Frozen remains of Swiss couple found on shrinking glacier
GENEVA: The frozen bodies of a Swiss couple who went missing 75 years ago in the Alps have been found on a shrinking glacier, Swiss media said on Tuesday.
Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin, the parents of seven children, had gone to milk their cows in a meadow above Chandolin in the Valais canton on August 15, 1942. “We spent our whole lives looking for them, without stopping. We thought that we could give them the funeral they deserved one day,” their youngest daughter Marceline Udry-Dumoulin told the Lausanne daily Le Matin.
“I can say that after 75 years of waiting this news gives me a deep sense of calm,” added the 79-year-old. Valais cantonal police said that two bodies bearing identity papers had been discovered last week by a worker on Tsanfleuron glacier near a ski lift above Les Diablerets resort at an altitude of 2,615 metres.
DNA testing would be carried out to confirm the identities. “The bodies were lying near each other. It was a man and a woman wearing clothing dating from the period of World War Two,” Bernhard Tschannen, director of Glacier 3000, told the paper. “They were perfectly preserved in the glacier and their belongings were intact.”
“We think they may have fallen into a crevasse where they stayed for decades. As the glacier receded, it gave up their bodies,” he told the daily Tribune de Geneve.
Marcelin Dumoulin, 40, was a shoemaker, while Francine, 37, was a teacher.
They left five sons and two daughters.