Forensics aims to detect burial site of 1918 pandemic victims
As a witness to the devastating aftermath of murders, plane crashes, and fatal fires, Mercyhurst University forensic anthropologist Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat is accustomed to being summoned to such scenes at all hours of the day and night.
To have a chance to put his skills toward something strictly humanitarian is a welcome departure for both him and his students. That’s what he thought when a former student, John Matia, reached out recently.
Well aware of Dirkmaat’s expertise in the archaeological recovery of human remains from outdoor contexts, Matia asked Dirkmaat if he would consider doing a search for unmarked graves at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Brisbin, Pennsylvania, where his elderly mother’s sister, Susan Duke, is believed buried.
Matia’s mother, Joan, never knew her sister, having been born after Susan died of the Spanish Flu on Christmas Eve, 1919, at age 4. However, she does remember her mother taking her to the cemetery, pointing to an unmarked area overgrown with brush, and saying, “That’s where your sister is buried.”
That recollection haunts Joan Matia. “At 87, she’s wrestling with her own mortality,” her son said. “It bothers her that her sister, and her step-grandfather, never had a proper burial or a place where family could come to pay their respects.”
According to historical accounts of the 1918 influenza pandemic, victims were often hastily buried in unmarked graves. Cremation was an uncommon practice and undertakers were unable to keep pace with the daunting task of burying the dead. A prohibition against public gatherings like funerals left many families unable to properly mourn their loved ones.
Further, Matia said the parish house affiliated with the cemetery at the time was destroyed by fire in 1937 along with cemetery records.
Matia decided he would do whatever he could to offer his mother some peace of mind. So, he got the necessary permissions and requested Dirkmaat, chair of Applied Forensic Sciences at Mercyhurst, volunteer his knowledge and technology to identify whether the area in question was a burial ground.
He said there was never a plan to excavate the property or identify individual graves. The hope was simply to determine if there were graves there that matched his mother’s recollection and were consistent with other oral histories so that they could erect a memorial marker and have a priest bless the burial site.
Dirkmaat and five members of the Mercyhurst Forensic Scene Recovery Team (M-FSRT), all graduate students, spent the day in Brisbin on Sept. 10. The students include:
- Jenna Mulrooney-White of Wilmington, Delaware
- Hannah Skropits of Mansfield, Ohio
- Dorothy Missimer of Sicklerville, New Jersey
- Elizabeth Hagan of Bardstown, Kentucky
- Dakota Bell of Spring, Texas
Dirkmaat’s team worked with retired FBI special agent Michael Hochrein, now faculty at LaRoche University, and Todd Jester, a retired Ohio State Highway Patrol officer now with Precision Laser in Pittsburgh, to take 3D scans of the scene and establish a digital map and grid system.
M-FSRT members used a fluxgate gradiometer—a device that measures variations in the subsoil—to identify anomalies that might represent grave shafts.
Several areas of significance were noted on scene, Dirkmaat said, although no official conclusions would be made until all data is processed and analyzed at Mercyhurst. Then, he said a report would be generated confirming or rejecting the presence of graves.
Information from the exercise is expected to be used to create a detailed map for cemetery records that would show unmarked burials and any land available for future burials.
PHOTO: M-FSRT member Jenna Mulrooney-White uses a fluxgate gradiometer—a device that measures variations in the subsoil—to identify anomalies that might represent grave shafts.