You may note that four Americans died who were passengers of the KLM plane. I had got to know the Gillis family fairly well as I had befriended there son Jim, who was not a passenger on the plane. Mr. and Mrs. Gillis and their son Jim came to The Netherlands because Mr. Gillis was transferred by Xerox in Rochester to Xerox in Venray, The Netherlands. I was an employee of Xerox and became good friends with Jim as his father had organized a job for him. Jim, who was about 20 at the time, had left a girlfriend and a little baby behind in the states (surname is Twist) who eventually came to The Netherlands to visit. Ms. Twist and baby were to stay for a couple of weeks and during this time Jim and his ex seemed to be getting everything back on track. Mr. and Mrs. Gillis took their daughter-in-law-to-be and granddaughter for a brief stay in the Canary Islands. Jim couldn’t go because things were busy at Xerox. The rest is history. I informed Jim of the disaster and chaperoned him to the airport back to the U.S. a few days later never to hear from him again. I was wondering what I needed to do to try and contact him. I guess I am unsure whether he would like to hear from me because he may well associate his memory of me with everything else.I left Holland in 1981 and moved to Australia and at this point it has become a mission for me to try and locate him. Do you have any ideas?

--John Ruyl (alexandjohn at bigpond dotcom dot au)