A proper funeral, 80 years later

The story of one’s life cannot be told without the knowledge that it will one day come to an end, at which point friends and family will gather to reflect.

The account of Charles Christ Petersen must be told in the same way, not for what he did during his life but for the way it ended. Petersen died sick and very, very alone.

It began Feb. 28, 1924, when the 7-year-old Petersen was taken from his ailing mother, Laura Petersen, in Anacortes, Wash. Within a short time, he was sent to a foster family in the Spokane area.

Petersen’s life was to begin, again. But he would not live to see May.

The 7-year-old contracted diphtheria, which affected between 100,000 and 200,000 people each year during the 1920s. As many as 15,000 died annually of the disease.

When his foster parents saw that Petersen was sick, they chose not to obtain medical attention. They returned him to the state children’s home instead.

Petersen was then taken to River Crest Hospital, where he spent 21 days. He died April 25, 1924.

The Rev. Smith conducted a service for the boy, who died apart from his birth mother and family, and removed from the foster parents who dismissed him as though he were damaged goods.

His body was cremated April 26, 1924, placed in a white jar and sealed. The jar was brown-bagged, wrapped with twine and labeled.

Incineration No. 88. Book 1.

For more than 80 years, Petersen’s ashes sat unclaimed in the basement of Hazen & Jaeger Funeral Home in Spokane, 18 steps removed from the light of day. In a large storage room with high ceilings, Petersen waited in a cabinet with others who had last names beginning with O and P.

It probably would have been his final resting place, were it not for his only remaining sibling and her genealogy-chasing son.

She never knew

Elenora Bryan can’t explain why she didn’t know until two years ago that she had a brother named Charlie.

“My life started when I was 6 years old,” said Bryan, a Bothell, Wash., resident who turned 86 on Sunday. “I don’t remember anything before that.”

Elenora was the fifth-born child of Herman and Laura Petersen, preceded by Henry, Elizabeth, Otto and Charles. Their father died in an explosion in 1918, and Laura Petersen took the family to Minneapolis. She remarried, for a short time, and gave birth to twins, George and Celia Moore. In 1921, the single mother took her seven children via train to Anacortes, a small town in northwestern Washington.

When Laura Petersen became sick in 1924, the five eldest children were taken from her by the state and moved to Spokane. Laura Petersen again remarried and successfully got three of her children back. Elenora was not among them.

By the late 1930s, Elizabeth had found the location of her missing sister. She contacted Elenora’s foster parents in an attempt to persuade the young woman to meet her birth mother. Bryan never went.

“I thought, well, she didn’t try to get me back so I don’t want to go see her,” she said.

What she didn’t know is that her mother tried to gain custody of her, as well. When her foster parents moved their family to Idaho, Washington law no longer applied, and Laura Petersen had little recourse.

Perhaps because Elenora never went to see her mother, Elizabeth never told her about Laura’s failed attempt. As time passed, Elenora would come to meet only Elizabeth, Otto and Celia.

And she was never told about her brother.

A letter answered

A few years back, Bill Bryan, one of Elenora Bryan’s sons, began tracing his family tree, what he likes to call “The Bryan Family Forest.”

Aside from his computer research, Bill Bryan also spoke with Elizabeth’s daughter, the person who knew the most about the family from which his mother was removed.

In their conversations, he learned two significant details that had not been revealed to his side of the family. Foremost, Laura Petersen attempted to get her daughter back. Additionally, a seventh sibling had died as a boy.

The family recently located the death certificate, and on it Bill Bryan saw that Charles Petersen was cremated at the Hazen & Jaeger.

Bryan wrote to the funeral home June 16, asking if it had any records on his uncle.

Five days later he received an e-mail from the home, stating that it had much the same information he had. Remarkably, the home had saved Petersen’s remains – along with 1,450 others – in the basement. Bill Bryan quickly got on the phone and began making arrangements to pick up the remains.

“I don’t know how many people have been researching their family tree and found someone in the form I found him,” he said.

A proper burial

Bill Bryan and his wife, who live in Virginia, usually go to visit his mother each year around the time of her birthday. This year, the three of them drove from Elenora’s home in Bothell to pick up Charlie’s ashes in Spokane.

On Tuesday they opened the small container in a private room at the funeral home. In 1924, Charles Petersen became the 88th person to be cremated by the parlor. When Hazen & Jaeger stopped performing the process at its Monroe Street location, the number was at more than 15,000.

“Here’s a funeral home that did the right thing,” said Bill Bryan, expressing shock – as well as gratitude – that Hazen & Jaeger kept the ashes for 80 years.

Hazen & Jaeger manager Dwayne Harmon said the founders of the home felt that it was their responsibility to keep uncollected remains for families, no matter the timeline. While this policy is no longer in place – remains now are kept 30 days – the home won’t dispose of the ashes that have been stored all these years.

Although the home hasn’t reconnected a family so many decades removed, it sees similar reunions about three times a year.

“It’s very rewarding to reunite them,” Harmon said.

The revelations of the last two years have taken an emotional toll on Elenora Bryan.

“I have different feelings now, naturally,” she said. “I still can’t call her my mother. I can call her Beth or Otto’s mother. But it wasn’t her fault. She tried, I guess.”

There are things she’ll always wonder about, cracks in her family history she’d like to see filled.

But in the meantime, Elenora said, a proper funeral is in order.

Petersen’s ashes will be buried later this year at the Grandview Cemetery in Anacortes, at the gravesite of his mother and siblings Henry, Elizabeth and Celia.

After 80 years, Charles Christ Petersen finally will be laid to rest.