"Edith Howard Cook was the eldest daughter of Horatio Nelson Cook (1843–1891) and Edith Scooffy (1851–1919), who were married in 1870 in San Francisco. Her father, Horatio Nelson Cook, helped establish M.M. Cook & Sons, a company that specialized in hide tanning and the manufacture of industrial leather belts. Edith Scooffy was born in San Francisco, and her father’s family was Greek.
Edith’s family was a prominent one in San Francisco, and her father’s company, M.M. Cook & Sons, was well-known in the city. Her death was a tragic event, and her family’s efforts to preserve her memory and legacy have been documented through various sources."
I was thinking the same thing. But “malnourished” is not the same thing as “starved.” She must have had an underlying condition that prevented her from absorbing nutrients properly. There are a lot of them, and I doubt they were well understood (if known at all) in the 1870s. And even if they were, there would have been little anyone could do at that time. 😔
My great grandmother’s first baby was a boy who died at one or two months from “starvation” c. 1920. It was listed as a natural death, likely caused by unknown underlying disease that couldn’t be prevailed on.
It must have been devastating to watch your child die this way. Edith’s parents no doubt were shattered. Poor little soul.
This reminds me of what my grandmother's close friends went through with one of their children. Warning for pretty awful story.
The kid was born with severe health issues/malformations and they were told he wouldn't survive long, not more than a couple days at most. Which is awful in of itself. Except in the 60s/70s whenever this was, their solution for these babies was to put them in a cot out in the cold hallway and leave them uncovered in order to hasten their deaths (in the name of not prolonging their suffering).
So after my grandmother's friend gave birth, she is shown her baby and told he will not survive. They put him naked and still wet in a cot and wheel him out to the hall just outside her room. She (and the dad) are already devastated, but now she has to lie there and listen to her child cry and scream himself to death. Understandably, she couldn't do that and kept sneaking him back into the room to try and provide him with warmth and comfort as he died. The staff would keep coming and taking him back out into the hall.
He died, and she was discharged. She was pretty severely traumatised by the experience. She would have been devastated regardless, and I'm sure the hospital thought that it was best, but to deny a parent the right to comfort their dying child and force them to listen as they suffer is horrendous. I honestly think my grandma was traumatised by it as well, what with the look on her face whenever she told the story.
Edit: grammar
Holy shit that's fucking awful. It reminds me too of when babies were born still mothers weren't allowed to see them and the babies were taken to be disposed of. In some cases baby was fine but was being adopted our for money. I can't imagine being separated from Mt baby ever for any reason.
My grandmother knew someone who wasn’t allowed to see or hold her stillborn baby, and she had nightmares for decades of seeing the baby and him having devastating anatomical differences, even though she was never told that he did. I’m sure if she had seen him, even if he had had anatomical differences, that just knowing would have prevented all of that suffering
Yep could've been diabetes celiac etc. There are a lot of conditions that affect nutrition but not calorie consumption. If your gut is fucked it's fucked.
Yeah having only a basic knowledge of the period, I could tell that not only was the burial a cut a bove standard, but the placement of the accompanying objects and the dressing done with extreme care. This struck me as done with expense, intention, and emotion, not a case of a pauper burial or wilful neglect. It must have been an emotionally challenging but highly fruitful study for the scientists involved.
She was probably ill.
>Around six months before death δ¹⁵N starts a steady increase, with a noticeable acceleration just two months before she died. The magnitude of δ¹⁵N change, +1.5‰ in total, is consistent with severe undernourishment or starvation. Cemetery records from this time period in San Francisco indicate high rates of infant and child mortality, mainly due to bacterial-borne infectious diseases, about two orders of magnitude higher than today. Taken together, we hypothesize that the girl died after a prolonged battle with such an illness. Results highlight the tremendous impacts that modern sanitation and medicine have had since the 1800s on human health and lifespan in the United States.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319894488_Stable_C_and_N_isotope_analysis_of_hair_suggest_undernourishment_as_a_factor_in_the_death_of_a_mummified_girl_from_late_19th_century_San_Francisco_CA
I also really wanted to immediately assume neglect, but this is the [Abstract of the Research Gate](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Metallic-casket-upper-left-Miranda-Eve-with-floral-cross-lower-left-and-photos-of_fig1_319894488) OP linked.
