Coming back from the Philadelphia Flower Show traffic has been hideous on 76 West/ Schuylkill Expressway. Then all of a sudden a slew of Pennsylvania State Police start flying by, including an unmarked car.
We have no idea who or what they were after. Can’t tell if there was an accident, unsure if guy in photo was in cuffs.
I will note that there is a BIG police presence on highways today.
So no one believes Anna Maciejewska Gould is still alive, right? But when I saw my female Polish friends posting about Easter preparation’s and their kids dying eggs I thought of Anna and her son. A son who now probably has zero memory of his mother. He has missed so many Easters now with his mother’s disappearance and probable death/murder. He ailing parents, separated from their grandson because of illness and a year of COVID-19.
What are the Pennsylvania State Police doing? Or the Chester County District Attorney?
I would love to ask current Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan for an update but don’t know how to do it. I also don’t want to sound like a bitch dogging law enforcement and the district attorney, but lordy people, is there any news?
I know “ongoing investigations” means folks in the know are tight lipped, but I think of Anna’s elderly parents and in the COVID-19 world in which we live and they live many thousands of miles away. When is the last time they saw their beloved grandson? He must be so big now, right? It makes you wonder if he has any memories of his beloved mother and if his father keeps her memory alive? Allen Gould, the perpetual puzzle, right? Anna’s presumed widower at this point and he has never really spoken of her has he?
Anna Maciejewska Gould has been missing FOUR LONG YEARS in just EIGHT days. As you celebrate Easter with your family and your children remember a woman who can’t celebrate any more holidays with her beloved child. I’m sure the authorities would wish we didn’t remember Anna because we do and we wonder what it is they are actually doing at this point, and what I personally suspect is not very much. Very unpleasant opinion but I am entitled to it.
Anna, I never met you. But I haven’t forgotten about you and on Easter Sunday may God have mercy upon your soul. Niech cię Bóg błogosławi.
We never met, but I still think of you often. The mainstream media seems to have forgotten you, but me, your friendly neighborhood blogger and many others have not. So I thought I would write you a letter.
I have three women as friends who were Polish by birth like you. Two I worked with once upon a time, and one is a very dear friend and married to one of my oldest friends in the world. Like you they emigrated here and became citizens to live their American dreams. They are among the most genuine and lovely people I know.
They all love Christmas. I am guessing you did too. One of these friends of mine for years has been sharing the beloved Polish Christmas tradition of the Oplatek, or the Christmas wafer. I don’t have to tell you about what the wafer is, as you know. But for everyone else reading this, please enjoy what the Polish Women’s Alliance of America has to say:
Christmas Wafer – Oplatek
Sharing of the oplatek (pronounced opwatek) is the most ancient and beloved of all Polish Christmas traditions. Oplatek is a thin wafer made of flour and water, similar in taste to the hosts that are used for communion during Mass. The Christmas wafer is shared before Wigilia, the Christmas Eve supper. The head of the household usually starts by breaking the wafer with his wife and then continues to share it with everyone at the Wigilia table. Wishes for peace and prosperity are exchanged and even the pets and farm animals are given a piece of oplatek on Christmas Eve. Legend has it that if animals eat oplatek on Christmas Eve, they will be able to speak in human voices at midnight, but only those who are pure of spirit will be able to hear them.
This tradition dates back many centuries when a thin, flat bread called podplomyk was baked over an open flame and then shared with the family gathered around the fire on Christmas Eve. Patterns would be cut onto the bread to make breaking easier. This is why oplatki today still have patterns on them, usually of Nativity scenes. You can order Oplatki from PWA. Learn how here.
Everyone who knows me Anna, knows how much I love Christmas. Some of my favorite mercury glass ornaments are Polish made. The ornaments made in Poland and Germany and once upon a time in the Ukraine are just truly magical.
This morning I stumbled across two things. One was a post written by a man who took part in searches for you in 2018. I never knew it existed. Here, let me share a little bit:
I spent part of my wife’s birthday recently looking for a dead body in the woods of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Yes, really.
I joined a group of about 20 people who had gathered in Malvern, Pa. to search for the missing-and-presumed dead body of Anna Maciejewska, a wife and mother who went missing in April 2017…Anna’s elderly parents in Poland, both cancer survivors, are grief stricken, frustrated and angry. And to make things worse, Anna’s husband has reportedly prohibited them from seeing their now four-year-old grandson.
Anna was not a young, attractive model or a wealthy socialite, and she didn’t fit into most of the other categories of missing persons anointed by the media as being worthy of intense and prolonged coverage. She was just an average American, like you and me, and she has vanished from the face of the Earth, leaving her family and friends distraught and seeking answers.
Most likely, you’ve seen clips on the news of packs of volunteers searching fields, woods and riverbanks for the remains of crime victims. It’s a horrid task and, in a way, nobody wants to find the object of the search – a body – as they cling to a sliver of hope that the person is somehow alive. That is, unfortunately, almost never the case.
