Mother Finds Tracy Thinner, Older : Family: She watches his release on TV, but she hasn’t been with son in 26 years.

Although she has not seen her son for 26 years, the mother of released hostage Edward A. Tracy said Sunday that he appeared “thinner” and “older” than she had remembered.

“Of course, there’s the white hair . . . and it’s been so long . . . since I’ve seen him,” she said.

Sitting on a chair in her garage because of a light rain, Doris Tracy, 83, talked briefly with reporters Sunday night after watching television reports of her son’s release.

“I’ve seen him on TV again, and I’ve heard he’s at Wiesbaden (Germany) already and has gone to bed,” she said. She did not say whether she had spoken to him.

Tracy, 60, looking weary, with dark circles under his eyes, was released in Beirut by his pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim kidnapers. He was first taken to Damascus, Syria, for talks with U.S. officials, and then flown to Wiesbaden for medical tests and a debriefing by State Department officials.

His white-haired, frail-looking mother said that she was first awakened by reporters at 2 a.m. with news of her son’s impending release and was notified officially by the State Department several hours later. President Bush called her about 9:30 a.m.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” she said. “I got my first call at 2 a.m. I went back to sleep and I got two calls at 4 a.m., and then State called at 4:30 a.m. And then there were so many calls, I unplugged the phone.”

Tracy, once described by his mother as “an adventurer,” last visited her in South Burlington in 1965. She said she received a letter from him in 1975 from Saudi Arabia, and then did not hear from him again until 1985, when she received a letter from Beirut.

Doris Tracy, who had moved four times during that 10-year period, said that “he asked if I’d gotten four books he sent,” and “he didn’t know that his father and brother were dead.”

Since Tracy’s capture, his family has shunned publicity and has refused to speak about him publicly. In fact, his sister and brother-in-law, Maria and Denis Lambert--who live with his mother--avoided reporters Sunday, entering and leaving through the back door of their brown frame house.

The response in his family’s neighborhood, which borders on the rolling campus of the University of Vermont, was muted. Few in this town knew the enigmatic Tracy, who grew up in Rutland, 67 miles south of here.

While Doris Tracy was speaking, a neighbor, Nancy Hollrith-Sykes, stopped by with a bunch of wildflowers and told her: “We’re all so happy for you.”

Tracy’s mother is not expected to go to Germany to see her son. Asked if she thinks he will return to Vermont to see her, she replied: “I couldn’t say. So many years have gone by. His principle interest is in his kids.”

Tracy has three children: daughters Margaret Ann, 28, and Monica, 23, who live in the Canary Islands, and a son, Lawrence, 29, who lives in Germany. Tracy was divorced from his German wife, Ingeberg, in 1974. She also lives in the Canary Islands.

Asked why her son did not stay in contact with her, Doris Tracy threw her hands into the air.

“That’s the way mothers think of children,” she said. “What are they up to now?”