A couple missing for 75 years may have finally been found. Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin went out to milk their cows in a meadow above Chandolin in the Valais canton on August 15, 1942. For 75 years, their 75 children held out hope their parents would eventually surface, and finally they may have found solace.
Marcelin and Francine’s youngest daughter, Marceline Udry-Dumoulin, now 75, told the Lausanne daily Le Matin, “We spent our whole lives looking for them, without stopping. We thought that we could give them the funeral they deserved one day. I can say that after 75 years of waiting this news gives me a deep sense of calm.”
Two bodies were discovered on a shrinking glacier in the Swiss Alps, and were completely preserved in ice. Bernhard Tschannen, the director of Glacier 3000 told the Le Matin, “The bodies were lying near each other. It was a man and a woman wearing clothing dating from the period of World War II. They were perfectly preserved in the glacier and their belongings were intact.”
The couple left behind seven children, five sons and two daughters. Marceline continued with the Le Matin saying, “It was the first time my mother went with him on such an excursion. She was always pregnant and couldn’t climb in the difficult conditions of a glacier. After a while, we children were separated and placed in families. I was lucky to stay with my aunt. We all lived in the region but became strangers.”
As for upcoming funeral plans for her parents, she said, “For the funeral, I won’t wear black. I think that white would be more appropriate. It represents hope, which I never lost.”
Via The Guardian
