Mystery solved as great-nephew helps provide ID for girl in casket
By Peter Fimrite and Katie Dowd
Peter Cook always knew there was something special about his family tree, which boasted sea captains, pioneers and diplomats, but the Marin County man never dreamed one of his relatives would cause a sensation by coming back from the dead.
The 82-year-old hot rod aficionado and former alarm company owner was enjoying his retirement last week when he learned he had unlocked the answer to a San Francisco mystery: Who was the little girl from the 1800s whose well-preserved body was discovered one year ago in a fancy coffin under a San Francisco home, still clutching a red rose?
As it turns out, the girl in the casket, which had been misplaced in a cemetery move, was Edith Howard Cook — Peter’s great-aunt. Before he provided the DNA sample that allowed a nonprofit group to crack the unusual case, he’d not known she existed, much less that she died tragically from illness at age 2 on Oct. 13, 1876.
“I think it’s fantastic,” said Peter, marveling from his home in San Rafael at the twist of fate that linked him to the angelic-looking girl in a hand-laced christening dress, with lavender woven into her curly blond hair, her puffy pink cheeks visible through the tarnished glass of the coffin. “To find a relative 140 years later is incredible.”
He pulled a photo album from a closet and flipped through pictures he hadn’t seen in 35 years, seizing on one of a glamorous, whitegloved woman wearing a flowing, lacy gown — a vision of 19th century elegance.
“This is Edith Scooffy, the girl’s mother,” he said.
The now-unearthed tale of baby Edith — the second child of Edith Scooffy Cook and Horatio Nelson Cook — dates back to the time of the Barbary Coast, when the well-to-do rode around on horses and buggies. The Cooks were one of the most colorful and illustrious San Francisco couples of their time, according to city directories, old newspaper clippings and the U.S. census.
When Edith was born, the Cooks were rising to prominence. Her grandfather, Matthew, was a sea captain who, with his son, founded a tannery and leather manufacturing business in 1860 that won contracts to supply San Francisco with leather goods, fire buckets and hoses.
When he was 27, Horatio married 19-year-old Edith, who came from a well-heeled Greek immigrant family. They lived at 635 Sutter St., today the home of the White Horse Restaurant and Pub near Union Square. They were regulars in The Chronicle’s society pages. Horatio was appointed the Greek consul in San Francisco.
Their firstborn, Milton, was Peter’s grandfather. Peter never met the man, but he has a picture in his album of a suave, bearded young man wearing a dashing suit with a cocked black hat.
The couple had two other children after Edith’s death: Ethel, who was once called the most beautiful woman in America by a Russian nobleman, and Clifford, who, The Chronicle reported at the time, made his mark in Paris by sand-blasting the grime off “many of the famous buildings of Paris.”
Clifford eventually returned to San Francisco, where he and Milton managed the family business, called H.N. Cook Belting Manufacturing Co., until Milton’s death in 1926 and Clifford’s death a year later. In 1986, the company merged with what is now Hoffmeyer Co. Inc. of San Leandro, which still manufactures conveyor belts and other rubber products.
Nearly lost in the family story was the tragic death of little Edith, which came relatively early in her parents’ marriage. A death notice in the San Francisco Bulletin listed the cause as marasmus, a term used in the 1800s for severe malnourishment, probably caused by disease or infection.
She was buried in a small glass and cast-iron casket in a family plot in the Yerba Buena section of the Odd Fellows Cemetery, which closed in 1902. Some 30,000 remains were exhumed in the 1930s and reburied at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Colma — but, somehow, baby Edith was left behind in San Francisco’s Lone Mountain neighborhood.
That’s where, last May, a worker hit the 37-inch-long coffin with a shovel while excavating the backyard of a home that had been built on top of the old cemetery. The owners of the home, John and Ericka Karner, were surprised. Then again, they said they had frequently heard ghostly footsteps at night when their own daughters were asleep.
The Karners were told by the city medical examiner’s office that the body was their responsibility because it was found on private property. Not knowing what else to do, they contacted the Garden of Innocence project, a nonprofit group based in San Diego County that seeks to provide dignified burials to abandoned children.
The group took charge of the child’s body and arranged a forensic examination, including DNA analysis of her hair strands. A team of six genealogists, anthropologists and historians, including researchers from UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz, logged more than 1,000 hours looking through cemetery maps, records and city documents trying to find ancestors of the girl, whom they initially called Miranda Eve.
In all, 34 people volunteered their expertise, including six psychics and several cold case detectives who claimed she had been murdered. The girl’s possible identity was eventually narrowed, and Peter Cook and another person submitted saliva samples. A DNA match confirmed her identity.
“I got all choked up, and Peter was touched and tickled pink,” said Elissa Davey, the Garden of Innocence founder. “You know, she was somebody’s child and she was lost. It was such an honor to find her and give her back a name.”
Edith’s vivification only adds to the family lore. Peter said he’s certain that baby Edith’s grandfather was in the Donner Party — and that he wasn’t the first of his ancestors linked to the specter of cannibalism.
A distant relative on his mother’s side, he said, was Owen Chase, the first mate on the whaler Essex that was sunk in the Pacific in 1820 by a sperm whale. Chase was one of eight men aboard, out of 21, who survived by eating their mates after abandoning ship onto lifeboats. The story inspired the novel “Moby Dick.”
Peter, who has been married for more than three decades and has four children, 13 grandchildren and 10 greatgrandchildren, said the discovery of his diminutive ancestor was fortuitous, but also a bit distressing.
“The real sad thing is that they opened up the casket,” he said. “When they did that, the poor child deteriorated within minutes, but if they hadn’t opened it they never would have found out who she was related to, and that wouldn’t have been good for me.”
Edith’s coffin was placed inside a larger casket and reburied at Greenlawn Memorial Park last June, but another memorial service is scheduled for June 10 at the burial site to recognize her newfound identity. Peter Cook plans to attend.