SALT LAKE CITY — When Salt Lake City homeowner Osvaldo Ocegueda called FOX 13 News last week, he was trying to solve a mystery: Who was the 4-year-old girl whose headstone he found buried beneath his deck, and how did it get there?
WATCH: Child’s headstone found beneath Salt Lake City deck leads to decades-old mystery
A week later, not every question has been answered. But the family that had searched for the missing marker more than eight decades ago has been found.
The name carved into the stone was Elva Fessler, who died in 1940 at four years old.
FOX 13 tracked down Elva’s grave at the Salt Lake City Cemetery, where another headstone already marks her burial site. Donny DePasquale, owner of Utah Headstone Design, examined the two markers and said the one Ocegueda found appears to be an older marble stone that was likely replaced with a newer granite marker.
Then FOX 13’s story aired.
Members of Elva’s family saw the report and reached out. Days later, they gathered at Ocegueda’s home to see a headstone their family had lost more than eight decades ago.
“We finally found her,” said 86-year-old Rosemary Musgrave, Elva’s younger sister.
A sister Rosemary never met
Rosemary was born just two days after Elva died.
She said her mother was devastated by the death of one daughter as she welcomed another.
“Mama was a mess,” Rosemary recalled. “I went to my aunts for a while because Mama couldn’t handle it.”
Although Rosemary never met Elva, she grew up hearing about her.
So did the next generation.
Susan Forrastall, Elva’s niece, said her father, Gene — Elva’s brother — often talked about the little sister he remembered sitting in her bed and watching her brothers play outside.
“He remembered her sitting up in her bed that was by the front window and watching her brothers play outside,” Forrastall said.
One family photograph shows Elva with a large white dog. Rosemary said the dog belonged to a neighbor but would come to the house each morning, scratch at the door and spend the day lying on Elva’s bed.
Two days after Elva died, Rosemary said, the dog died too.
A headstone lost in a flood
The family also knew the story of how Elva’s headstone disappeared.
Five years after her death, a major flash flood tore through the Salt Lake City Cemetery in 1945, damaging the grounds and dislodging headstones.
Elva’s marker disappeared.
Elva’s niece Debbie Colvell said family members traveled from Ogden to Salt Lake City every day for two weeks searching the damaged cemetery.
“Two weeks solid,” she said. “Every day they came from Ogden down to look through the cemetery.” Colvell said.
They never found Elva’s marker.
Until Ocegueda pulled up his deck more than 80 years later.
Exactly how a headstone lost at the cemetery ended up buried beneath a deck remains a mystery.
Family members initially believed Ocegueda’s property was the Kesslers’ old home. But a photograph in an old family album shows an address two doors down, leaving the family with no clear explanation for how the marker ended up beneath Ocegueda’s deck.
Finally, a face to the name
The reunion also answered a different question for Ocegueda.
Since discovering the marker, he had wondered what the little girl whose name was carved into it looked like.
Elva’s family brought photographs.
“Every night I close my eyes and I’m like, ‘What do you look like? What do you look like?’” Ocegueda said. “But now I know exactly what to look for.”
Despite spending decades wondering what happened to Elva’s marker, her family decided not to take it from Ocegueda — at least for now.
Forrastall said Rosemary decided the marker should stay with the man who found it.
“We didn’t get to the end of the road and Rosemary said, ‘This needs to stay here,’” Forrastall said.
The family said if the marker eventually leaves Ocegueda’s home, they would like it returned to the cemetery.
For Ocegueda and FOX 13, the story began with two questions: Who was Elva, and how did her headstone end up beneath his deck?
A week later, the second question remains unanswered.
But the first led somewhere no one expected — back to Elva’s family.
