Identity of child remains a mystery.
By Dileep Thekkethil
A three-year-old girl who died over a century back got a second burial in a California cemetery after her lead and bronze coffin was unearthed by construction workers underneath a house that they were renovating.
According to The Washington Post, the girl was laid to rest the second time in the presence of hundreds of people with some singing “Over the Rainbow”. The report also says that the mystery girl’s gravestone had an epitaph that read “The child loved around the world.”
The workers found inside the coffin the well-preserved body of a small girl with golden curly hair. They also found signs that the girl belonged to a wealthy family. She wore a hand-sewn, pleated white cotton dress with delicate lace trimmings on her petite frame, lavender tucked in her hair and some laid upon her chest in the shape of a cross.
The house belonged to Ericka Karner who currently stays out of state with her husband and children.
“I was shocked on one hand, obviously, because there’s a small child’s casket underneath the home,” Karner told the Los Angeles Times. “But I wasn’t necessarily super surprised because I knew the history of the area.”
According to historians, the San Francisco’s Richmond District during 1800s was graveyard zone but by the end of the century the city expanded and the people started making houses above the dead even though many bodies were moved out.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that when the house owner contacted the medical examiner’s office for help they turned down the request citing that the coffin was found on a private property which makes the owner solely responsible.
Karner initially planned to buy a burial spot for the girl or contact an archeological company. Both were expensive as the first option would have cost her $7,000 and the other $22,000.
Ten days after the coffin was unearthed, a government official responsible for taking care of people who died without relatives, contacted Karner but by that time the casket was out for too long without being sealed.
To protect the child as much as possible, the contractor built a box around her coffin, said Elissa Davey, the woman who organized the funeral.
Garden of Innocence, the nonprofit organization based in California, held the funeral services. The service is offered with the help of the donations made by volunteers. Karner welcomed the offer of Davey’s, the founder of Garden of Innocence.
“This child belonged to somebody,” Davey said. “They took great care placing her in that casket. Somebody loved that little girl.”
During the second cremation of the ‘Mystery girl,’ Davey requested the attendees to help in finding the true identity of the girl. Also, the name in the gravestone has been left blank to mark it one day with her real name.
“We’re going to keep trying to figure out who she is,” Davey said.