EVERETT – Ruth Wilson put closure on a family mystery.
Wilson, 74, of Marysville, this week picked up a small box containing the cremated remains of her stepfather-in-law, Frank Mally, at an Everett law firm.
“To me, it’s closed a chapter,” Wilson said.
Wilson was accompanied by her daughter, Coni Bowman. The two had wondered for years what had happened to Mally’s ashes after he died of a heart attack and was cremated on Nov. 28, 1950.
The family held a memorial service for him, Wilson said, but Mally’s wife, Viola, didn’t claim his ashes for some reason. The ashes ended up in the garage of Dorothy Rainey, whose family operated a funeral home in Snohomish.
Rainey died this year, leaving in her garage 25 boxes of cremated human remains, including Mally’s. Their cremation dates range from 1932 to 1951. A story about the boxes in The Herald led Wilson and Bowman to Mally’s remains.
Meanwhile, a second family claimed the remains of an infant, said Sarah Duncan, a lawyer with the Adams, Johnson &Duncan law firm in Everett, which is handling the widow’s estate. The second family did not want to be identified.
The firm plans to wait a few weeks before deciding what to do with the unclaimed ashes, Duncan said.
Wilson and Bowman said they hope to place Mally’s ashes in his wife’s Everett grave.
Mally’s ashes will find a home 56 years after he was cremated. He was 56 when he died, Bowman pointed out.
“That’s my age,” she said.
Mally was also cremated on Wilson’s birthday.
“Odd details,” Wilson said. “I just think it was meant to be.”
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@heraldnet.com.
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