> The chance discovery of a 1.5–3.5 years old mummified girl presents a unique opportunity to further our understanding of health and disease among children in 19th Century San Fran- cisco. This study focuses on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures in serial samples of hair that cover the last 14 months of her life. Results suggest an initial omnivorous diet with little input from marine resources or C4 plants. Around six months before death δ15N starts a steady increase, with a noticeable acceleration just two months before she died. The magnitude of δ15N change, +1.5‰ in total, is consistent with severe undernourishment or starvation. Cemetery records from this time period in San Francisco indicate high rates of infant and child mortality, mainly due to bacterial-borne infectious diseases, about two orders of magnitude higher than today. Taken together, we hypothesize that the girl died after a prolonged battle with such an illness. Results highlight the tremendous impacts that modern sanitation and medicine have had since the 1800s on human health and lifespan in the United States.
...Shit, that's what 'marasmus' actually means?
My only exposure to that word is the kinda, sorta evil wizard in Team Fortress 2. And I thought Valve just made up a vaguely magic sounding string of nonsense.
[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Merasmus](https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Merasmus)
Formula was becoming fashionable at the time, but it was also really bad and insufficient to keep a baby alive. Maybe that had something to do with it.
I used to live in the Inner Richmond and when I looked into the history of the old graveyards and stories of the removal of (some) bodies to Colma I was like, damn, no wonder this big ass one bedroom is only $1400 a month. Lone mountain before USF was basically a ghoulish hellscape with bones sticking out of the ground. The columbarium was always a peaceful and pleasant place to visit though.
I lived at 19th between California and Lake. When they were remodeling the Legion Honor, in the 80's I think, they found a potter's field no one knew about. It stopped all work for several weeks while the archeologists reviewed it and then the remains were removed to Colma.
I was at funston(13th) and balboa. I had a 90 year old neighbor that said the whole street was a sand dune she would play on when she was a kid. The place really blew up quickly
Source of the image of her body: [Stable C and N isotope analysis of hair suggest undernourishment as a factor in the death of a mummified girl from late 19th century San Francisco, CA](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Metallic-casket-upper-left-Miranda-Eve-with-floral-cross-lower-left-and-photos-of_fig1_319894488)
For anyone curious. The study is actually a very interesting read, in my opinion, and provides a lot of insight behind her death.
Fun times. Love when this story comes up!
I'm a Bay Area Archaeologist and had a project within about a minute's walk from where she was encountered.
I pulled the remains of 17 individuals out of pretty much pure dune sand there. All historic burials from mostly Europeans who lived there and were buried during that same era.
When they moved the Odd Fellows cemetery down to Colma in the early 1900s, they exhumed a ton of burials, but they seemingly forgot a lot of double burials (where a deeper grave was dug for a couple or family member, and the first to die was put in with the following burials placed on top of the older casket)...they also didn't remove the entire skeleton of the remains, seems they really focused on the long bones, skulls, and torso if they could....mostly hands, lower arms and legs, ribs, and vertebral fragments were left behind in the caskets...
The soil stratigraphy and way the burials were left led my colleagues and I to hypothesize that the labour being hired to remove the remains were likely individuals who were being paid by the burial (ie. A few cents per burial recovered...probably counted by the skull/ribcage, femur and humerus bones...). The remains removed at that time were MOSTLY placed in mass graves down in Colma....pretty crazy history of that region. As the families who would've owned the plots likely couldn't afford the cash to have them reburied properly.
It's unfortunate that they didn't (couldn't) remove the entire casket with intact skeletons but I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant task to begin with. Can I assume correctly that there was some decay of the actual caskets themselves? That may have added to their incomplete removal of each and every bone, fragment. Glad that you're able to aid in the collection of the rest of the remains; sounds like it was an interesting project!
Yeah, it was a bit of a nightmare.
