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Lost for 43 years, this wallet was more than misplaced Hoopla in L.A. helps trail lead to Eagle Point By Paul Fattig Call it the Case of the Mysterious Wallet. The dusty wallet � lost in the late 1950s � fell out from behind an old cast-iron sink June 2 during renovation work in the Los Angeles County Police Department headquarters in Downey, Calif. It belonged to late Eagle Point resident Alma Sue Grieshaber and contained her driver�s license, Social Security card, a check for $107 and family photographs. "It was such a human interest story that we really wanted to find the owner � Grieshaber isn�t a common name," said officer Mark Spurlock, spokesman for the department that acquired the building two years ago. "So we started doing some research, making a few calls and checking the Net," he added. While the department was doing its job, the media in the Los Angeles area began broadcasting the photographs. That�s when Lake Forest resident John Grieshaber saw the televised mugshot of his father, Al Grieshaber, 65, of Eagle Point. "My son saw my picture and his grandfather�s picture Friday just before he was going to the gym to work out," Al Grieshaber said. It got his son�s attention, observed the elder Grieshaber. But the photograph was of a young Al Grieshaber: a 1953 photograph taken for his high school graduation in Lancaster, Calif. Exactly how the wallet came to be wedged between the sink and the wall in the bathroom isn�t known, although Grieshaber has a good guess. "The wallet was lost when she and her husband (his father, Rudolph) had a car accident down there," Al Grieshaber said. "They got hit from behind. It totaled their car. There were no major injuries. "But someone snatched her wallet and took off with it," he added. "He put it there behind the sink where it stayed for 43 years. At least that�s my suspicion." That�s a likely scenario, Spurlock said, noting that the old building was used as a hospital in the 1950s. A retired NASA employee, Grieshaber and his wife, Pat, own a llama ranch in Eagle Point. His mother died last summer in Eagle Point, where she had lived with her son for nearly a decade. She was 93. Grieshaber�s father died in 1974. "She really didn�t mention losing the wallet at the time," Al Grieshaber recalled. "She probably reported it, but that was about it." The Eagle Point resident was amazed that several others, including a Southern California boyhood chum, recognized him from the photograph taken more than half a century ago. "The guy I went into the Navy with called last and said he was with me when I bought that tan flannel suit," he said. "I remember the picture. I had a little bow tie on." Los Angeles-area media attention to the case has been high, Spurlock said. Grieshaber said he fielded a call from the LA Times Tuesday. "Everybody is making a big hoopla over it down there," Grieshaber added. In fact, the county police department held a press conference Tuesday morning, at which they handed the wallet over to John Grieshaber. "I just wish we could have found it before she died," Spurlock said. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA