The Case of the Missing Grave

“Papa loved Saint Joseph.”

Mom’s frail hands clutched mine as she spoke. She was 94, and we both knew she didn’t have much longer.

“What do you mean, Mom?”

“Papa loved Saint Joseph,” she repeated.

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It was like that with Mom these days. Sometimes she talked with crystal clarity, but often her mind cloud­ed. Saint Joseph… Was it a clue?

I had a mystery to solve, and time was running out. A few weeks earlier, in a lucid moment, Mom spoke about her older sister Helen, who had died in a childhood accident. Mom, the last survivor of eight siblings, hadn’t even been born when Helen died. She couldn’t remember what year the accident happened. But some­thing haunted her.

“I know where all my siblings are laid to rest, all except for Helen,” Mom had said, her eyes welling with tears. “I want you to find my sister. Promise me you’ll find her.”

I’m no detective—but it seemed like a simple task. You can find anything on the internet these days, right? Mom’s maiden name, Mel­chionne, was unusual. Her family hadn’t strayed from its New York roots, where my Italian ancestors had immigrated in the nineteenth century, with little more than the clothes on their backs.

“I promise,” I said, knowing it might be my last promise to Mom.

I didn’t realize I’d offered to track down a ghost. Online I found census records for my grandparents, Pasquale and Amelia, and Mom’s other siblings—but no Helen. Her short life had fallen between census years. It was as if she’d never existed.

I tried the Catholic parish closest to my grandparents’ house in Bor­ough Park, Brooklyn, but their re­cords didn’t go back far enough. My grandparents had settled first in Manhattan’s Little Italy neighborhood before moving to Borough Park. Hel­en could have been born in either place. Who knew where she’d been baptized? School records were no help either. Helen hadn’t started school when she died.

“Did you find her?” Mom asked every time I saw her, looking weaker, slowly fading. Finally I’d pressed for any additional information she could give. “Papa loved Saint Joseph” was all she seemed able to offer.

Saint Joseph. The patron saint of carpenters. Helen’s father, Pasquale, had been a carpenter. I rolled the clue around in my mind. Of course. Could Helen be buried near my grandparents?

I trekked out to Holy Cross ceme­tery in Brooklyn. Ninety-six acres, with burials dating back to 1849. This feels right, I thought. She’s here.

“I’m sorry,” the caretaker in the cemetery office said. “We have no record of a Helen Melchionne. Do you have a death certificate or even a date of burial?”

I had neither. Even worse, I couldn’t even find where my grand­parents were buried. In those days, people of means sometimes offered burial space to friends or relatives who couldn’t afford a plot of their own. My grandparents were in one of those plots.

I asked Mom if she knew where in the cemetery her parents were buried, in case Helen was there.

But Mom couldn’t even supply that basic information.

I returned to the cemetery on a gray spring day and drove to the oldest section, where tombstones had fallen over or were unreadable. Sud­denly, I stopped. A white marble stat­ue commanded my attention. A man dressed in robes, his hand raised in blessing. Saint Joseph!

Papa loved Saint Joseph.

I jumped out of the car and walked up a row of tombstones. Some of the plots had sunk slightly, and I tapped the grass in front of me with my um­brella. A few tombstones had faces carved into them. The eyes seemed to follow me as I walked.

At last I found a large moss-covered gravestone for a family named Sarno. My grandparents’ names were listed underneath. Not Helen’s.

I was so sure. I reread the names and examined stones nearby. Hel­en’s name was nowhere. I wanted to cry. Instead I fell to my knees. “God, please help me find Helen. For Mom.” The only answer I got was the wind and the patter of rain falling on the gravestones.

Desperate, I began asking every­where—cemeteries, funeral parlors—and everyone I could think of—stonemasons, gravediggers, florists, groundskeepers. I even went back to Holy Cross and told visitors Helen’s story, asking if they’d seen the name Melchionne anywhere at the ceme­tery. Plenty of people offered their sympathies, but no one was able to unlock the mystery.

I prepared to break the bad news to Mom. Before I was leaving to go see her, the phone rang. “I can’t tell you who I am or where I got this information,” a woman said. She took a deep breath. “Helen’s birth name was Elena Melchionne. She died in Brooklyn on June 4, 1919. I pray that finding her gives your mother the closure that so many are denied.”

A million questions ran through my head. But the line went dead.

I pressed redial. Finally, a man picked up. “Hello?”

“Who is this?” I said. “I need to thank the person who just called—”

“Lady,” the man said, “this is a pay phone at a bus station in Kansas City, Missouri.”

I hung up, mystified.

With Helen’s real name and date of death, I was able to get her death certificate. The death certificate showed she had been buried at Holy Cross.

I returned to the cemetery with my husband, Tom, to visit the grave and take a photo for Mom. Seeing my aunt’s death certificate, the people at the cemetery could at last show me where Helen—Elena—was buried. She was in another part of the cemetery, in an unmarked grave with her grandpar­ents—my great-grandparents—Gaetano and Anna Melchionne.

“You found her!” Mom smiled radi­antly, holding the photo to her heart. “She’s with our grandmother and grandfather. She’s not alone.” Mom died a month later, at peace.

Today Helen’s grave is marked by a small stone I had made. I visit twice a year to make sure everything is kept up. Mom would want it that way. Before I leave, I give a nod to Saint Joseph. The patron saint of carpen­ters…and perhaps, a Kansas City pay phone.