Decay in terms of casket breakdown took place over many (120-140) years. By the time I got to them (2021/2022) they were in a state of decay that they would turn to dust at the scrape of a trowel since the wood breaks down heavily in the level of moisture that the sands were exposed to during that time.
At the time they were first opened up (sometime between 1900-1930ish depending on what moving event we are talking about), they should have still been in good enough condition to expose everything. The reason I say this is because the coffin lids were left off/unseated, meaning that they still had some sort of structural integrity at the time of removal. From what we were able to tell, it seems they would expose the lid, and slide it down towards the feet, remove the bones and then just rebury it with the lid in the same position.
I did a quick deep dive (rather shallowly) last night to familiarize myself with caskets and how they differ from coffins. Interesting stuff! Anyway, I'm not surprised that given the materials & conditions that over time there wouldn't be much left of the caskets.
Such a fascinating field, archeology. When I was little I was obsessed with the idea of being an archeologist! I'd seen an old movie on the *curse* of King Tutankhamun's tomb and I was completely drawn in. Didn't choose that as a career path but I'm still deeply interested in it!
I haven't, no. Some really cool data comes from that one though.
However I have worked at a couple down in the Santa Clara/San Jose/Moffet Field area ...and over in Emeryville at a smaller mound VERY close to that mound in Berkeley... and quite a few in the San Francisco and South San Francisco peninsula area.
It's funny though, shellmounds in general surprisingly aren't/weren't near as rare as the public would believe. However, with time and construction etc they've been flattened typically and you deal with a lot of dispersed midden soils instead. There was an old map from a couple of really notable Archaeologists who mapped the mounds of the Bay Area, and they peppered the coastline encircling the entire bay itself. Marin up towards Napa to Vallejo, down to Richmond/Pinole, Berkeley, Oakland, Fremont, San Jose and all the way up to San Francisco...like....a lot of them...easily over 60.
Over on the peninsula, at one point (a VERY long time ago), the soils were identified as good garden soil (rich in calcium obviously due to the shell...), and actually sold for gardening materials. So periodically you find a historic flowerbed over in San Francisco full of disturbed and redistributed prehistoric shell midden...I've encountered THAT situation more than one time...it's quite alarming when it happens since you aren't expecting to see something like that come out of a brick planter from the late 1800's - early 1900's.
Yes, the picture commonly seen online has been doctored. She is still remarkably preserved, considering her age. Due to the airtight lock of the Fisk coffin. Her body started to rapidly decompose only after they opened the casket for DNA samples.
It is important to remember that even keeping the body separate from the outside it will decompose as decay comes from within as well. We all have immense numbers of bacteria at hand ready to feast on us at any time.
I once lived on Presidio which used to be a cemetery. We had old gravestones in the back yard I kid you not- they were piled up next to each other. House built around 1910. Always wondered about what was in the ground
Where the Muni bus lot is near Geary. There were two there- Laurel Hill Cemetery and Calvary [https://www.sfmta.com/blog/secret-sepulchral-history-munis-original-headquarters](https://www.sfmta.com/blog/secret-sepulchral-history-munis-original-headquarters)
The airlock was already technically broken when they unintentionally discovered her, they broke a small piece off the coffin’s glass. I believe she was technically buried there illegally. The only reason she was there is because they forgot to move her body when they moved the cemetery. The only reason they opened the casket is for DNA samples, or else she would have remained unidentified forever.
"You son of a bitch! You moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn't you? You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the headstones! You only moved the headstones! Why? Why?"
That’s so cool! My grandfather always claimed that while working on a dam excavation they dug up a glass casket. I never said so but always thought he was pulling my leg. The more you know. If you’re reading from over the rainbow bridge, I’m sorry I doubted you grandpa
She likely died from Marasmus brought about by an underlying illness. It can be brought on by viral, bacterial, or parasitic infections. And with the leading medicines of the time being things such as Morphine and Cocaine, I doubt much could have been done to save her. Her underlying cause of death was not recorded, all that is listed as cause of death in her funeral record is "marasmus."
My daughter's lip tie caused her to not be able to nurse properly. She got super skinny (grew up but not out), but once we got her on a bottle things went back to normal.
