On Monday, June 24th, Tom called me at work to advise that he had been contacted by the Coast Guard in Wisconsin to inform him that Elizabeth’s body had been discovered in Lake Michigan by a C.& O. cross-lake ferry, just a few miles east of Manitowoc. The body had been floating in the life jacket and had been taken to Manitowoc. Immediate arrangements had to be made. Tom and I divided arrangements and spent most of the remainder of the day on the telephone. Fr. Bud had previously volunteered to make identification, if that should be necessary, but Mary Widman was at that time in Milwaukee and we accepted her offer to make the identification. Further confirmation was made by an x-ray of the ankle, revealing a plate placed there years earlier as a result of an accident at the Elgin farm.

Arrangements were then confirmed with funeral homes in Manitowoc, Chicago, and St. Louis. Plans were made for a funeral Mass in Chicago on Friday evening, June 28th, followed by air transportation to St. Louis, a funeral Mass at Holy Redeemer Church late Saturday morning, June 29th, followed by interment in the family lot in Calvary Cemetery. I contacted Fr. Bud and asked him to say the funeral Mass at Holy Redeemer. He seemed genuinely moved and readily agreed.

I felt someone in the family should accompany the body on the flight to St. Louis, so I made arrangements to fly to Chicago for funeral services there and then return with the body. I took a flight out of St. Louis on Friday evening June 28th. DePorres House was virtually empty when I arrived there around 7:00 o’clock. While obtaining directions to the church from there, a middle-aged black lady and a young nun drove up and offered to drive me. I thereupon dispatched my taxi and joined the two women, who begged my indulgence while they finished their dinner in the car. Dinner was a sandwich and a canned soda. I passed, having had a snack on the plane.