Easter Morning Mystery

On Easter morning in 1971 my husband and I got up early to hide the Easter eggs. We had been at church the night before for Easter vigil, and so we had as long as we wanted to enjoy the festivities without having to hurry to get ready to go anywhere.

We were living in base housing at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. The small backyards of the houses on our street were surrounded by four-foot stucco walls. Tall red cannas grew along one wall, some succulents and bushes along another, and a big sandbox at the back. There were plenty of good places to hide eggs, and we had dyed two dozen of them for our first backyard Easter egg hunt.

Rosebud, our basset shaped dog, accompanied me as I hid the eggs, while my husband Hank stayed inside making sure that the children didn’t get up and come running out.

The children, having been up late at church with us, didn’t waken early. We had a nice cup of coffee and some hot homemade coffeecake while we waited for them to finally rouse. Eventually Hap, 4, traipsed out, and then, remembering with excitement that it was Easter, ran back for his 1-yr. old sister Lenore. Baskets in hand, they eagerly headed out the door.

I thought surely they’d see the bright eggs I’d propped up against the corners of the sandbox first, but when I looked, they were gone. Well then, the ones I’d set among the roots at the base of the tree would be in plain site. They weren’t there either! Although the kids kept looking diligently, by then I was frantic. Out of two dozen eggs, I could only find three!

Fortunately, we had eight colored marble eggs we’d bought in Japan, and we hid those over and over, all the time wondering what had happened to the ones I’d boiled and colored. I thought of the possibility of snakes, but that didn’t seem likely. Nevertheless, we got out a garden rake and pulled foliage away from the wall to make sure. If there had been a snake, we would have seen it. We looked at Rosebud suspiciously, but thought surely she’d be sick if she’d gobbled 21 eggs shells and all. However, it was the only possible solution.

The children were content with their marble egg hunt and their chocolate bunnies, but there were no clues to help us solve the mystery. At least right away, there weren’t any. Then, a few months later as I divided up the canna bulbs to spread them out, I found two slightly faded eggs tucked away in the foliage that we'd missed. I went in the house to tell Hank what I’d found, and when I came out, Rosebud was finishing those off too.

Never again did we invite the dog to help us celebrate Easter.