I suppose I can let this little story slip and not get anyone in trouble since the two concerned are now dead. It's probably not all that unusual an act but I'm pretty sure what the siblings, Sula Splitek and Hobart Wallen did was illegal. I just happen to think it was a darn good idea and I admire them for their daring!
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| William Jesse Wallen circa 1960 |
Sula and Hobart's brother William Jesse Wallen, my paternal grandfather, died in Tuscon, Arizona in 1976. This is the story concerning his burial that Sula told her nephew Charlie Wallen, taken from Charlies's genealogy notes:
"During a conversation between Sula and my wife and I at her home in Elsinore (California) in 1985, she related the following: She and her brother James Hobart went to Tuscon, Arizona upon being notified of their brother William's death. They claimed the cremated remains of William and took them back to Sula's home in Elsinore. Then came the question - what to do with the remains? Neither one of them had much money, so, according to Sula, one night they took the remains to the Elsinore Cemetery and dug a hole into their brother Charles' grave and put William's remains in it. Knowing Sula, I tend to believe this story. I leave it here for what it's worth.
Charles H. Wallen"
What I find especially amusing is that Sula and Hobart were both in their 70s when they entered that cemetery after dark to make their covert burial!
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Well, at least you think you know where his cremains are buried.
ReplyDeleteAt 70, they had nerve, and why not! LOL
Great story. May he rest in peace.
Funny story, I better make arrangements, would not like to be burried on an unmarked grave.
ReplyDeleteClever! I think I might have gone for a general sprinkling somewhere, but they kept the family together in one spot. I like it.
ReplyDeleteCovert and daring, yes, but oh so sentimental, too. Loyal family to the end.
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