Dorothy Martineau

You can find anyone and everyone on the Internet in today’s day and age, right?

Unfortunately, no. In fact, Facebook, and even the almighty Google, have both failed to dramatically further my quest to reconnect with my friend and former classmate from 9th grade, Dorothy Martineau. After encouragement from my Mom, I write this blog post with hopes and prayers that Dorothy, or perhaps another acquaintance, may stumble upon it and help end my search. It’s not a life and death emergency, really I just want to know whatever happened to her. In my one year at North High School I could literally count on one hand the number of fellow students there I truly considered friends. Of the two I’d still like to be in contact with, Nate is on Facebook, so, despite the fact that we don’t really ever message each other, the fact of the matter is that I know he’s still alive and doing well, and if either of us wanted to reconnect, we’re only a couple clicks away.

Dorothy I have no clue.

Dorothy and I graduated 8th grade from Anne Sullivan Communication Center in South Minneapolis in June 2000. (Notice how I’m stuffing in as many search-engine-friendly keywords as possible :) From there, we were two of three Sullivan students who went to North High School in North Minneapolis. I didn’t really know her in middle school, but on our first day at North, when all the freshmen were doing orientation things, we somehow found each other and became friends. We also rode the same bus, I’m sure that might have helped (this was eight years ago, mind you, so my memory is a little swiss-cheesed by now).

Anyway, there’s one memory that I have held on to ever since 9th grade, something Dorothy said that has literally shaped who I am, and continues to do so today. One day, we were riding home on the school bus, and for some reason we were talking about youth groups at church. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, all I remember is Dorothy telling me “You know, I’m really glad that someone else cool still goes to church.”

That’s powerful. And not just because someone thought I was cool (although that’s pretty neat, too, since, well, “cool” hasn’t traditionally been an adjective people use to describe me...). But seriously, for her as a 9th grader to already see how faith sets us apart from “the world,” and how that actually makes a difference in the way we live, as well as the fact that I must have been doing something right to actually be living that life... Wow. Words won’t do it justice here, but that is by far one of my fondest memories of my entire life.


So I want to find her, I want to find out what’s happened in these last seven years.

• She’s not on Facebook, or, if she is, her profile is completely hidden from searches (some people do that, weird, but true), and she does not show up in queries for North High School class of 2004


• She’s not on Classmates.com (not too surprising, few people our age are)


• Google searches for her name return relatively little, just two publications of North’s Polaris newspaper, on which Dorothy was apparently a page editor during her senior year


• The North Alumni association person does not have any contact information, though she was able to confirm for me that Dorothy did graduate in 2004


• Minneapolis Public Schools is unable to release any information from past students’ records


• I have already tried asking our mutual friend Nate (from North, also ’04), but he did not have any contact info, either


• The yearbook from my freshman year only has teacher signatures, no students, so despite my hopes before unearthing it, no magic phone number there either


• I’m reasonably certain the Dorothy Martineau listed on this page is her (the age would be correct), but that doesn’t really help much


• There’s a non-profit foundation’s tax-return document from 2004 on Google that I’m not going to link, but it references a scholarship Dorothy received, must have been upon graduating, it wasn’t super clear

That’s it. If you reading this know anything I don’t, please let me know! I’m one of the easiest people to find electronically that I know: message me on Facebook, send me an email, or just post a comment here.

ADDENDUM:
In further researching the tax return mentioned above, it is indeed talking about scholarships granted to seniors from North High who will be attending a two- or four-year college within Minnesota or a state with whom we have reciprocity (Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and one or two colleges in Iowa). So, presumably, Dorothy did indeed go to college in one of these four states.