How Unsolved Mysteries Solved The Case Of Eleanor Platt Wozniak’s Long-Lost Daughter
YouTubeIt took decades for Eleanor Platt Wozniak to find her daughter.
In 1953, a 17-year-old white high school student named Eleanor (née Platt) Wozniak met 28-year-old John Elias, a Black man who lived near her in Buffalo, New York. They soon began a relationship, and Elias asked Wozniak to marry him. Wozniak eventually left home and moved in with Elias.
However, the couple soon faced a myriad of problems not only because of their age difference but also because of the pervasive racism of the time.
In January 1954, Wozniak discovered she was pregnant. Her father, a raging alcoholic, had Elias arrested for statutory rape (since Wozniak had not yet turned 18 at that point) and sent Wozniak to a home for unwed mothers. Elias would eventually plead guilty to the trumped-up charges, and Wozniak gave birth to the couple’s daughter in September of that year.
Even though Wozniak was forced to surrender her daughter — whom she named Rose Marie — to the authorities, she eventually reunited with Elias and planned to get her daughter back as soon as she could.
YouTubeJohn Elias was quite literally run out of town by racist residents of Buffalo, New York.
Wozniak’s father, who was seemingly hell-bent on destroying his daughter’s life, subsequently had her arrested for “failing to obey their orders.” The judge informed Wozniak that her three-year sentence would be reduced if she gave her daughter up for adoption. Not knowing at the time that she didn’t have to do so, Wozniak agreed. Elias, meanwhile, had been literally run out of town thanks to the non-stop racist harassment he experienced.
Both Wozniak and Elias eventually remarried. But in 1987, they would meet each other once again. Renewed in their quest to find their daughter, the former couple went on Unsolved Mysteries to plead for information about their beloved Rose Marie. Their episode aired on February 12, 1992.
As it turned out, a viewer in New York recognized the long-lost daughter as his co-worker Sally Lou Briggs Riley. When Riley reached out to Wozniak and Elias, she discovered that she was indeed their Rose Marie. According to Buffalo News, the new family — which included Riley’s children, who were, of course, Wozniak and Elias’ grandchildren — had a very happy reunion.
