Of a little girl lost for 120 years~~~~

Hello Darklings,

Well the strange, the unusual, the macabre still continues here in our area, a sad story but with at least some sort of happy ending occurred nearly 3 weeks ago, over in San Francisco, I’ve combined the various reports to bring to you as complete as possible the events.   This is a true story, and currently in San Francisco there are only the small cemetery at Mission Delores and the Columbarium, all the cemeteries were moved mostly to Colma with a few reburials in other locations, this was because property was becoming very important to the living.

But once in a while a reminder of what was under one’s house surfaces.  As what happened on May 9, 2016 to one lady when a  Childs casket was found under her house.

*******

Sometimes we don’t even know what might be directly under our feet when something bizarre, even horrifying happens you begin to wonder if you might be “trapped” in that movie “Poltergeist”, where the head stones were removed but not the bodies.

That was the case for Ericka Karner when she was called long distance to her Idaho home by her contractor who said “Do you have any idea what this is? We think it’s a casket,’”  

Ms. Karner was having renovations done to her childhood home near Rossi Park in San Francisco when contractors stumbled onto a very unusual sight under the garage.

It was the coffin of a little girl, found buried beneath her family’s San Francisco home.

The child has long blond hair, she is holding a red rose and she has been dead between 120 to 145 years.

Nobody knows her name or how she died. She laid under the San Francisco home’s concrete garage floor for decades until over two weeks ago, when workers doing the remodeling struck her lead-and-bronze coffin with their shovels.

And so begins a tale of death, love, San Francisco history and the staying power of a coffin maker who knew what he was doing.

It occurred on May 9, when workers at the home in the Lone Mountain neighborhood in the Richmond District discovered the casket and called the authorities and Ms. Karner.

The unidentified girl, who appeared to be about 3, is believed to be one of about 30,000 people who were buried at the old Odd Fellows Cemetery in San Francisco. The bodies were moved to a common burial plot in Colma around 1920, after all the city’s graveyards were ordered to make way for the living.

Somehow, the workers in charge ages ago, of moving the Odd Fellows occupants left this girl behind.   There are no identifying marks, so the current folks involved decided to nickname her “Miranda.”

Officials believe Miranda was left behind when the Odd Fellows cemetery moved away. The Columbarium near Geary and Arguello is all that’s left of that burial ground.

It appears that she was from a family of means, as indicated by the high-end coffin and by the fancy sealing job by the undertaker that preserved her skin and hair and her burial flowers. She looks, through the two glass windows of the coffin, like a young girl and not like the 145-year-old remains of one.

Clutched in her right hand is a rose. Weaved in her curly blond hair are lavender flowers. Placed over her heart is a cross made of more lavender. Lying beside her are eucalyptus leaves.

“She’s wearing a long white dress,” said Elissa Davey, the founder of the Garden of Innocence charity which, for two decades, has buried the bodies of unidentified children in California. Davey estimates that the girl died about 145 years ago because the cemetery was active from 1860 to 1890.

The owner of the home, Ericka Karner, quickly found herself in a bind. The medical examiner’s office told her the body was her responsibility, even though the error that left the coffin beneath her garage was not. The body was now on private property, and the private property was hers.

That nearly century-old mistake presented a big problem in the present for Karner, who told (TV Station reporters) KPIX that she was left without an option by the city for what she could do to provide Miranda a final resting place. The city wouldn't claim the remains, because Miranda was properly buried, but it also wouldn't let her rebury the casket, because Karner could not present a death certificate. The result was that Miranda just remained in limbo in the backyard.

"It put us in this position of having this individual in our backyard and feeling awful as a mom knowing this is a small child," she said.

Karner said she called one Colma undertaker and was quoted a price of $7,000. She called an East Bay archaeological company that handles historic artifacts and was quoted a price of $22,000.

“It didn’t seem right,” said Karner, who markets cookies for a living and whose family has lived in the home since 1976. “I understand if a tree is on your property, that’s your responsibility. But this is different. The city decided to move all these bodies 100 years ago, and they should stand behind their decision.”

But Karner said she wanted to do the right thing, seeing as how the girl “was part of our family now.” And since the medical examiner had broken open the meticulously sealed casket to examine the body, Karner said, “time was beginning to be a factor, you might say.”

In desperation, with the coffin lying above ground in her back yard, she called authorities at City Hall. They put her in touch with Davey.

Luckily, Miranda's story is finding its resolution. Garden of Innocence, an organization that facilitates "dignified burials for abandoned and unidentified children," has offered to rebury her casket this summer.

“That girl was somebody’s child,” Davey said. “You have to do the right thing.”

Davey contacted the Odd Fellows, who agreed to supply the necessary funds. And then Davey, who works out of her office near San Diego, arranged for the body to be picked up and stored, temporarily, in a mortuary refrigerator in Fresno.

“We had to pick her up,” said Davey, founder of Garden of Innocence, whose organization has arranged for the burials of 327 unidentified children at 11 cemeteries and other plots of land throughout California. “If people find out she’s lying at a construction site with no one around at night, you can bet somebody is going to steal her. People into the macabre. Into witchcraft. I wanted her out of there.”

Davey hired her niece to construct a second coffin, made of maple, large enough to hold the body and the original coffin.

“I don’t want her disturbed anymore,” Davey said. “She’s been disturbed enough.”

