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 Aug. 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.
“I can say that after 75 years of waiting this news gives me a deep sense of calm,’’ their youngest daughter Marceline Udry-Dumoulin told the paper.
In a statement, Valais cantonal police said that two bodies bearing identity papers had been discovered since, by a worker on Tsanfleuron glacier near a ski lift above Les Diablerets resort at an altitude of 2,615 metres (8,600 feet).
However, DNA testing would be carried out to confirm the identities of the couple.
“The bodies were lying near each other. It was a man and a woman, wearing clothing dating from the period of World War Two.
“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,’’ Bernhard Tschannen, director of Glacier 3000, told the paper.
Marcelin Dumoulin, 40, was a shoemaker, while Francine, 37, was a teacher.
The paper said that they left five sons and two daughters.
“It was the first time my mother went with him on such an excursion.
“She was always pregnant and couldn’t climb in the difficult conditions of a glacier,’’ Udry-Dumoulin said.
She said after a while, they were separated and placed in families.
“I was lucky to stay with my aunt; we all lived in the region but became strangers.
“For the funeral, I won’t wear black. I think that white would be more appropriate. It represents hope, which I never lost,’’ Udry-Dumoulin said. (Reuters)
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