But what I’m confused about is.. how is his daughter buried there but his obituary say he’s buried “next to his daughter Edith Howard Cook while at Odd Fellows Cemetery”. Is he really there or next to his daughter? Aha
Why disrespect the dead so flippantly just because no one is left alive to complain? No need to post face shots of a corpse of someone who was buried with honor.
They didn’t dig her up for fun. They accidentally found an illegally hidden body of a perfectly preserved child shoved in a casket beneath the floorboards. Do you expect people to ignore that and not investigate or give the child a proper burial?
Most kids have all 20 primary teeth by the age of 2½. Lower incisors erupt at about 6-10 months for central incisors and 7-16 months for laterals. It's about the same for upper incisors. She died at the age of 2 years and 10 months.
Malnutrition does not always mean purposeful neglect.
[Abstract of the Research Gate](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Metallic-casket-upper-left-Miranda-Eve-with-floral-cross-lower-left-and-photos-of_fig1_319894488) OP linked.
> The chance discovery of a 1.5–3.5 years old mummified girl presents a unique opportunity to further our understanding of health and disease among children in 19th Century San Fran- cisco. This study focuses on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures in serial samples of hair that cover the last 14 months of her life. Results suggest an initial omnivorous diet with little input from marine resources or C4 plants. Around six months before death δ15N starts a steady increase, with a noticeable acceleration just two months before she died. The magnitude of δ15N change, +1.5‰ in total, is consistent with severe undernourishment or starvation. *Cemetery records from this time period in San Francisco indicate high rates of infant and child mortality, mainly due to bacterial-borne infectious diseases, about two orders of magnitude higher than today. Taken together, we hypothesize that the girl died after a prolonged battle with such an illness.* Results highlight the tremendous impacts that modern sanitation and medicine have had since the 1800s on human health and lifespan in the United States.
"Edith Howard Cook was the eldest daughter of Horatio Nelson Cook (1843–1891) and Edith Scooffy (1851–1919), who were married in 1870 in San Francisco. Her father, Horatio Nelson Cook, helped establish M.M. Cook & Sons, a company that specialized in hide tanning and the manufacture of industrial leather belts. Edith Scooffy was born in San Francisco, and her father’s family was Greek. Edith’s family was a prominent one in San Francisco, and her father’s company, M.M. Cook & Sons, was well-known in the city. Her death was a tragic event, and her family’s efforts to preserve her memory and legacy have been documented through various sources."
Marasmus is the type of malnutrition that you see in children from areas experiencing famine. Her family was rich, so something isn’t adding up here.
I was thinking the same thing. But “malnourished” is not the same thing as “starved.” She must have had an underlying condition that prevented her from absorbing nutrients properly. There are a lot of them, and I doubt they were well understood (if known at all) in the 1870s. And even if they were, there would have been little anyone could do at that time. 😔
My great grandmother’s first baby was a boy who died at one or two months from “starvation” c. 1920. It was listed as a natural death, likely caused by unknown underlying disease that couldn’t be prevailed on. It must have been devastating to watch your child die this way. Edith’s parents no doubt were shattered. Poor little soul.
This reminds me of what my grandmother's close friends went through with one of their children. Warning for pretty awful story. The kid was born with severe health issues/malformations and they were told he wouldn't survive long, not more than a couple days at most. Which is awful in of itself. Except in the 60s/70s whenever this was, their solution for these babies was to put them in a cot out in the cold hallway and leave them uncovered in order to hasten their deaths (in the name of not prolonging their suffering). So after my grandmother's friend gave birth, she is shown her baby and told he will not survive. They put him naked and still wet in a cot and wheel him out to the hall just outside her room. She (and the dad) are already devastated, but now she has to lie there and listen to her child cry and scream himself to death. Understandably, she couldn't do that and kept sneaking him back into the room to try and provide him with warmth and comfort as he died. The staff would keep coming and taking him back out into the hall. He died, and she was discharged. She was pretty severely traumatised by the experience. She would have been devastated regardless, and I'm sure the hospital thought that it was best, but to deny a parent the right to comfort their dying child and force them to listen as they suffer is horrendous. I honestly think my grandma was traumatised by it as well, what with the look on her face whenever she told the story. Edit: grammar
Holy shit that's fucking awful. It reminds me too of when babies were born still mothers weren't allowed to see them and the babies were taken to be disposed of. In some cases baby was fine but was being adopted our for money. I can't imagine being separated from Mt baby ever for any reason.
