He Vanished During A Fishing Trip, And Eight Years Later, Was Found With No Memory Of What Happened
Lawrence Bader was a seemingly ordinary man, that is, until he vanished. In May 1957, Bader, a cookware salesman from Ohio, went on a solo fishing trip and never returned, leaving behind his wife, Mary Lou, and their four kids.
Coast Guard authorities found his rented boat washed ashore with the gas line disconnected on Lake Erie after a bad storm, but there was no other sign of him. He was declared legally dead.
Then, in February 1965, Suzanne Peika saw a man who looked exactly like her uncle Lawrence Bader standing in front of an archery booth at a sporting goods convention in Chicago.
When she approached the man, he didn’t seem to know who this “Uncle Larry” person was. He told her that his name was John “Fritz” Johnson. He lived in Omaha, Nebraska, where he was a sports director for a local TV station.
Peika called her family, and Bader’s two brothers immediately jumped on a plane from Ohio to Chicago to confront Johnson.
They asked him to go to a police station with them to be fingerprinted. Bader had once been in the Navy, so his fingerprints would be on file.
The following day, they all received a call that the fingerprints were a match. Johnson was Lawrence Bader, the man who disappeared after a storm in 1957.
Somehow, he had wound up more than 700 miles away with a new job, a new wife, new children, and totally different memories about the first 30 years of his life.
Bader was born on December 2, 1926, in Akron, Ohio. His father was a dentist, and he considered joining his practice, but he ended up dropping out of high school to join the Navy. When he returned, he enrolled at the University of Akron but flunked out after one semester.
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During his brief time at college, he met Mary Lou Knapp. They got married on April 19, 1952. He took a job as a cookware salesman to support the family.
He was a charming man and was well-liked by everyone. But he also fell into debt and was behind on taxes. It was estimated that Bader failed to file tax returns from 1951 to 1957.
On May 15, 1957, he told Mary Lou that he needed to drive to Cleveland on business. He planned on going fishing afterward and would be late returning home.
He drove to Cleveland, cashed a check for $400 and paid some bills, including an installment premium for his life insurance policy, which he had recently upgraded.
Then, he headed to a boat rental and went out on the lake despite warnings that a storm was coming. The man who ran the boat rental noticed that Bader was carrying a suitcase. The next morning, the boat was found on Perkins Beach in Lakewood.
Three to five days later, John Johnson showed up at a restaurant and bar in Omaha, looking for a bartender job.
He told his employer that he had just gotten out of the Navy after 14 years and had decided to travel the country. He claimed that he used to tend bar at clubs when he was in the service.
He got the job and told people that he grew up in an orphanage in Boston. He insisted on going by the name of Fritz.
Everyone enjoyed being around him, and he was quite adept at archery. After his bartending shifts, he would practice his broadcasting skills. In 1959, he was hired by the local TV station.
He met and married a former model named Nancy Zimmer around 1961. They had two kids together. When he was discovered by his niece in 1965, he was wearing an eyepatch. In 1964, he had a malignant tumor removed, which had taken his eye.
He claimed to have no memory of being Bader. His reappearance came with a number of consequences. He owed people money and was still legally married to Mary Lou.
He hired a lawyer, who recommended that he visit the hospital for psychological testing. Afterward, the doctors confirmed that he had no memory of being Lawrence Bader.
The surgery to remove his tumor or an injury during the storm may have affected his memory. In 1966, his cancer reappeared in his liver, and he died that same year.
It’s possible that Bader experienced dissociative fugue, a rare condition that causes someone to have memory loss due to trauma or stress.
They can’t remember who they are any details about their past. They may travel to an unexpected place and invent a new personality.
It is unlikely that Bader would’ve suffered from amnesia for almost a decade, though. The memories tend to return eventually.
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