert C. White on the day he vanished. He paid $4 in advance for the room and never checked out. His personal belongings, including his passport; clothing; cuff links engraved with his initials; two $6,000 life insurance policies in his name listing his wife, Elizabeth Halsey Whitfield, as the beneficiary; and several stocks and bonds made out in Andrew's and Elizabeth's names; were left behind in the hotel room. Phone records also indicated that he called his home while his family was out looking for him, and a telephone operator says she heard him say over the phone, "Well, I am going to carry out my plan." After this information was uncovered, police theorized that Andrew had committed suicide by deliberately flying his plane into the Atlantic Ocean. There is no evidence to support this theory; a thorough search of the ocean surrounding Long Island turned up no signs of plane wreckage and Andrew was not having personal or business problems at the time that he vanished. He had married in 1937, and had planned to move to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania the same month that he disappeared. Elizabeth sued Andrew for desertion after his disappearance. She explained that she did not believe he had deliberately abandoned her, but she thought the suit would be a way to better publicize his disappearance. Many people across the United States claimed that they saw Andrew for years after his plane vanished. Andrew was the nephew of the steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie on Carnegie's wife's side. He was a graduate of Princeton University and was employed as a business executive in 1938. His case has long been closed by law enforcement due to the passage of time, but Andrew's disappearance continues to mystify people. PHOTOS AVAILABLE AT LINK http://charleyproject.org/cases/w/whitfield_andrew.html

Monday, May. 02, 1938 "Names make news." Last week these names made this news: Widow Grace Goodhue Coolidge sold The Beeches, the $39,000 eight-acre Northampton, Mass, estate on which Calvin Coolidge died in January 1933 to a local lumber dealer for a reputed $10,000. Mrs. Coolidge is building herself a new house in Northampton, now spends her winters in Columbus, N. C. Weed-whiskered old Poultney Bigelow, inveterate sage, author & traveler, arrived in Manhattan fresh from Doom and his annual spring visit with his bearded bosom friend, onetime Kaiser Wilhelm II. Minus his customary velvet jacket, his customary flowing bow tie, Octogenarian Bigelow in high good humor delivered himself to newshawks on this & that. On the Kaiser: "He doesn't set up as good a table as some of my neighbors." On Europe: "Next time I see you, Paris will be a provincial town of Germany with the people shouting 'Heil Hitler' in French." On Franklin Roosevelt: "President Roosevelt, I think, has all the makings of a good dictator and perhaps we ought to vote him President for life. He can sail a boat, has a pleasant smile, a warm heart, a beautiful mother, and he's well read." Three-hundred-pound Frank S. Leavitt, Man Mountain Dean of the wrestling profession, announced he would try to get himself elected to the Georgia Legislature on a platform which included the breaking up of filibusters. "I will undertake," said hirsute Candidate Leavitt, "to throw any ten members of the Legislature out at the same time if they start anything." In Manhattan, fortnight ago, handsome, 28-year-old Andrew Carnegie Whitfield, little-publicized nephew of Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, went on a beer-drinking bout, returned home, had a spat with his bride of less than a year, told her he was "going to disappear." After spending the night in Long Island hotel, where employes reported he had arrived in a boisterous state, moody Andrew Whitfield drove to Roosevelt Field, climbed into the cockpit of his small, silver Taylor-Cub monoplane, told attendants he was off to Brentwood, 20-odd miles away. Flyer Whitfield then nosed his plane into a mild easterly wind, disappeared from sight. Next afternoon an eight-State search by plane, police and boat got under way. Most plausible of a welter of rumors—including one, later proved false, that he had been seen boarding a steamer for Europe—was advanced by a Norwalk, Conn, house painter who claimed he had heard a plane over Long Island Sound same day Whitfield took flight. The plane's motor sputtered, said he, then died, and he thought it might have dropped into the Sound. By last week's end private searchers had given up. Meantime, while Andrew Whitfield 's father & mother remained in Virginia, Brother John scoffed at hints of suicide, told the press he thought the missing flyer was hiding somewhere within the plane's 150-mile flying radius.* Beauteous Adelaide Moffett Brooks, widowed 24-year-old socialite who sometimes sings in nightclubs and is the daughter of Oilman James Andrew Moffett, filed a bankruptcy petition in Manhattan. Listing liabilities of $9,961 and assets of $1,800 (including two Sealyham dogs valued at $200), she blamed her financial distress on a spending spree. Said she: "I guess I was too fond of buying clothes." *Although Andrew Carnegie Whitfield, whose father is Mrs. Andrew Carnegie's brother, is related to the late great steel tycoon by marriage only, he bears the distinction of being the only close relative, blood or by marriage, to be named after Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie had only one child, Margaret, who married Roswell Miller, civil engineer. They have three daughters, one son, Roswell III. Only other close Carnegie kin still alive are two grandnephews, Carter and Thomas Morrison Carnegie Jr.. sons of Andrew's late brother. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,848917,00.html