In 1942, a Swiss shoemaker and his wife set out across a glacier to milk their cows, which were grazing in a neighboring area. The couple, the parents of seven young children, were never seen again.
On Wednesday, the mystery of what happened to the couple was finally solved as the police formally identified two mummified bodies found last week in an Alpine glacier as those of Marcelin Dumoulin, 40, and his wife, Francine, a 37-year-old teacher.
A ski resort worker stumbled upon their bodies on Thursday near a ski lift about 8,600 feet above a village, Les Diablerets. Along with the couple’s well-preservedWorld War II-era clothes, other clues to their identity included a book and a watch.
Stéphane Vouardoux, a spokesman for the police in the canton of Valais, the area near where the couple disappeared, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that DNA testing had confirmed that the bodies were the Dumoulins. He said the discovery had brought a sense of closure to the couple’s two surviving daughters, and ended the uncertainty about the tragedy that had haunted locals for decades. The evidence strongly suggested, he added, that the couple had died in an accident.
“It is definitely them — until now, all we had was hope,” Mr. Vouardoux said, adding that the news had reduced several residents to tears. “This, once and for all, puts an end to a story that has deeply marked the village. For years, people have been asking questions: ‘What happened to them? Why couldn’t we find them?’ Now we know the truth.”
After the couple disappeared 75 years ago, the police searched the area for weeks. The seven Dumoulin children — five boys and two girls — were separated and went to live with families in the area. Every year on Aug. 15, some of the siblings would climb the glacier to pray.
Speaking before the DNA identification, Marceline Udry-Dumoulin, 79, one of the couple’s daughters, said she had been convinced that the bodies were her parents after learning that the resort worker had seen her mother’s clothes and shoes. She recalled saying, “You have my mother, you don’t need to look further.”
Ms. Udry-Dumoulin said she now had one priority: giving her parents a proper funeral and burial, however belated.
NewYork Times.
