CANTON, New York — Shifting from law-enforcement to “father mode,” two state police troopers came to the aid of a pair of brothers from Missouri who were stranded in Potsdam en route to Maine, where they were traveling to fulfill their mother’s dying wish.
On a sweltering Saturday afternoon in late September, troopers Daniel W. Manor and Joseph R. Knox said they encountered 21-year-old Jared Roberts hitchhiking northeast on Route 11 in Potsdam.
Trooper Manor, a field training officer, was overseeing Trooper Knox on his last day of field training when the new trooper stopped Roberts. The story Roberts told left them in disbelief, they said. He and his brother, Joshua, 24, had left their home weeks earlier to bring their mother’s ashes to Maine. They told the troopers it was her dying wish to be buried in the place she had visited and fallen in love with.
“In my 10 ½ years I have never heard a story like this and, after getting some background, it turned out these guys had a pretty tough life,” Manor said. “All the brothers wanted to do was respect their mother’s final wishes and reach her requested, final resting place.”
The Maine-bound brothers had sold all of their possessions to make the trip happen, the troopers said, but they had run out of money a few weeks earlier and had been panhandling and living out of their van before getting stuck in St. Lawrence County on Sept. 27.
“[Jared Roberts] had walked into the village of Canton looking for assistance after pushing their older-model minivan, which must have run out of gas, into the old Grant’s on Route 11,” Knox said. “He must have walked nine miles and, I remember, it had been a really hot day that day and he was sweating and was beet-red.”
In what the troopers said must have been a result of poor planning, the brothers hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in about 36 hours and it had been several weeks since they last showered or brushed their teeth.
As Manor contacted an on-call St. Lawrence County Social Services caseworker to find lodging for the two brothers, Knox gave the men the rest of his lunch.
“When we found out they were telling the truth we totally went into father mode. We both have kids, so …” Trooper Manor paused. “There is a human element to this job. People think all we do is arrest people and write tickets. That’s not true.”
Unfortunately, that weekend was a college parents’ weekend, and all the hotels in the area were booked up until Monday, Manor said.
“This was a Saturday, so I asked them what they would do until Monday. They had their van in Grant’s parking lot and planned to sleep there.”
But instead of leaving the two men at the van, the troopers took the brothers to the Stewart’s Shop in Canton.
“Dan insisted on paying for food for them,” Knox said, laughing. “He wouldn’t let me pay.”
The brothers were given two gallons of water, a sub sandwich, chips and napkins.
“We told them we would check on them,” Knox said. “They had a TracFone that was out of minutes but could still make emergency calls.”
On Sunday, Manor’s brother, Trooper Michael Manor, and Trooper Theresa McCargar made sure the brothers were OK, but by the time Monday rolled around, the two troopers said the van was gone.
“We haven’t heard from them since,” Mr. Manor said. “I’m assuming that the county gave them money to get them out of here. We gave them the food and water, but no cash.”
“If there is one thing I remember my parents teaching me, it was be good to people and they will be good to you,” Trooper Manor said. “I don’t think we did anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.”
“I’m new and it just seemed like a normal day,” Knox added. “I would much rather help somebody out than write them a ticket.”
Distributed by MCT Information Services