Posted on 05/10/2017 11:43:17 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The mysterious little girl holding a single flower, found buried in a casket underneath a San Francisco home — captivating the Bay Area’s curiosity — has been identified.
Edith Howard Cook, the second born child and first born daughter of Horatio Nelson and Edith Scooffy Cook, died Oct. 13, 1876, at the age of 2 years, 10 months and 15 days, according to nonprofit Garden of Innocence, which spent a year trying to identify her. The girl was buried in the family plot in the Yerba Buena section of the Odd Fellows Cemetery two days after she died. That year, Ulysses S. Grant was president and San Franciscans had their first opportunity to ride the Transcontinental Express to New York in under four days.
“We’re really excited. They did a lot of crazy work to find out who she was,” said Garden of Innocence volunteer Erica Hernandez, whose organization released a detailed nine-page report Tuesday. “All the information that should’ve been kept by the cemetery wasn’t kept.”
The girl had been given the name “Miranda Eve” last year shortly after a family found her in her airtight metal casket in the Lone Mountain neighborhood of San Francisco during a remodeling project. The casket contained a leaded glass window through which they could see a 2-to-3-year-old girl holding the flower. The resident turned the ornate casket over to the Garden of Innocence, a charity that buries unclaimed children, to handle the girl’s affairs.
Funeral home records show Edith died from marasmus, or severe undernourishment. It’s not clear what caused the illness, but in late 1800s urban living could have led to an infectious disease, the nonprofit said.
Information released Tuesday reveals that Edith was born into two prominent families in the world of commerce and society.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Creepy thing to find during a remodel.
I wonder it the house “always had an oder” to it.
“odor”
What creeps me more is that anyone would manufacture a casket with a window.
Oh it was a thing. Somebody will probably post the gruesome details as to why.
Many people used to pose the recently deceased and take photographs of them as keepsakes. I’ve seen pictured of multiple dead posed together, and one particularly creepy picture of a live little sister posing with her dead older sister. I bet the memory of that stayed with her!
Completely different thing, but a there’s a tomb with a glass structure surrounding it in Rock Creek Cemetery in DC. I always wondered what the story was about that, and your post caused me to search for it just now:
“The resident turned the ornate casket over to the Garden of Innocence, a charity that buries unclaimed children, to handle the girl’s affairs.”
Only in San Francisco would a 2 year old girl that has been dead for 140 years have an affair.
Just consider it a tomb with a view. Not much of a view but a view nonetheless.
Memory eternal.
The Streets Of San Francisco - Tonight’s Episode: Tomb With A View.
About 10 years ago, there was a scam, probably to generate web hits, on video camera allegedly installed in a buried casket to watch the body decompose.
That’s some airtight casket - check out the last shot in the embedded video in the article. In the 19th century the city closed all the cemeteries in the city limits and relocated the bodies to cemeteries in Colma and elsewhere for space reasons. Obviously they missed one.
More than one. They show up from time to time. Not all bodies got moved, after the order to vacate cemeteries from SF. Sometimes only the tombstones were moved. I think some bodies showed up during construction of a library and museum in Civic Center recently, as the parcel between City Hall and Market Street used to be a cemetery in the 1800s.
The genealogist told the interviewer, that the family who owned the house had two little girls, and that after they’d put them to bed, they’d hear children’s footsteps running around upstairs. Thinking their children were out of bed, they’d go to check on them, and find they were both asleep.
Lead coffin no doubt. That's why her remains were in such good condition. And they used glass windows because people were afraid that they'd end up burying someone who wasn't actually dead. They also had coffins that would be attached to a bell above ground, so that if the person in the coffin woke up, they'd be able to alert people. Body snatchers were still active in the late 19th century too.
Marasmus, huh? In a kid from a well-to-do family? FWIW, I’d have someone take a real good look at those remains.
Here is a good article on the subject of SF cemeteries moving to Colma. One of the historians contributing to the article, is a history teacher of mine from over 45 years ago, now a historian famous for California history (Michael Svanevik). Mentions the many hundreds of bodies left behind. During construction of buildings, they sometimes put piping right through bodies found in the earth.
Abraham Lincoln was the target of an attempted body snatching a decade or so after his death. His captors were going to hold it for ransom and the release of an imprisoned counterfeiter friend of theirs.
Lincoln's body was moved a number of times before his final resting place was ready. Robert Todd Lincoln made damned sure his father would stay put: Abe's casket was surrounded by a steel cage then covered in cement. Before the final interment it was decided to open the coffin, just to make sure it was REALLY him. It was.
He’s buried in Grant’s tomb?
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