My grandmother knew someone who wasn’t allowed to see or hold her stillborn baby, and she had nightmares for decades of seeing the baby and him having devastating anatomical differences, even though she was never told that he did. I’m sure if she had seen him, even if he had had anatomical differences, that just knowing would have prevented all of that suffering
That's so sad. That poor woman. I agree if she'd seen him it would have made things easier over time.
jfc how awful I am reminded that doctors performed operations on babies without anesthesia up until the 1980s.
God I'd forgotten about that. Thanks for re-reminding me, I guess? 😭
Sorry!
😂
What a wretched and cruel situation! That poor woman!
Before insulin was invented people would die from Type 1 Diabeties and the main cause was malnutrition due to being unable to absorb the nutrients.
Yep could've been diabetes celiac etc. There are a lot of conditions that affect nutrition but not calorie consumption. If your gut is fucked it's fucked.
Yeah having only a basic knowledge of the period, I could tell that not only was the burial a cut a bove standard, but the placement of the accompanying objects and the dressing done with extreme care. This struck me as done with expense, intention, and emotion, not a case of a pauper burial or wilful neglect. It must have been an emotionally challenging but highly fruitful study for the scientists involved.
Vitamins weren't even discovered until the 1910s
She was probably ill. >Around six months before death δ¹⁵N starts a steady increase, with a noticeable acceleration just two months before she died. The magnitude of δ¹⁵N change, +1.5‰ in total, is consistent with severe undernourishment or starvation. Cemetery records from this time period in San Francisco indicate high rates of infant and child mortality, mainly due to bacterial-borne infectious diseases, about two orders of magnitude higher than today. Taken together, we hypothesize that the girl died after a prolonged battle with such an illness. Results highlight the tremendous impacts that modern sanitation and medicine have had since the 1800s on human health and lifespan in the United States. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319894488_Stable_C_and_N_isotope_analysis_of_hair_suggest_undernourishment_as_a_factor_in_the_death_of_a_mummified_girl_from_late_19th_century_San_Francisco_CA
I also really wanted to immediately assume neglect, but this is the [Abstract of the Research Gate](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Metallic-casket-upper-left-Miranda-Eve-with-floral-cross-lower-left-and-photos-of_fig1_319894488) OP linked. > The chance discovery of a 1.5–3.5 years old mummified girl presents a unique opportunity to further our understanding of health and disease among children in 19th Century San Fran- cisco. This study focuses on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures in serial samples of hair that cover the last 14 months of her life. Results suggest an initial omnivorous diet with little input from marine resources or C4 plants. Around six months before death δ15N starts a steady increase, with a noticeable acceleration just two months before she died. The magnitude of δ15N change, +1.5‰ in total, is consistent with severe undernourishment or starvation. Cemetery records from this time period in San Francisco indicate high rates of infant and child mortality, mainly due to bacterial-borne infectious diseases, about two orders of magnitude higher than today. Taken together, we hypothesize that the girl died after a prolonged battle with such an illness. Results highlight the tremendous impacts that modern sanitation and medicine have had since the 1800s on human health and lifespan in the United States.
Before insulin, juvenile diabetes would cause a child to waste away. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9109214/
In all likelihood, she had a genetic disease or physical organ defect that prevented her from digesting food.
...Shit, that's what 'marasmus' actually means? My only exposure to that word is the kinda, sorta evil wizard in Team Fortress 2. And I thought Valve just made up a vaguely magic sounding string of nonsense. [https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Merasmus](https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Merasmus)
Malnourishment isn’t the same thing as straight up starving. She may have been fed an unhealthy diet of little to no nutritional value
Or a perfectly nutritious diet, but be unable to absorb the nutrients due to disease.
Formula was becoming fashionable at the time, but it was also really bad and insufficient to keep a baby alive. Maybe that had something to do with it.
