The bodies of a missing Swiss couple, Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin, discovered after 75 years. The pictured peak is a Matterhorn Mountain in the canton of Valais. [Courtesy of Pixabay]
A Swiss couple who went up to a meadow in the Valais to milk their cows on August 15, 1942, mysteriously disappeared. They were never found until last Thursday by a ski resort worker during a routine maintenance check. After DNA testing, two mummified bodies were officially identified as a 40-year-old shoemaker Marcelin Dumoulin and his wife Francine, a 37-year-old teacher, on Wednesday this week.
The couple was found 8,600 feet above a nearby village, Les Diablerets in Valais region at the edge of melting glacier. It is suspected that Dumoulin and his wife fell through the crevices of the glacier on their way to milk their cows. Their bodies and belongings were well preserved in Tsanfleuron Glacier.
Dumoulin and his wife left behind seven children, five sons and two daughters. After their disappearance, the local authorities were extensively searching the nearby areas and Alps for weeks in vain. Seven Dumoulin children were separated and sent to relatives. The only surviving children are two daughters, Monique and Marceline. The youngest daughter, Marceline Udry-Dumoulin, who is now 79 years old told Le Matin, a Swiss based news company, that Dumoulin siblings never stopped looking for their parents to "give them the funeral they deserved one day." Some of the children visited the part of the Alps where their parents disappeared on August 15 every year to pray.
The older sister, Monique Gautschy-Dumoulin, recalled the moment of seeing her parents for the last time. It was a nice morning. She said her father was singing as the couple walked away from their home. Udry-Dumoulin recalls this was her parents' first excursion together because her mother "was always pregnant and couldn't climb in the difficult conditions of a glacier."
After the couple's bodies were discovered and positively identified, two daughters expressed this news gives them a closure they needed. Udry-Dumoulin said, "After 75 years of waiting, this news gives me a deep sense of calm."
The Dumoulin sisters are planning to finally give their parents a proper funeral and burial.
In recent years, the bodies of missing climbers have been discovered in the Alps and climatologists claim it is because global warming is causing glacier to recede, revealing the remains.
Kwak, Min Jung = abiel@ajunews.com
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