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Lost woman finds friendly faces in Cambridge

By GEORGE HESSELBERG Wisconsin State Journal CAMBRIDGE, Wis. (AP) — Puzzled and tuckered out, 81-year-old Audrey Hogan drove into the lighted parking lot of Chris’ Curve Cafe in Cambridge one night last month and asked two strangers: “Could you help? I think I’m lost.”

All she knew was that she had been driving for 14 hours and she wasn’t in Iowa anymore.

That’s where she had been when she decided to go to the John Deere retirees’ breakfast at the Perkins in Waterloo, Iowa, with her friend Karen Price.

Hogan was to drive the 29 miles from her home outside of New Albin, Iowa, to meet Price in Waukon at 6 a.m. From Waukon, Price would drive the two women to Waterloo, about 95 miles to the southwest.

How then did Hogan end up in Cambridge, Wis.?

Hogan is not sure, and her friends, family and anyone who consults a road map are baffled. They are also thankful a story that could have ended sadly instead took a few extra turns for the better.

Hogan started showing signs of mild dementia about three years ago, said her niece, Sally Neeb. So when she didn’t show up at the courthouse in Waukon to meet Price on Oct. 7, it wasn’t long before Price started raising alarms, making calls and driving to Hogan’s home before reporting her missing to the Allamakee County Sheriff’s Department.

According to Neeb, her aunt probably started driving — after saying goodbye to her cat, Sweetie — at about 5 a.m.

It was 7 p.m. when she pulled her white Buick Riviera into the lot of Chris’ Curve Cafe, on Cambridge’s Main Street, about 25 miles east of Madison, 110 miles from New Albin, Iowa, and 202 miles from the Perkins in Waterloo, Iowa.

She had $12 in her billfold full of expired credit and debit cards. There was a quarter-tank of gas in the Buick.

“Could you help? I think I’m lost,” she asked Ron and Khristine Perks, co-owners of the cafe.

“She asked for directions to Waterloo, Iowa, and I said Honey, you’re going in the wrong direction,’?” Ron Perks said.

Maybe so. But she was in the right place. Not only had she somehow been guided safely to Cambridge, surviving rivers, coulees and stoplights, she had been delivered to two people uniquely qualified to help her and also, coincidentally, to a place that serves breakfast all day, which was sort of her destination to begin with.

Ron and Khris Perks, before taking over the cafe 18 months ago, had both worked in nursing homes and an assisted-living facility.

Ron Perks, a former musician and chef, was the director of an Alzheimer’s facility, he said, and both Perks have years of experience working with Alzheimer’s patients. He said he recognized in Hogan a person who fit his skill set perfectly.

“We are used to taking care of people,” Ron Perks said. “We were able to put her in a comfort zone, treat her with respect.”

But first they had to find out how and why Hogan was there, and where she came from. She could only supply snippets of information. She was sure her niece and friend were worried sick looking for her, and she was worried that they were worried. She couldn’t recall any useful telephone numbers, but knew her niece’s name.

So Ron Perks looked up Sally Neeb on the Internet, called her up and said Aunt Audrey was safe. Neeb and Price decided to drive to Cambridge the next morning.

Meanwhile, Ron and Khris Perks made Hogan a hamburger and Ron convinced her to leave her keys with him and her car in the cafe lot. Ron Perks took her next door to the Cambridge Gas and Motel. She munched the hamburger while they settled in for a “nice long talk.”

For two hours, she talked about her cats, her house and about the good times she and her husband, Cleo, had there before he died 19 years ago.

On her journey, Hogan had eaten at a Culver’s restaurant in Viroqua, according to a receipt she had kept.

Aside from that, she had seen a man walking a dog in a park, and could recall that she drove through Prairie du Chien.

Twice.

Back in Iowa, her friends and the authorities had spent the day looking for her. Price drove to Hogan’s home and cruised the roads between there and Waukon.

“I thought she might be in a ditch somewhere,” she said.

Iowa authorities last week were still buzzing about how nice the people are in Cambridge, where the Village Board issued a proclamation honoring the friendliness of Ron Perks. (He includes his wife in that honor.)

Price and Neeb have already confronted the unpleasant task of trying to get Hogan to give up driving, maybe move to town to an assisted-living residence. Hogan will have none of it, said Neeb, though her doctor is adamant. It is time for a change, Neeb said.

“She gets confused. She won’t have a cell phone,” Neeb said.

Hogan will be with her niece and family for Thanksgiving.

Neeb is picking her up.