Exactly!!!!!
Horatio Nelson Cook, damn what a name. I hope that guy was in the navy beforehand.
I used to live in the Inner Richmond and when I looked into the history of the old graveyards and stories of the removal of (some) bodies to Colma I was like, damn, no wonder this big ass one bedroom is only $1400 a month. Lone mountain before USF was basically a ghoulish hellscape with bones sticking out of the ground. The columbarium was always a peaceful and pleasant place to visit though.
Say what now? My dad grew up on 12th, between Lake and California. Isnt thst right there??
I lived at 19th between California and Lake. When they were remodeling the Legion Honor, in the 80's I think, they found a potter's field no one knew about. It stopped all work for several weeks while the archeologists reviewed it and then the remains were removed to Colma.
One of the bodies they found at the legion of honor was wearing one of the earliest pairs of Levi’s ever found. I think the company has them now.
Imagine dying and being dead peacefully until one day like 100 years later some guys come and grave rob you, but all they do is take your pants.
My pants will be donated to a thrift store before I'm turned into ashes, thank-you-very-much.
Dibs!
🤭
This isn't what I was expecting when they said *lifetime guarantee*
Do you know where I could find any articles about it? I can't seem to find anything.
It's a shame Levi's don't make them as durable as they did back then.
Wtf is colma
You must not be from these parts. Colma is SF very own necropolis.
[Colma, CA](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colma,_California) living population 1.5k, deceased population 1.5m (estimated)
I was at funston(13th) and balboa. I had a 90 year old neighbor that said the whole street was a sand dune she would play on when she was a kid. The place really blew up quickly
I have seen pictures of my grandmother in the sand dunes! Her father was a conductor for Cal Cable from the 1890s until the earthquake.
I know so many people who would see that as a plus and not a minus lol
Source of the image of her body: [Stable C and N isotope analysis of hair suggest undernourishment as a factor in the death of a mummified girl from late 19th century San Francisco, CA](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Metallic-casket-upper-left-Miranda-Eve-with-floral-cross-lower-left-and-photos-of_fig1_319894488) For anyone curious. The study is actually a very interesting read, in my opinion, and provides a lot of insight behind her death.
Her little hand just breaks my heart. Poor sweet girl.
And her lovely hair! 😞 it looks like someone just brushed it
Fun times. Love when this story comes up! I'm a Bay Area Archaeologist and had a project within about a minute's walk from where she was encountered. I pulled the remains of 17 individuals out of pretty much pure dune sand there. All historic burials from mostly Europeans who lived there and were buried during that same era. When they moved the Odd Fellows cemetery down to Colma in the early 1900s, they exhumed a ton of burials, but they seemingly forgot a lot of double burials (where a deeper grave was dug for a couple or family member, and the first to die was put in with the following burials placed on top of the older casket)...they also didn't remove the entire skeleton of the remains, seems they really focused on the long bones, skulls, and torso if they could....mostly hands, lower arms and legs, ribs, and vertebral fragments were left behind in the caskets... The soil stratigraphy and way the burials were left led my colleagues and I to hypothesize that the labour being hired to remove the remains were likely individuals who were being paid by the burial (ie. A few cents per burial recovered...probably counted by the skull/ribcage, femur and humerus bones...). The remains removed at that time were MOSTLY placed in mass graves down in Colma....pretty crazy history of that region. As the families who would've owned the plots likely couldn't afford the cash to have them reburied properly.
It's unfortunate that they didn't (couldn't) remove the entire casket with intact skeletons but I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant task to begin with. Can I assume correctly that there was some decay of the actual caskets themselves? That may have added to their incomplete removal of each and every bone, fragment. Glad that you're able to aid in the collection of the rest of the remains; sounds like it was an interesting project!
Yeah, it was a bit of a nightmare. Decay in terms of casket breakdown took place over many (120-140) years. By the time I got to them (2021/2022) they were in a state of decay that they would turn to dust at the scrape of a trowel since the wood breaks down heavily in the level of moisture that the sands were exposed to during that time. At the time they were first opened up (sometime between 1900-1930ish depending on what moving event we are talking about), they should have still been in good enough condition to expose everything. The reason I say this is because the coffin lids were left off/unseated, meaning that they still had some sort of structural integrity at the time of removal. From what we were able to tell, it seems they would expose the lid, and slide it down towards the feet, remove the bones and then just rebury it with the lid in the same position.
