a name at last

7/27/2019 A Name at Last

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Of a ll the frustrations that face

a funeral dire c t o r, few ex-

ceed that of having an un-

named decedent. Interring a John

or a Jane Doe means no rela tiv es

to notify, no family to counsel and no

real name to engrave. After the Ti-

tanic disaster, funeral directors facedthis problem in preparing bodies that

had been ret urned to Halifax, Nova

Scotia, the city from which the recov-

ery operation was based. Of the 209

bodies that were brought there, 150

a re int erred in three cemeteries an d

over 40 of them remain unidentified.

One of the most poignant stories

of these victims involves a yo ung bo y.

Known officially as body #4, he car-

ried no identification. The crew of

the ship tha t re c o ve red him, moved

by his pl ight , contributed t ow ard s

the boys funeral, marker and inter-

ment at city-owned Fairview Lawn

C e m e t e ry. Set amo ng 120 ot her Ti-

tanic markers, that of the Unknown

Child of the Titanic (as the boy came

to be know n) reads:

Erected

to t he memor y

of an

unknown child

whose remains

were recovered

after the

disaster t o

the Titanic

April 15, 1912

For 90 years, the boy lay unidenti-

fied at Fairv i e w. Then in 2002, a

team of researchers fina lly gave him a

name.

H ali fax geologist Alan R uff m a n

has long been a Titanic student. The

autho r of Titanic Remembered: The

Unsinkable Ship and H alifax, Ruff-

man has spent hours at the cemeter-

ies and at the Publ ic Archives of

Nova Scotia, which houses records of

the recovery operation. Over 40 fu-

neral directors from the Canadian

Mar i t i m e P rov i nces , l ed b y JohnSnow of J.A. Snow Funeral Home in

H alifax, took part in that operation.

For some time, Ruffman had been

investigating the identity of another

victim a t Fairv i e w, bod y #281, an d

w a s w o r k i n g w i t h t h e R e v e re n d

Ca non Da vid Browning of Fonthill,

Onta rio. Brow ning, rector of t he An-

glican Holy Trinity Parish, is clergy-

m a n t o t h e f a m i ly o f v i c t i m a n d

crewmember Ca therine J. Wallis, a nd

was serving as a go-between to pro-

tect their then-desire for anonymity.

They long believed that Mrs. Wall i s

AName at Last:

Identifying the Unknown Child

Of the TitanicBYCALVIN SUN

American Cemetery, July 2004


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was body #281, and had come to

R u f fm an (through Brow ni ng) fo r

help.

In re s e a rch ing th e Wa ll is ca se,

Ru ffman apparently ha d reached an

impasse. Then, in the late summer of

1999, he con nected w ith D r. Ry a n

P a rr, at the time co-director of the

Paleo-DNA Laboratory at LakeheadUniversity in Ontario. Parr had been

identifying, via DNA analysis, famil-

ial relationships at a Roman-Byzan-

tine cemetery in Egypt. After seeing a

television special about the unidenti-

fied Titanic victims, and wanting to

become involved, he called the Hali-

fax-based Maritime Museum of the

Atlantic and w as re f e rred to Ruff-

man, a research a ssociat e there.

P a rr described his w ork in Egypt,

suggested tha t the same appro a c h

might w ork fo r the Titanic victimsand gave R uffman w ritten inform a-

tion. Ruffma n relayed the inform a-

t i on to the Wal l i s f am i l y v i a

B row ning. In 2000, t he fa mily a c-

cepted Parrs offer, and asked that he

p roceed. Ruff man then inform a l l y

approached Robert Strang M.D., the

N o v a S c o t i a M e d i c a l O f f i c e r o f

Health, about the process of request-

ing a disinterment. Strang explained

that he needed the family to establish

a strong case for why they believed

they were related to body #281. He

f u rther explained that the exhuma-

tion required a legitimate purpose so

that it w ould not be, in his w ords, a

fishing expedition.

P a rr an d Ruf fma n then re a l i z e d

that given thei r intent to dis inter

body #281, they might as well ask

permission for other unidentified vic-

tims as well, to minimize disrup tion

to Fairv i e w. O ne such vict im w as

body #240 and the other was body

#4, the Unknown Child. For this rea-son , Ruf fm an and Parr asked the

Wallis family to delay their disinter-

ment request. Ruffman then concen-

trated on finding relatives of these

other two victims.

R u ffma n and many other Ti t a n i c

authori t ies bel ieved that body #4

could be tw o-year-old G sta P lsson,

the younges t son o f A l m a (ne

B e rglund) a nd Nils P lsson of G ru-

van, Sweden. Alma, Gsta and three

other children (al l of whom died)

w e re t ra veling to Chicago to join

Ni ls , who had gone before them.

