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Retired Greensboro doctor Paul Long was aboard his boat in Virginia last Sunday when he got an e-mail:

“They found Mark.”

Reading the story of Mark Hoffmann, a longtime homeless, mentally ill man who left Greensboro in May and turned up recently in his hometown of Catonsville, Md., Long decided on the spot to make a detour on his way north to a relative’s wedding.

On Thursday, Long and his wife visited St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church outside Baltimore, the parish where Hoffmann, 51, went to school through eighth grade.

Nearby, with the help of the church pastor, the couple found the man who had spent seven years on a bench along Friendly Avenue.

“I said, 'Hello, Mark, do you remember me?’” recalled Long, who knew Hoffmann from Centenary United Methodist Church on Friendly. “He said, 'Yeah. You’re Paul Long.’”

Though Hoffmann was sunburned, Long said he looked healthy. When told that many in Greensboro had wondered where he was, Hoffmann replied, “That’s awfully good to know.” Long said Hoffmann had apparently walked to Durham, then rode a bus to the Baltimore area, returning to the church three blocks from his deceased parents’ home.

In Greensboro, most passers-by knew Hoffmann, a Lehigh grad and former Duke accountant who has a form of schizophrenia, only from a distance. But after he vanished from the greenway bench in May, readers took a close interest, and some later reported seeing him walking along interstates in the area.

The mystery of where he went was solved when a Greensboro resident visiting her in-laws happened to see Hoffmann at church, six hours away in Catonsville. Mary Kay Auer was amazed. So were fellow readers.

Wrote Fairey Horton: “I have thought about him often since he left Greensboro. ... The fact that his location was discovered is a near-miracle in itself.”

Steve Cole: “(His) story brought tears to my eyes, particularly the part where Mark’s daughter and her family went to the church to confirm that the homeless man who appeared at the church formerly attended by his parents was indeed her father.”

Nancy Ellis: “I guess we all really want to go home in our hearts. I just hope and pray that he will be helped and be safe. I lost my mom when I was 7 (am now 68) and the hole in my heart never healed.”

Phyllis Setzer: “I think of Mark Hoffmann every time I drive down Friendly Avenue and see the empty bench. May God bless him.”

Linda Rozelle: “He touched the lives of so many people, but he’s not the only one. There’s a 'Michael’s bench’ and a 'Steven’s bench.’ This is their home, but they don’t tarry long.”

Paul Long, the doctor who visited Catonsville last week, said he worried when he heard that a town councilman there suggested that the priest at St. Mark’s encourage Hoffmann to “move on.”

St. Mark’s, recognizing that it is Hoffmann’s home parish, has been trying to see to the homeless man’s needs, even though Hoffmann has declined to seek shelter.

Among the church members watching over Hoffmann is Barbara Auer, mother-in-law of the reader who recognized him in Maryland:

“I stopped by the post office and gave him some money. He does have beautiful eyes and thanked me politely. ... I have been praying for him all week. I think Catonsville is a safe haven. He seems to be at home in this quiet little town.”

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com