She rests with the sailors of the sunken USS Utah, yet another victim of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
She was supposed to be scattered at sea, her ashes thrown to the waves in a ceremonial burial in the old Navy tradition.
Instead, the urn containing Nancy Lynne Wagner went down with the ship off Ford Island, where it remains today.
Every December, Mary Wagner Kreigh, the twin sister of "Baby Nancy," visits Pearl Harbor, gazing out at the rusted hull of the USS Utah, and she plucks a flower from a wreath.
"I throw it over into the water and thank the sailors
for watching over her. She couldn't have better guardians."
Born premature in the Philippines, the two girls weighed three pounds a piece. One had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and died two days later.
Her father, Navy Chief Yeoman Albert T.D. Wagner, took the ashes aboard the USS Utah so when the ship went out for maneuvers they could be scattered at sea.
"The chaplain was supposed to come aboard and go out to sea and they would have the ceremony," Kreigh said.
The somber plans were interrupted by the attack on Pearl Harbor, and while Wagner was able to escape with his life, his daughter's ashes were left behind.
Years later, the surviving twin would accompany her father to see what remained of the USS Utah and watch as the tears streamed down his face.
"There was nothing there, no memorial, nothing but this old ship, and we had to wander down through the mud. He looked at me and asked, 'Don't they care?'"
Within a few years, her father was dead. From then on, Kreigh has made it her life's work to spread the story of the USS Utah, Baby Nancy, and the men who went down and the men who survived.
She soon found herself appointed as the public relations director of the USS Utah Association and as the go-to girl for organizing the reunions.
"The Utah survivors are my family. They are my survivors, and I know them all quite intimately. They are not just people to me, they are total family."
For years now, Kreigh has traveled to Hawaii to visit the Utah, participating in a Dec. 6 ceremony held one day prior to the attack so it doesn't conflict with the events on the actual anniversary.
More than a few times, she's stood at the shore and watched as the ashes of yet another fallen survivor are placed on the ship to join his shipmates.
"It's a breathtaking ceremony, one of the most wonderfully beautiful things you'll ever see," she said.
Even though the Utah is long gone and Baby Nancy with her, Kreigh says she never feels very far away from her twin.
"Nancy has always been with me. Baby Nancy was my playmate always."
Kreigh likes to stand at the edge of the water, look to the Utah and picture the sailors singing lullabies to her twin.
"It is so peaceful and quiet. I wouldn't want her any place else."
e-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com