None of the children ever were offi-

cially reco vered. However, the coro-

n ers records for body #4 contained

the notat ion Baby P lsson (?), thus

causing Ruffman and the others to

consider G sta as a candidate.R u ffma n a lso believed tha t bod y

#240 could be 22-year-old Charles J.

Shorney. Unlike the case of body #4,

no nota tions re g a rding identity ap-

pear in the re c o rds for bod y #240.

H o w e v e r, Ruffma n knew from his

w ork that body #240 a nd Shorn e y

were close in age. He knew also that

personal effects found on body #240

w e re co nnected t o Brighto n, Eng-

land, a tow n near w here Shorn e y

l i v e d , a n d w h e r e h e w o u l d h a v e

bought his ticket.Ruffman in particular was seeking

maternal relatives because of the ap-

p roa ch tha t Pa rr w as pro p o s i n g ,

which involved mitochondrial DNA

(m tDNA) . Unl i ke nuc l ear DNA

(w hich is specific to an individual),

mtD NA remains the same acro s s

mul t iple generat ions of a fami ly ,

being passed from mother to child.

The a na lysis re q u i red a miniscule

sample of human remains (specifical-

ly, only about one gram), so tha t only

a partial rather than a full exhuma-

tion would be required.Ruff man successfully located living

m a t e rnal relatives of G sta P lsson,

and also located relatives of Charles

Shorney. Because the latter were not

maternal relatives, their mtDNA was

o f n o u s e t o P a r r . H o w e v e r , t h e

S h o rney relat ives did give the team

p e rmission instead to obta in D NA

from the remains of Shorneys father.

In early 2001, the famil ies of the

t h ree v ic t ims for mal ly pet i t ioned

Strang for partial disinterment of the

graves of bodies #4, #240 and #281.Strang granted their request, thus al-

low ing The Tita nic Ancient D NA

Project (as it came to be known) to

proceed.

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the project team w ant ed publici ty

about the operation to be delayed

unti l noon on Thursday, May 17,

2001, when it would begin. For this

reason, they requested that the news

media embargo any news until that

time. This request pertained as well

to a taped interview that one project

team member had granted. However,

an employee of an Ontario television

station, who knew about the inter-

v i e w , t e l ephoned a f r i end w ho

w o r k e d a t a H a l if a x s t a t io n , a n d

leaked details about the project. As a

result, that station bro adcast new s of

the project a t 11:30 p.m. o n Tuesda y,

Ma y 15.

As a result of this action, the team

faced wo rldwide media a ttention ear-

lier than planned. One Halifax resi-dent , who considered himsel f the

g u a rd i an o f the Unknow n C hi ld ,

chained himsel f to the marker in

order to stop the project. The matter

was resolved after police officials as-

s u red the man tha t the re m a i n s

would be disturbed as little as possi-

ble. The police then lifted the chains

o ff the ma rker, and the ma n simply

left .

D espite the pre m a t u re an nounce-

ment , the dis interments began as

schedul ed w i th b od i es #2 4 0 and#281, located in adjacent lots at the

low er end of the Titanic section. Fol-

lowing prayers by Brow ning, w ork-

ers began to open the side-by-side

graves. As they did so, they encoun-

tered large amounts of water, due to

the low elevation of these graves and

the high level of water table. Though

they examined the gra ves care f u l l y,

they found no remains at all. This de-

velopment shocked the t eam, ca using

them to a sk themselves , in Pa rr s

w ords, What are w e going to do?

Di scussi ng the m a t t er the nex t

morning, the team concluded that the

c i rculat ion of the large amo unt of

g roundw a ter in the a cidic soil had

served to completely dissolve the re-

mains. On the other hand, they be-

lieved they might have some success

with the Unknown Child grave, be-

c a u s e i t w a s a t a h i g h e r p o i n t .

Though t hey w ere concerned abo ut

yet a third setback, they decided to

continue after a lunchtime commentby Halifax city official Peter Bigelow,

Well, well never know unless we go

ahead.

As the opening of the Unknow n

C hi l d grave proceeded , the t eam

began to see evidence of the burial.

Removing the final pieces of earth by

hand, they saw small pieces of white

w ood fro m the now-rotting lid of t he

small casket, a nd the remnants of fl o-

ral stems. Inside the casket, they dis-

Burial grounds for victims of the Tit anic disaster at Fairview Lawn Cemeter y in Hali-

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c o v e red w hat they had sought: re-

mains consisting of three teeth (in-

c l udi ng tw o m ol ars ) p l us a s i x

centimeter fragment of bone. They

a l so s a w a b a d l y c o r ro d e d m et a l

medallion engraved w ith the w ord s

O u r B a b e . Th i s m ed a l l io n w a s

now in two pieces, and one letter wa s

completely dissolved. Their third at-

tempt ha d succeeded.R e t u rning to his labora tory, Parr

began analyzing the bone, a proce ss

tha t occurred b e tw een D ecem b er

2001 a nd Febru a ry 2002. H ow ever,

he soo n encount ered pro b l e m s .

