After 9 Years, Hannah’s Handprints Make the Journey Home

CEDAR RAPIDS - As Cindy Volz carried the opened box containing "Hannah's" plaster handprints to her clerk's station at the northeast post office in Cedar Rapids, she knew a mother or grandmother would surely love to have them back. After all, her own granddaughter's name is Hannah (Hannah Krzywicki, 6, of Cedar Rapids).

But, as this lost package story unfolded, Cindy realized how truly these handprints would be cherished. For, Hannah Meeks, born Sept. 19, 1998, as the handprints signified, had drowned in Coralville Lake on July 6, 2003.

"I knew she had passed away because of the letters in the package," Cindy says. But, the circumstances weren't clear. And, finding Hannah's mother, the intended recipient, wouldn't be easy since she no longer lived in Cedar Rapids.

"Thank God for The Gazette," says Cindy's sister, Debbie Smith. "That's how I found a lot of information."

The sleuthing by Cindy, 55, and Debbie, 57, took nearly a day. With her public library card, Debbie used free access to online Gazette archives to learn the original story.

Hannah had been swimming at West Overlook Beach with her family for about three hours when they decided to go home. Her mother, Christina Meeks, and boyfriend, Adam Frost, were gathering up their children, Elizabeth, 3, and Max, 1. Adam watched Hannah, 4, whom Christina had from a previous relationship, take one last dip in the water when Christina asked him to help chase down one of the other kids. It was only a few minutes.

"I turned my head," Christina said a couple of days later, "and there was this (stranger) holding my Hannah, bringing her up (the beach)."

A nurse and doctor tried CPR. A park ranger called a supervisor who brought a defibrillator to the beach. Hannah was taken to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. She couldn't be saved.

Both Christina and her mother, Sharil Meeks, said Hannah had been wearing a ring-like flotation device while swimming but couldn't recall if she was wearing it when she was carried ashore.

With the names of mother and grandmother, Cindy and Debbie continued their search. They spent $40 to subscribe to websites. They became more determined to succeed and more incredulous that the United Parcel Service package hadn't reached its destination in 2003.

Apparently, Cindy says, the woman who brought the package to the post office had kept it for nine years. When she opened it, she realized someone probably expected the handprints. As she dropped it off, she supposedly said, "You get busy."

The Cedar Rapids sisters found Sharil Meeks Reed, thanks to the unusual spelling, in Colorado Springs, Colo. They sent her an email that was quickly answered. She called Cindy.

"We thought they were lost," Sharil said. "It will mean so much to Christina. You're an angel."

Sharil called her daughter, now Christina Meeks High, in her hometown of Las Vegas.

"She was irritating the hell out of me," Christina says now, a laugh in her voice. Mom instructed daughter to sit down, to remain calm, to listen carefully. Finally she said the handprints had been found. They shared a good, joyful cry.

Cindy, who in 32 years with the post office has reunited lost packages with owners in the past (She got lost Christmas presents to a Garner family in 2003 as featured in The Gazette.), spent $44 to express mail Hannah's handprints to Christina.

"She needed to have them," Cindy says.

"It was actually something I thought about every single day," says Christina, 33, who knew the hospital had made the handprints after her daughter's death. "I called the hospital several different times to see what address they were sent to, but they couldn't help me."

Then, one day, she learned the handprints had been sent to a house destroyed in the Flood of 2008. She stopped looking. She couldn't forget.

Since separating from Adam Frost and remarrying, Christina moved to Las Vegas last September to work in a family business and attend nursing school. Her mother's job with U.S. Cellular had brought them to Cedar Rapids from Wisconsin. Hannah was born in LaCrosse and is buried there.

"I am so grateful that Cindy and Debbie took all that time to find me," Christina says.

An uncle will frame each set of handprints, one for her mother and one for Christina.

"It will hang next to my favorite picture of Hannah."