 Davey will come to San Francisco for a meeting with representatives of the Odd Fellows to arrange for a reburial for the girl, who has tentatively been given the name of Miranda.

“She’ll go home with the love of the community,” said Davey. “That’s all we want.”

(Reported  By Joe Vazquez, Steve Rubenstein, Alyssa Pereira.  Photo by Elissa Davey)

{By now ‘Miranda’s’ remains have already been removed and taken to a safe place, every effort by Davey to find out who the child is will be made, but considering that a number of records were destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, if she died prior to 1906 there is little hope, but after 1907 there may be records.  Hopefully Ms. Davey will have luck in finding “Miranda’s” real name}

Later Darklings

                       As the coffin was found under the garage floor.


                       As it now currently looks prior to reburial.  

Of finding something abandoned, lost and found~~~

Well Darklings,

Today has turned out a bit different than we planned, we are home now from church but with a little situation, and its a good thing our cousin was able to help out.

We went to the cemetery as planned, visited the graves and put flowers out.  Belladonna was with us enjoying the change in location and scents, we trimmed some of the grass back, and made note to bring stone cleaner in the spring, the hard water can make the smooth surface of tombstones have that hard water streaks,  when Belladonna got very excited about something.

We thought oh she has seen a squirrel so Doyle took her leash to humor the little thing and went walking with her on the hunt as Sis and I finished things up.  We sat down for a minute to rest and Sis remarked to me how much Belladonna seems to keep everyone on their toes and we laughed about it.

Then we heard Doyle call us, we turned and saw he was still walking Belladonna who was hopping up and down towards something in his arms,  it turned out to be a very young dog, a black and tan Dashund.  No collar or anything, Doyle said he found the dog tied up with some string under a bush over near the fence of the cemetery, no one with it not even near by, Sis and I went to the spot and looked around for anyone but there was no one.  It looked dirty and cold.  Belladonna whined and kept looking at the dog but wagging her tail like "Look what I found Mummy".

I asked Doyle how did he find it and he said Belladonna led him to the little thing, I was concerned that maybe it had been abandon because it had Parvo, Doyle said one way to find out is to see if it refuses to drink water, so we put Belladonna's portable drinking bowl down and poured water in it and it drank and drank that we became concerned that it would make itself sick.  But it didn't seem to have Parvo.

What to do?  Sis said lets take the dog to my Vet and have it checked out and go from there, we stopped at the cemetery office to report the dog and gave our contact information if anyone reported to  them about it.
Then off to my Vet and hoping that we could be fitted in.

We were lucky the appointments were light and the Vet could see us.  We told her how we found the dog and we really didn't want to take it to a shelter but wanted to leave contact information, the Vet helped us, and checked the little thing out,  it needed a bath and flea treatment and it was about 5 months old.  So we left the little thing with the Vet and said we'd pick it up in a few hours and wait for the results.

The Vet must have done a rush on the tests,  we went back before the office closed and we were told no Parvo, but might need puppy shots to be on the safe side and appeared to be in good health, so out came my credit card but Sis said no it was going to be on her, so she paid for all the treatments, and made an appointment to bring the little thing in later this upcoming week for a further examination.

The cemetery office told us that on occasion people abandon their pets there and they have to call Animal Rescue to get them, mostly cats it appears and the Vet said she would contact several shelters to see if anyone reported a lost dog, but we all remarked that it was strange that someone would tie it to a bush, like as if it was abandon but there to be found by the caretakers.  But instead we found it.

The Vet had puppy food for it and suggested several brands that would be good, and it had been bathed and flea treated and we were told it took to bathing pretty good, but we think that it might have been too scared to do anything.  The Vet said that if we decide to keep the little thing to consider having him neutered, Doyle had a pained look on his face when that was mentioned,  I could understand his reaction, but we were in no hurry on that.

So then off to the pet store for a leash and collar and some more puppy food, its own bowls and a dog pillow also on Sis I said that she was putting up a lot of funds for a dog that we may not keep, and she looked at the little thing now in her arms and said to me "I beg to differ"  I only raised my eyebrows and began to realize we may have a new family member.  We put the new collar on the little thing as well as a matching leash and it immediately wagged its little tail and gave Sis a look like "I'm with you?  We're partner's right?"  and then we walked down the doggie toy section heading towards the check out counter when suddenly it grabbed this long blue squeeky dog toy it looked like a blue Wienner dog made out of terry cloth it was longer than the real dog and the little guy was not going to give it up, so with chew bones, dog bowls and bed, collar and leash and puppy food we marched to the counter.

Cousin Louise was home when we arrived and was as surprised as we were about the little guy and asked us the obvious "What's his name" and Doyle said "Wienner Dog" and we said "No" but he was firm. As we put the bowls in the kitchen he said "I prove it to you" and called out "Hey Wienner Dog" and the little thing came running in, found its food and it ate, so we surrendered.  Then we saw the time and asked Louise to watch both dogs while we were gone, she said she could.

And now we're home, because our schedule was mixed up Doyle has gone to  get our old standby Chinese".   Who 'Wienner Dog' is going to belong to I'm not sure but I am aware that they do suffer from back and hip problems, so we shall see, I don't think we'll get a call about someone missing a dog, and from the way its acting it seems to think its home carrying its toy in its mouth, Belladonna seems to have taken to him.  We think so too.

Later Darklings