UPDATE: 4:55 pm Nov. 12 – Miss Bernadine has been reunited with her glider. The day after our story ran, a neighbor found the glider at an Oklahoma City salvage supply company.
According to neighbors, someone sold the glider to the salvage company for $80. Police are still investigating.
Miss Bernadine said she is “so thrilled to have it back. Everyone has been so kind. I couldn’t be happier.”
Neighbors helped her chain the glider onto her porch so it won’t be stolen again.
OKLAHOMA CITY – An 87-year-old woman, known around her neighborhood simply as “Miss Bernadine,” is on a quest to find a family heirloom.
On Thursday, thieves stole Bernadine McPherson’s antique glider couch from her porch sometime between midnight and 4:00 am.
She bought it as a present for her mother back in the 1940’s and it breaks her heart now that it is gone.
“It’s like losing a part of my mother again. It’s sad. But time goes on,” Miss Bernadine said.
The only thing she has left is one cushion the thieves dropped by the curb. The glider played a main role in many of the memories she made growing up in Oklahoma City.
“We had every kid, little kid on the block come down and we’d bring them ice cream, those little ice cream drumsticks and what have you, and we’d all sit out there and they’d eat their ice cream and they all just got a big honk out of that,” Miss Bernadine said. “That was just part of it, that glider.”
Neighbors are also upset. They say she has been watching over the neighborhood for years, and there is no one sweeter than Miss Bernadine.
“I just went into the house and cried when she told me because I just couldn’t believe it, why someone would take something like that,” Erma Myatt said.
The entire neighborhood is worried that the thieves might strike again. Miss Bernadine has always felt safe in her home, until now.
She said, “To think that they had that much nerve to come up and take that away is what scares me.”
She reported the crime to police and is just hoping someone will be able to help her.
Miss Bernadine said if she can’t get her glider back, she just wants to know that someone is really enjoying it and didn’t steal it to sell it and get the money.
If you see it, call police immediately.