Couple Never Got The Good News Citizenship Papers Returned To Clerk 42 Years After They Were Mailed

Clark County Clerk JoAnne McBride wants to solve the mystery of a tattered, yellowed envelope that’s been in her office for the past decade.

The envelope, containing certificates of U.S. citizenship for Peter and Ida Hendrickson, was sent out by registered mail on Jan. 23, 1946, 15 days after the couple officially became citizens.

But it never found the Hendricksons. It came back to the clerk’s office March 24, 1988, 42 years after it was mailed, stamped undeliverable with a handwritten note, “deceased.”

Now, McBride is making a last effort to track down the Hendricksons, or any of their descendants, before sending the documents to Olympia, where they will be archived and stored on a shelf somewhere.

“I don’t know if they had children, but somebody knows about them. I’ve held onto this hoping to hear something,” she said. “It’s somebody’s heritage, and if we can’t find them, it will be sad.”

She doesn’t know much about the Finnish couple.

Judging by their photographs and descriptions, Peter Hendrickson was a raw-boned 58 years old with a ruddy complexion, thinning hair and piercing gray eyes. His wife, Ida, was a blue-eyed matron of 60. Both were part of a tide of Scandinavians who immigrated to north Clark County earlier in the century.

In 1946, they lived at Route 2 Box 64 in Battle Ground, or so the documents said.

The certificates were produced by the federal Department of Justice, stamped with the state seal and signed by then-County Clerk Wilma Schmidt.

When she saw the envelope, McBride was intrigued and wanted the family to have the documents. She called several Hendricksons in the Clark County phone book with no success. Nobody had heard of Peter and Ida.

Reporters at The (Vancouver) Columbian had similar bad luck.

The names didn’t ring a bell for Bill Bergren, a longtime member of the Finnish community in Hockinson, who was contacted by The Columbian. Or for Wally Risto, also a longtime resident of Finnish background. Or for Rusty Eino Erkkila, a 90-year-old Vancouver Finn. “There might have been some Hendricksons in Battle Ground, but I didn’t know them,” he said.

Clyde Simonson, a clerk at the Battle Ground Post Office, himself a Finn, had some theories about how mail gets lost.

“Sometimes it gets stuck under a piece of machinery or in a mailbag that gets tossed aside,” he said. But he hadn’t heard of the Hendricksons either, though he mentioned an Ann Hendrickson, who for many years lived in the Ridgefield area and now lives in Battle Ground.

“I know an Ida Hendrickson,” Ann Hendrickson said by telephone, “but she lives in Michigan. Never lived here as far as I know.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Seeking information Anyone with information about the couple may contact Clark County Clerk JoAnne McBride at (360) 699-2287.