The True Story Of The 8-Year-Old Who Spent Nearly A Week Lost In The Woods

Hundreds of volunteer searchers combed the dense woods, sharp limestone outcroppings, steep hills, and dark caves of the aptly named Devil's Den State Park in the Ozark Mountains south of Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was June 1946, and above, airplanes flew low looking for anything that would help while bloodhounds attempted to track an 8-year-old who had gone missing. They were giving up hope of finding her alive, and authorities even brought in divers to look for her body in case she had drowned.

Six days earlier, on Sunday, June 16, little Mary Katherine Van Alst disappeared seemingly without a trace. She was last seen with her two brothers, Gene and Bobby, playing in the water as they fished, barefoot and wearing only bathing suit bottoms. Meanwhile, back at the cabin, their mother made lunch and their father napped. They'd come for a vacation from Kansas City, Missouri, but instead they endured a nightmare scenario. 

When Mary Katherine didn't return to the campsite, her frantic family began looking for her. They were soon joined by others, and as time went on, the search grew in scope and breadth. Then, a World War II veteran and University of Arkansas student, Porter Chadwick, reached a bluff about 7 miles from the Van Alst's cabin and called her name. "Here I am," came a quiet voice. Chadwick reached her as she emerged from a cave and picked her up in his arms. "Thank you," she calmly told him. Van Alst was alive.

Before disappearing, Mary Katherine Van Alst splashed in the water in a swimming hole while her two brothers, Gene and Bobby, fished. Then the 8-year-old suddenly fell into deeper water. Her 13-year-old brother, Gene, dove in after her, but he couldn't pull her out. A woman who was camping nearby jumped into the water fully clothed and rescued Mary Katherine. Her husband held the girl by the feet and shook her vigorously until Mary Katherine vomited up the water she'd swallowed. She felt the shaking had been worse than nearly drowning.

Afterward, she decided to return to the cabin, leaving her brothers behind. She got lost on the way but kept walking, likely for miles, until it got dark. The first night she slept in a grassy field until it started raining, forcing her to retreat to a cave. There, she said her prayers each night and drank water from a cavern pool. She subsisted on blackberries and would soak her swollen feet in a creek as she wandered through the woods, always returning to the cave. 

As the days passed, she lost hope. "When they didn't find me in a day or two, I knew then that I was going to die," she later told the United Press. "But still, I wasn't frightened." It wasn't a far-fetched assumption — there have been plenty of children who have vanished forever in the woods, including 6-year-old Dennis Martin, who disappeared in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1969. But Van Alst was lucky.

As the days wore on, Mary Katherine Van Alst came close to being rescued. She heard airplanes flying above, but she had no way of signalling them. At another point, she heard people calling her name and responded. No one heard her. And when she heard the baying of the bloodhound, instead of going towards the noise, she ran the other way, scared that they might be vicious. Back in the cave, before nightfall, she would pick ticks off of her body in a pool of sunlight made by a hole in the cave's roof. There was nothing she could do about the insect stings that pocked her from head to toe.

While the young girl waited for her fate, her father, John Van Alst, led one of the search teams, pushing himself beyond his limits. He finally collapsed three days into the search. The local sheriff, suspicious that John had something to do with his daughter's disappearance, barred him from continuing to help in the search. It's not that uncommon. In 2019, Harmony Montgomery disappeared, and her father, Adam Montgomery, was eventually convicted and sentenced to 56 years to life for her murder. But in this case, the sheriff was completely off the mark. With John recovering, his wife, Katherine, continued to help by doling out coffee to the exhausted searchers. The two boys, considered too young to aid in the search, stayed at the cabin, waiting for news.

The happy news came when rescuers brought Mary Katherine Van Alst back to the cabin, where she was reunited with her mother. John learned about his daughter's rescue through a newspaper. He was recovering from his collapse at a nearby tourist camp and had been unreachable. "It was truly a miracle that she was found," he told The Kansas City Times. "I believe that God must have been guiding her steps." It certainly did seem like a miracle, considering others had died in that state park, and disappearing while on vacation isn't all that uncommon.

Although Mary Katherine was relatively unhurt except for numerous bug bites, scratches, and some malnutrition, her hair had strangely changed from pale blond to a light brown, which the doctors couldn't figure out. At a hospital in Fayetteville, she slowly began to eat, starting with ice cream. Mary Katherine received numerous gifts from well-wishers, from cards, to cash, to dolls and other toys. After her release, she got to ride a pony and eat fried chicken, her two wishes. 

More than 50 years after her ordeal, a reporter caught up with her. "I can close my eyes and see that cave," she told The Kansas City Star in 1997. "Mainly though — I think how I ruined my family's vacation." Her parents had planned to spend their 25th anniversary at the park that week, but instead they returned to Kansas City. She also admitted she had hated blackberries ever since.