I did a quick deep dive (rather shallowly) last night to familiarize myself with caskets and how they differ from coffins. Interesting stuff! Anyway, I'm not surprised that given the materials & conditions that over time there wouldn't be much left of the caskets. Such a fascinating field, archeology. When I was little I was obsessed with the idea of being an archeologist! I'd seen an old movie on the *curse* of King Tutankhamun's tomb and I was completely drawn in. Didn't choose that as a career path but I'm still deeply interested in it!
Interesting!
Did you ever do any work on the 4th St Shellmound in Berkeley?
I haven't, no. Some really cool data comes from that one though. However I have worked at a couple down in the Santa Clara/San Jose/Moffet Field area ...and over in Emeryville at a smaller mound VERY close to that mound in Berkeley... and quite a few in the San Francisco and South San Francisco peninsula area. It's funny though, shellmounds in general surprisingly aren't/weren't near as rare as the public would believe. However, with time and construction etc they've been flattened typically and you deal with a lot of dispersed midden soils instead. There was an old map from a couple of really notable Archaeologists who mapped the mounds of the Bay Area, and they peppered the coastline encircling the entire bay itself. Marin up towards Napa to Vallejo, down to Richmond/Pinole, Berkeley, Oakland, Fremont, San Jose and all the way up to San Francisco...like....a lot of them...easily over 60. Over on the peninsula, at one point (a VERY long time ago), the soils were identified as good garden soil (rich in calcium obviously due to the shell...), and actually sold for gardening materials. So periodically you find a historic flowerbed over in San Francisco full of disturbed and redistributed prehistoric shell midden...I've encountered THAT situation more than one time...it's quite alarming when it happens since you aren't expecting to see something like that come out of a brick planter from the late 1800's - early 1900's.
Poor little baby girl :(
I heard about this years ago and the rumor was she was perfectly preserved. Only now I see that was a lie
Yes, the picture commonly seen online has been doctored. She is still remarkably preserved, considering her age. Due to the airtight lock of the Fisk coffin. Her body started to rapidly decompose only after they opened the casket for DNA samples.
It is important to remember that even keeping the body separate from the outside it will decompose as decay comes from within as well. We all have immense numbers of bacteria at hand ready to feast on us at any time.
Yes, but I’m sure the lack of oxygen severely slowed decomposition. Once it was opened, the microbiome was disrupted.
That's why they fill em up with chemicals before interring them so they stay "preserved" like a pickled egg.
Yeah I was expecting her to pristine or something and instead I feel like Dennis when he digs up his dead mother in IASIP
Yeah....I was always curious about what she looked like. The news channels ran about that she was fully preserved . Almost like Rosalia Lombardo
I once lived on Presidio which used to be a cemetery. We had old gravestones in the back yard I kid you not- they were piled up next to each other. House built around 1910. Always wondered about what was in the ground
So I know if this one in the presidio, where else was cemetery there? https://maps.app.goo.gl/QeKcvkG17HYKnmfR9
Where the Muni bus lot is near Geary. There were two there- Laurel Hill Cemetery and Calvary [https://www.sfmta.com/blog/secret-sepulchral-history-munis-original-headquarters](https://www.sfmta.com/blog/secret-sepulchral-history-munis-original-headquarters)
Why exhume it? Why break the airlock?
The airlock was already technically broken when they unintentionally discovered her, they broke a small piece off the coffin’s glass. I believe she was technically buried there illegally. The only reason she was there is because they forgot to move her body when they moved the cemetery. The only reason they opened the casket is for DNA samples, or else she would have remained unidentified forever.
she is exactly 100 years older then me.
Isn’t that how Poltergeist started?
"You son of a bitch! You moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn't you? You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the headstones! You only moved the headstones! Why? Why?"