But I can tell you that the search for a missing person is also a heartwarming act; it’s people banding together to help one another in a time of unimaginable stress and grief, especially for the victim’s family. An act of despicable inhumanity, the killing of an innocent person, paradoxically gives birth to an outpouring of love and unity among many, including people who did not know the victim….As one of mankind’s greatest minds, Albert Einstein, said, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
Anyone with information about Anna’s disappearance is asked to call the Pennsylvania State Police at (610) 486-6280.
And also this literally happened recently – a podcast I find intriguing The Ever Evolving Truth has picked up the mantle of talking about this. There is also a page on Facebook called Fresh Eyes on Anna Maciejewska. It gives me hope, even if I don’t agree with some of their take on your disappearance so far. BUT they are paying attention to what happened to you, and I pray their interest sparks other renewed interest from media, law enforcement, etc. I also agree that even if you don’t agree with something, maybe see it through so every angle is covered, right? As an actuary you would look to all of the details to make sure you were correct, right?
Maybe the miracle of Christmas will help find you and bring you home? We all pray for that, Anna.
A Christmas wish and a wish for the New Year is for you to be found, Anna. You deserve to rest, your little boy deserves to know where his mama is, and your beloved parents deserve closure and answers along with your friends.
2 1/2 years missing is too long.
Wesołych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia, Anna Maciejewska.
I saw this on a telephone pole in Malvern Borough in July. Anna Maciejewska has been missing since April, 2017.
I get the wheels of justice move slowly but come on now? Isn’t there anything? Recently I’ve watched news programs like Dateline NBC and ABC’s 20/20 do programs on missing women. One is a mother from a wealthy Connecticut suburb named Jennifer Dulos. Here’s an article from earlier this month:
On May 24, Jennifer Dulos of New Canaan, Connecticut, mysteriously vanished after suffering what investigators believe was a “serious physical assault.” Since her disappearance, police have discovered her abandoned car, bloodstained clothes, and video footage that points toward two suspects: Dulos’s estranged husband and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis
Yup another mom. Abandoned car. Loved by friends and family, no one believes she would leave her children. But at least this missing woman’s mother has custody of her children so she can see them.
Photo courtesy of Finding Anna Facebook page.
So why isn’t anyone writing about Anna? Or putting her on Dateline or 20/20? Why is it it seems like the wheels of justice have just completely stopped?
I fully understand that at times the wheels of justice can be really slow, but does anyone out there still care about the missing mom from Malvern, Pennsylvania? I think people do care including people in law-enforcement that I am sure have put in thousands of hours of manpower by this point, but it’s been along time since we had an update hasn’t it?
I will be honest and say that a lot of people seem to blame the District Attorney’s Office for the slowness, and I don’t necessarily believe that is fair. These cases move slowly and there is also the Pennsylvania State Police to be taken into consideration isn’t there? And I’m not going to point fingers at either institution, but I think they need to update us to at least let us know that they’re still working on it. I also think they need to shop this to national television news magazines like Dareline NBC or ABC’s 20/20.
I never knew Anna. But last night as messed up as it sounds I had a dream where I was standing with a friend on the edge of some woods somewhere watching people with bloodhounds.
It was one of those crazy dreams where you could feel the mist in the air and cooler night time temperatures and hear the beating of the dogs and the shouts of people. I think the reason I probably had the dream is because I had watched this thing on Jennifer Dulos from Connecticut.
But when I woke up I thought of a more local woman I had never met, Anna Maciejewska.
I think of my friends who still have younger children in the elementary school range who are all wound up in their crazy quilt of back to school schedules. I hear snippets of how their kids are doing and what they are doing and it makes me think of a missing woman named Anna who doesn’t get to see her little boy grow up. And her little boy is getting older, so what questions does he ask about where his mother is?
Photo courtesy of Finding Anna Facebook page.
I also have Polish friends. As in ex-pats who emigrated here and became citizens years ago. This Polish community is very tight-knit. I’m sure they all wonder what happened to Anna, even those who did not know her. My Polish friends did not know her but knew of her because they had kids that went to “Polish school” and participated in other Polish activities in the region.
Every summer two of my Polish friends take their children on extended vacations back to Poland to see their grandparents and meet their cousins and learn about where their mothers are from. I think Anna would have been doing that if she was around.
Anna Maciejewska came here for the American dream. She did everything the right way and she worked hard, and can we say what she got in the end was the American nightmare?
I think we all need updates on what is going on quite literally with finding Anna. If you have a heart beating in your chest you want to know. Her family deserves to know.
I have absolutely no idea whom you call if you know something and the screenshot above has a phone number 610-486-6280.
Anna, we have not forgotten about you. And truthfully, we never will. We want justice served all we’re asking for as residents of Chester County is a law-enforcement update and some media attention to this so this case can be solved.
If you know anything please contact police, as in the state police, and the Chester County District Attorney’s office.
Hang on Angel Anna, we are thinking of you and praying.
Anna Maciejewska came here for the American dream. She did everything the right way and she worked hard, and can we say what she got in the end was the American nightmare?