Body
Recovered from Beacon Hill Garden Interred at Forest Hills
BOSTON – City
officials say that a body buried for close to twenty years under the
terrace of a Beacon Hill townhouse has been removed and buried at
Forest Hills Cemetery. Officials learned of the grave, which had been
covered by a flagstone terrace, earlier this year from an heir of the
recently deceased owner of the townhouse. When the new owner learned
of the grave shortly after the death of Mrs. Kingsley (Louise)
Thorndike, who passed away in May of this year at the age of
ninety-one, she notified authorities. It is believed that the remains
are those of Britta Falk, a Swedish immigrant who was a servant in
the Thorndike household for many years. Why she was buried in the
garden is unknown. Police had the body removed earlier this month and
transported it to the City Morgue where an autopsy was performed.
Despite being in a state of advanced decay Falk's death appeared to
be the result of natural causes.
Mrs. Thorndike's
heir, Matilda “Mattie” Thorndike Michaud, of Truro,
Massachusetts, assumed the cost of a proper burial for her
grandmother's former servant.
Now
I wish I had never seen this article tucked in a corner of the Boston
Herald. Now I wish I had never noticed Mattie Thorndike's name. We
hadn't seen each other in decades, not since we were classmates in
that little private day school in the Back Bay. Now I wonder how many
more deaths it will take to avenge that one – that one that should
have been kept a secret forever. I should have minded my own
business. It's not like I don't have enough problems of my own.
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