Recover Lost Documents

The Arizona Department of Transportation successfully returned about 400 old family photo slides to the owner who had lost them alongside Interstate 17 a year and a half ago.

Cindy Barks reported in her article for the Daily Courier that, in 2007, Keith Massey was moving his father’s belongings from Sedona to West Hills, Calif. On his trip, undetected by Massey, one of the boxes containing his father’s belongings had fallen out of his truck on I-17 somewhere between Bumblebee and Black Canyon City.

Massey did not think to check with the ADOT about the lost belongings. If he had, he would have learned that two maintenance workers had discovered the slides scattered over about 200 yards on both sides of the interstate. The workers brought the photos back to the maintenance yard in Cordes Junction.

The photos lay forgotten for about a year, until ADOT training specialist Cheryl Williams discovered them in late 2008. Eventually, Williams was determined to return the photos back to their rightful owner.

Williams tried for months to find the family by writing to about 20 people with last names similar to those she found on notes that accompanied the slides. Williams and other ADOT officials eventually decided to contact the media for greater exposure to the lost photos.

Glenda Magsam of Prescott Valley went on a mission herself when she read an article in the Daily Courier on the photos on Feb. 12.

Nothing that “Massey” was among the names on the pages, Magsam got on the Internet and focused her search on obituaries.

Magsam found the obituary of Eric Massey, and saw that Keith Massey was one of his survivors. Magsam got Massey’s phone number and called him about the photos.

The lost slides were the only photos Massey had of his earlier years with his parents and sister. The photos consisted of pictures of his father Eric, his mother Rose Gale, and his sister Debbie, all of whom had passed away within the past four years.