Family marks 35 years since teen disappeared

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is the first in a two-part series about Cheryl Scherer's 1979 disappearance. Part Two will run Thursday.

"Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.

We've known each other since we're 9 or 10.

Together we climbed hills or trees,

Learned of love and ABCs,

Cheryl Scherer

Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees. ...

We had joy, we had fun,

We had seasons in the sun,

But the hills that we climbed

Were just seasons out of time."

-- Rod McKuen,

"Seasons in the Sun"

Diane Scherer-Morris smiles as she remembers growing up on her parents' farm in old Illmo with her sister, Cheryl, and brother, Anthony.

As teenagers in 1979, Diane and Cheryl loved pop music, including the Eagles' "Best of My Love," America's "Sister Golden Hair" and especially Terry Jacks' sentimental 1974 hit "Seasons in the Sun," about a man dying young.

"I remember all of those songs -- us practicing. ... We did like singing in the hayloft," Scherer-Morris said. "We were going to be the next singing group."

Seasons in the sun

Cheryl, 19, and Diane, 14, shared a bedroom decorated with posters of David Cassidy and other heartthrobs ripped from the pages of Tiger Beat magazine.

They and their brother, then 17, watched scary movies -- "The Birds" and "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte" were favorites, Scherer-Morris recalls -- and at night, the girls often sat up talking about Cheryl's plans for the future, which mainly involved marrying her boyfriend and starting a family of her own.

One of Cheryl Scherer's report cards.

The family also took care of the animals Cheryl was always bringing home, including a pregnant dog that eventually delivered six puppies.

"She loved animals. ... We had our little animal cemetery," Scherer-Morris said. "We even buried bugs as we found them."

Cheryl Scherer graduated from Kelly High School in 1977 and went to work for Rhodes Pump-Ur-Own service station in nearby Scott City.

An image of Cheryl Scherer from one of her family's scrapbooks. Cheryl loved animals.

On the morning of April 17, 1979, the diminutive redhead -- whose younger sister affectionately describes her as "a skinny little fart" -- called her mother to discuss what she planned to do that afternoon when her shift ended.

Minutes later, her supervisor dropped by the station to find her gone.

No one has seen her since.

Goodbye to you

After Cheryl Scherer disappeared, the David Cassidy posters came down.

"After this happened, I didn't want to sleep in that room, so we took everything down, and we switched rooms," Scherer-Morris said.

For about 15 years, Scherer-Morris held out hope that her sister would return just in time to celebrate some milestone with the family.

Cheryl Scherer with her father and siblings, showing off her Easter basket.

"When I was 14, every holiday: 'This is going to be the holiday she walks in.' Every birthday," Scherer-Morris said. " ... That used to be a big thing. I just thought for sure, 'One of these holidays, she's just going to pop back in.'"

Anthony Scherer smiled.

"That'd be a big party," he said.

Scherer knows it isn't likely, but he isn't willing to give up entirely.

"We don't live our lives as if she's going to pop up one day ... but until they prove otherwise, why not?" he said.

In her father's 2005 obituary, Cheryl Scherer is listed as a survivor, and her siblings had his headstone engraved with his name and dates of birth and death, their mother's name and date of birth, and -- between them -- Cheryl's name and date of birth.

Without that, they were afraid the record of her existence eventually might be lost to time, Scherer-Morris said.

"If the body's never found, there's nothing buried here, but it explains that she did live," Anthony Scherer said.

Meanwhile, her car remains parked at her parents' farm, because selling it would have required them to have her declared legally dead.

"Does that bother you to have that car sitting out there?" Anthony Scherer's brother-in-law, Ron Morris, asked him during a recent evening.

Scherer thought about it for a moment.

"I guess not really, because it's been there so long," he said.

Skinned our hearts

Time, as the adage goes, heals all wounds.

"Healed" might be a generous description, but the intervening years have taken some of the edge off the pain, Scherer-Morris and her brother said.

"Of course we're through the 'Why did God do this?'" Anthony Scherer said. "You come to understand that God didn't do it. Someone made a bad choice, but I'll see her again one day. ... I'll know all the details, even though at that time, it won't matter one bit."

The family made a conscious effort to pull together and keep Cheryl Scherer's disappearance from tearing them apart, he said.

One of Cheryl Scherer's art works.

"If we let it ruin our family, Mom and Dad and Diane and me, then whoever took Cheryl took ... all five of us," Anthony Scherer said. " ... I honestly think we've done real well."

Still, their sister's absence has influenced their lives in ways that might not be obvious to an outsider.

Scherer-Morris cites her sister's disappearance as a factor in her decision not to have children.

"Mom and Dad handled this very well. They really did ... but I don't know how I would have been as a mother, knowing what really can happen," she said. " ... You watch your parents, and you see them crying, and they're hurt, but they can't do anything -- it's just that helpless feeling."

For years, Scherer-Morris was afraid to stay by herself, she said, and she and her brother have become more protective of others.

"Take the precautions that need to be taken, but don't live in fear," Anthony Scherer said. "I guess for me, too, it made you more aware of things, but the things that affected me most were you might see a young girl walking down the street by herself, jogging, or a young kid -- 'Where's the parents?'"

If he sees a woman walking alone, he might slow down or circle the block to check on her and make sure she is safe, he said.

Scherer-Morris said she and her husband once stopped on an interstate ramp after they discovered two men had rear-ended a woman's car. They waited with the woman until police arrived.

"I told her, 'I can't leave you there in good conscience,'" Scherer-Morris said.

Seasons out of time

This afternoon, Cheryl Scherer's friends and family will release 35 yellow balloons to represent the years she has been missing and 19 purple ones for the years she was with them.

The ceremony's purpose is threefold.

First, it keeps her memory alive.

"It's been 35 years, yeah, but we also had 19 years with her. Sometimes you do have a tendency to forget -- it's been 35 years she's not been here, but there was 19 years she was," Anthony Scherer said. " ... Thirty-five years of her not being here, but -- it makes you kind of have a tendency to forget that she's not just a name."

Second, it comforts her family and friends.

An image of a young Cheryl Scherer from one of her family's scrapbooks.

"I think it just helps that whole town sometimes," Scherer-Morris said, noting to this day, people who remember her sister sometimes call her "Cheryl" by mistake. It's an easy mistake -- in 1979, the red-haired girls looked so much alike that Scherer-Morris wasn't allowed to join some of the searches for her sister, lest her presence create confusion -- and she doesn't bother correcting them.

The third reason is practical: Events attract media coverage, and media exposure generates leads.

"You always wonder if somebody has some bit of information. If she's out there somewhere, just let us bring her home. We're not into the, 'Let's make them pay.' If somebody knows, just let us have that closure," Scherer-Morris said.

epriddy@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

Illmo, Mo.

Scott City, Mo.