Looks like your first hit was correct. Says Victor Floyd Elliott was buried in Temple but was born in Fairfax Oklahoma. He was born in 1930 which would have made him 14 at the time... just the age when kids would want to put their name in a bottle. Very cool find. Hopefully you can find his family!

A link to the page (you already found it)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31303063#

Cool story. I'd call the post office in Fairfax. If an older postmaster is still around he/she probably new everybody.

I'll ask some of the old timers here in Temple.

Box turtles supposedly have a home range they don't leave. Have read that if you pick one up on the road and turn it loose somewhere else it basically spends the rest of its life wandering around trying to get home. Looks like yours was maybe living proof. I'd be interested to know what kind of paint would make it 25 years on a turtle though.

There are lots of Elliotts still in Robertson County.

I would do what dkershen mentioned as in contact the fairfax newspaper!!!!

Someone is bound to read and know of someone by this name.

Was it just laying on the ground all of these years or buried ?

That's cool! It's too bad that so many years have passed and he never got contacted. But then again, he might have sent several out and got one back?

Social media has come a long way since 1944. Cool find and interesting story. It is surprising that the bottle stayed dry that long without the cap rotting off. It would be great to hear from his family after all that time.

That's pretty dang cool.

Sent you a private message.

As mentioned above we found a family member. I used google earth and laid out the path the bottle may have taken during its 73 year journey. Assuming he placed the bottle in the river close to his house, it traveled right at 300 miles through numerous floods and changes along the river. Here is what Victor's nephew told us about him,

"As I mentioned Vic was one of my uncles – a brother of my mother’s. The family consisted of my Granddad Hobart Frank Elliott, Grandmother Beulah Ballard Elliott, and their four children in order of birth: Kathryn Elaine Elliott (my mother), Harold Hudson Elliott, William Hobart Elliott, and Victor Floyd Elliott. Granddad was a farmer and raised cattle most of his adult life in Osage County, OK. The family lived on the Tallchief farm just east of Fairfax until the mid 1950’s when Grandmother told Granddad it was time to move into a new house in town. Granddad leased land from the Tallchief family and raised cattle until his death in 1986. The entire family – like most families of the time – was involved with tending to the crops and cattle and making a life for themselves. Vic was born 5 May 1930 in Fairfax, OK. He served in the US Air Force and married in 1951. He and his wife raised three children, and eventually moved to Eddy, TX and lived a stone’s throw from my mother and father. I have many good memories of Vic. Vic never knew a stranger, always had a smile and a joke for you – just a really neat guy to be around. Us kids always called him Hoss because he looked like and was built like Dan Blocker who played Hoss Cartwright on the TV show Bonanza. Sadly, Vic passed away in Dec 1986, way too soon."

We are going to ship the framed note to the family tomorrow so that it can return home. We have certainly had a fun time with this discovery and trying to solve the mystery of "the message in a bottle." We will most likely never top this a woods find but will certainly try. The next time you see an old bottle lying on the ground give it a good look, you never know just what may be inside. For me the outdoors has become more of the experiences shared than the game killed or caught. Thank you for following along with us on this journey it has been fun

Brandon

Very interesting Brandon - thanks for sharing the details and effort to locate the family!

That's awesome!

Great story.

Very cool, glad you were able to track them down and get some history behind the individual.

Cool ending to a great story BrrBass!!

Very cool thanks for sharing

This should be on the news

This is super cool. I'm very glad y'all tracked down the family and are returning the note to them. Thanks for sharing.

very cool. good luck tracking down someone

Awesome

We finally made contact with Mrs. Betty Elliott. Outdoor writer Matt Williams made contact with her and gave her our number. We spoke on the phone for about 45 minutes. It was great sharing our story with her and learning more of Victor's life. She said this is the greatest Christmas present she could have gotten. Thank you for following along.

Brandon