M etal from the Our Babe medal-

lion had seeped into the bone, conta-

minat ing it. As Ruf fma n re m a r k e d ,

t h e me d a l li o n w a s a t w o -e d g ed

s w o r d . I t d i d c o m p l ic a t e t h e

mtDNA analysis , but a t the same

time pre s e rved the bo ne. No nethe-

less, Parr still was able to analyze themtDNA and conclude that it was a

non-match w ith tha t of a matern a l

Plsson relative. On May 3, 2002,

Parr and Ruffman released the disap-

po i n t i ng new s tha t the Unknow n

Child was not Gsta Plsson.

While the bone mtD NA excluded

the Plsson boy, i ts contamination

made it impractical for further analy-

sis. Parr fortunately discovered an al-

t ernative mtDNA source. In talking

Unknown Childs grave at Fairv i e w

G a rden Cemetery

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5/5

with dental experts, to whom he had sent the teeth, he

learned that one molar contained dentin, a material rich in

mtDNA. He learned also that the shape and condition of

the teeth indicated a boy younger than a bout a year old.

While Parr continued his work now with the mtDNAfrom the dentin, Ruffman set out to locate living maternal

relatives of five other boys that he thought could be the

Unknown Child. These five boys were:

G ilbert Danbom (age five months, from Sweden)

Alfred Peacock (age seven months, fro m England)

Eino Viljam Panula (age thirteen months, fro m Fin-

land)

Sidney Goo dw in (age 19 months, from England)

Eugene Rice (age 2 years, from Ireland)

After much effort on his own and from professional ge-

nealogists, Ruffman managed to locate maternal relatives

for all five boys. All of these relatives agreed to assist, by

providing six drops of blood. In fact, one of them, a firstcousin of the Panula boy, was a man who was 100 years

old.

The mt D NA testing r esulted in a non-mat ch f or re l a-

tives of three of the boys. The other tw o the Go odw in

and Panula boys did have relat ives whose mtDNA

matched. How ever, the Goodw in boy wa s too old to have

the shape and condition of the teeth that were recovered.

Based on this evidence, Parr and Ruffman announced on

No v. 6, 2002, their conclusion tha t the U nknow n C hild

w as Eino Viljam Pa nula.

What did the participants think about t heir w ork? Ruff-

man takes pride in helping reunite the Berglund family,

from whom Alma Plsson, the mother of Gsta, was de-

scended. There are tw o bra nches of the family, he ex-

plained. One w as in the w est [of Sweden] and the other

w as in the south. But fo r the project, he believes, neither

bra nch might ever ha ve discovered the o ther.Pa rrs strongest impression w as the huge personal reper-

cussions of the Titanic. H e mentioned Ca therine J. Wallis,

whose descendants provided the impetus for The Titanic

Ancient DNA Project, and who still believe that she was

body #281. The husband [of M rs. Wallis] had died, he

said. Now the wife died a lso, a nd their children w ere or-

phaned. I had to satisfy my desire to help.

Bro wnings greatest concern was for the dignity of the

operation. H e spoke almost mischievously about the cat

and mo use games he played w ith the media in that re-

gard. On several critical occasions, he would casually slide

in front of a camera to block its view. He also made a

point of wearing his clerical collar. He agrees with Parrthat even after 90 years, the personal tragedy of Tita nic

cont inues for victim relat ives. Telling the Wallis rela t ives

abo ut empty grave #281, he said, w as heart bre a k ing.

But he realized that as a professional, he had to do it.

Perhaps the most succinct comment came from funeral

d i rector Do n M acKay of the J.A. Snow Funeral H ome.

Said Ma cKay, M r. Snow w ould have been pleased.

AC

Calv in Sun is a consultan t and speaker who has studied

the Tit anic and has incorporated stor ies about i t in to hi s

professional pr esentations, includi ng two for N FDA . H e

visited the Halifax Ti tanic graves in 1998 and int ervi ewed

cemetery staff and others connected wi th them. H is art icle

on t he subject appeared in t he Octo ber 1999 issue of

Ameri can Funeral D ir ector. H e has int ervi ewed and corr e-

sponded wit h r elati ves of six T it anic victim s and sur-

v iv ors . H e can be r eached at csun@calv i nsun.com,

www.calvinsun.com

As the openi ng of t he Un k n own Chi l d grave proceeded, t he t eam began to see

evidence of the burial.

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