MARYSVILLE — Danna Isaac can’t imagine a better Christmas present: the return of her husband’s stolen ashes.
A week ago, a thief broke into the Marysville widow’s trailer and bagged her television, a pair of new shoes, three Christmas cards and rolls of 50-cent pieces.
Worst of all, they swiped a maroon plastic box she kept in a bag next to her recliner.
“They could have the TV,” she said. “It was my husband’s ashes that I wanted back.”
She filed a report with the Marysville Police Department with little hope.
A week later, her Christmas wish was realized. A good Samaritan reunited Hiram Isaac’s ashes with his family.
Danna and Hiram Isaac first met in a Lynnwood neighborhood where they both lived more than three decades ago.
“Man,” she remembers thinking to herself the first time she set eyes on him, “this dude is good looking.”
She soon fell in love with and later married the Kentucky-born Air Force veteran who went by the nickname “Ike.”
Danna was by his side when he became ill with lung cancer. Ike died on Aug. 29, 2010. He was 83.
Ike was cremated and Danna kept the box containing his ashes near her when she was at home in their Marysville mobile home park.
Danna, 65, said she was devastated when she discovered the box was part of the stolen loot.
“I thought Ike was lost for good,” she said.
The burglary occurred Dec. 13, while Danna was out playing bingo.
That same afternoon, Aaron Gunderson was driving down Grove Street, a main arterial through Marysville a few blocks away from Danna Isaac’s home.
The Arlington man, 33, noticed an object near the centerline. He stopped and picked up the box with one hand. It was unusually heavy, roughly 20 pounds by his estimate.
Upon closer inspection, he noticed the name “Hiram Isaac” inscribed on it, with some dates below.
“Oh, my God,” he thought to himself. “These are someone’s remains.”
In that moment, he vowed to exhaust every possible option to find the owner.
He did an Internet search on a metal tag he found in a knot on the bag containing the ashes. It led him to the phone number of a crematorium. Someone from the company said he would get back to Gunderson. A week passed and he didn’t hear from anyone.
Gunderson did another Google search based on what he found beneath Hiram Isaac’s name on a label on the front of the box. This time, he reached someone from Sacred Moment, a funeral service company in Everett. A woman there was able to reach Rod and Carol Issac, Hiram’s son and daughter-in-law. That led to arrangements for Gunderson to bring Ike home.
“It kind of restores your faith in humanity,” Carol Isaac said.
Gunderson said he was relieved to return the ashes.
He took his duties as caretaker seriously, even striking a bond with the man he never knew.
Gunderson’s first instinct was to look for scuff marks on the box, in case the container had fallen out of a car. It was unblemished.
He brought the box home and placed it on his bedroom dresser. It just felt right to keep it warm.
He buckled a seatbelt across the box when he placed it in the backseat of his pickup truck. Yes, he had Ike Isaac accompany him to work on the chance that the call could come to reunite his ashes with the man’s family.
He even found himself talking to the box, like a companion. In jest, he asked, “Hiram, should we take the carpool lane today?”
The Isaac family is glad Ike’s ashes ended up with someone who cared.
The holidays suddenly seem a little bit more special for Ike’s widow.
“I got the best Christmas present anyone could ever get,” Danna Isaac said.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com
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