The mysterious disappearance of high-society Barbara Pitcher

   Barbara Pitcher, 18, was born into the top of Montreal society and so when she disappeared from downtown Montreal on 21 March 1929, it led to international headlines, airplane searches and a  massive reward cash offering.
   Pitcher lived with her parents on the south side of Queen Mary just west of Roslyn and traveled to class at McGill in a chauffeured vehicle.
   One uncle, Sir Charles Gordon, founded both Dominion Textile and Dominion Glass while another. A.S. Eve, headed the physics department at McGill, which one day before announced a discovery concerning colors in the helium spectrum.
   The striking blonde beauty, an art student, disappeared after being dropped off at the downtown McGill Campus at 8:50 am that Thursday morning.
   At about 9 am she strolled east on Sherbrooke from where she should have been attended classes at McGill that morning.
   It sparked an international mystery that led to speculative headlines concerning "The Titian Girl" being swooped up into a white slavery ring or a possible abduction.
   Her driver J.B. Conley was the first to report her missing.
   Within days uncle Charles Gordon had alerted news media and issued a $5,000 reward for any tips concerning her whereabouts, in a dispatch that included minute descriptions of her clothing and jewelry.
   But all reports - including a mysterious phone call that turned out to be irrelevant - came up flat.
   Pitcher, who stood 5'5" and weighed 150 lbs, had no boyfriend and few girlfriends and spent much time alone, although her mom, an invalid, tended to micromanage her affairs.
   She was said to be in a gloomy mood according to the last person who spoke to her, a friend who saw her at the McGill campus.
   The friend asked Pitcher where she was walking off to, but Pitcher failed to reply.
   Some speculated that she might have moved off to a city in the USA or returned to England, a place Barbara Pitcher was immensely fond of.
   The mystery was solved - or partially solved - on 7 May 1929 and the search called to a halt after Pitcher's body was found floating in the Back River behind a convent near Papineau and Gouin.
   Reports indicated that a man's body was also found in the water at the same site but reports did not link the Pitcher and the other body. Nothing else was mentioned of the man's body in connection with hers being found.
   The family was alerted in Val Morin, where they had taken up residence, and Conley was the first to identify her.
    Pitcher, it was concluded, likely committed suicide by walking out on the thin ice. The coroner chalked up her death to "asphyxia by submersion."  Her body had no marks of violence.