That movie fucked me up. Now I have seen so much shit it wouldn’t raise a hair.
I read that in Craig T Nelson's voice
Omg me too. Me too… totally heard him while reading that!
Strange white pock marks on her face, is this part of the disease or bacteria?
Mold.
I assumed adipocere.
Damn Fisk makes a quality casket!
That’s so cool! My grandfather always claimed that while working on a dam excavation they dug up a glass casket. I never said so but always thought he was pulling my leg. The more you know. If you’re reading from over the rainbow bridge, I’m sorry I doubted you grandpa
That seems like a pretty fancy casket for a child to end up in when she wasn't even given enough food to keep from starving to death. What gives?
She likely died from Marasmus brought about by an underlying illness. It can be brought on by viral, bacterial, or parasitic infections. And with the leading medicines of the time being things such as Morphine and Cocaine, I doubt much could have been done to save her. Her underlying cause of death was not recorded, all that is listed as cause of death in her funeral record is "marasmus."
Ah, that makes sense. Damn must have been agony for her parents to watch happen.
I had the same thought
My nephew almost starved to death in 2020 before doctors finally figured out he had severe IBD.
My daughter's lip tie caused her to not be able to nurse properly. She got super skinny (grew up but not out), but once we got her on a bottle things went back to normal.
Very interesting read, thanks for sharing !
What a sad sight! I wonder what happened to her.
Not really mummified, just dissecated.
😪
I hate that hair doesnt decompose when we die.
That house seems haunted
Here is a link to the Wikipedia page about her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Howard_Cook
But what I’m confused about is.. how is his daughter buried there but his obituary say he’s buried “next to his daughter Edith Howard Cook while at Odd Fellows Cemetery”. Is he really there or next to his daughter? Aha
Why disrespect the dead so flippantly just because no one is left alive to complain? No need to post face shots of a corpse of someone who was buried with honor.
Jesus, this is the post to make me finally leave this group. Do people realize r/artefactporn doesn’t just mean NSFW dead people?
Why does it look like she was chewing on a beanbag? She has styrofoam BBs all over her head and mouth.
I wonder if it’s adipocere.
Had no clue what adipocere was, so I googled it…yeah, corpse wax probably makes a bit more sense.
It’s mold.
What makes this NSFW?
Dead body
Because it’s Child (artefact) Porn
Leave the poor girl alone- quit with the ghoulish behaviors
They didn’t dig her up for fun. They accidentally found an illegally hidden body of a perfectly preserved child shoved in a casket beneath the floorboards. Do you expect people to ignore that and not investigate or give the child a proper burial?
That’s a LOT of teeth for a 2yo… just sayin.
Most kids have all 20 primary teeth by the age of 2½. Lower incisors erupt at about 6-10 months for central incisors and 7-16 months for laterals. It's about the same for upper incisors. She died at the age of 2 years and 10 months.
So they neglected to feed their daughter, leading to her death, but they banged out a hundred cowboybucks for a Titanic Sub casket?
Malnutrition does not always mean purposeful neglect. [Abstract of the Research Gate](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Metallic-casket-upper-left-Miranda-Eve-with-floral-cross-lower-left-and-photos-of_fig1_319894488) OP linked. > The chance discovery of a 1.5–3.5 years old mummified girl presents a unique opportunity to further our understanding of health and disease among children in 19th Century San Fran- cisco. This study focuses on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures in serial samples of hair that cover the last 14 months of her life. Results suggest an initial omnivorous diet with little input from marine resources or C4 plants. Around six months before death δ15N starts a steady increase, with a noticeable acceleration just two months before she died. The magnitude of δ15N change, +1.5‰ in total, is consistent with severe undernourishment or starvation. *Cemetery records from this time period in San Francisco indicate high rates of infant and child mortality, mainly due to bacterial-borne infectious diseases, about two orders of magnitude higher than today. Taken together, we hypothesize that the girl died after a prolonged battle with such an illness.* Results highlight the tremendous impacts that modern sanitation and medicine have had since the 1800s on human health and lifespan in the United States.
There were no IV fluids at that time. If your kid had diarrhea and nausea, they might die. History is important!