OGDEN — It has been 15 years since Eugene C. Christensen was laid to rest.
Noted on his headstone at the Aultorest Memorial Park, Christensen was a World War II veteran who served with the Army Air Corps. He died at age 80 on Oct. 16, 2000.
Upon his death, his children asked to have their father's cremated remains separated into eight parts — one to bury, one to his wife, and the others were given to each of the veteran's six children.
"They must have split it one too many ways," Mike Leavitt, owner of Leavitt's Mortuary that performed the cremation years ago, said Thursday. A container bearing the veteran's name was shuffled off to the mortuary's mausoleum where it has sat unclaimed for 15 years.
Recently, the cremains ended up at the Utah Veterans Memorial Park after the Missing in America Project identified Christensen as a veteran among the nearly 200 unclaimed remains sitting at the Weber County crypt in Ogden.
Some of those remains, Leavitt said, have been there for 70 years.
"I refuse to just disregard them," he said. "They're somebody, you know."
The Missing in America Project, a nonprofit national organization that works to locate, identify and inter unclaimed cremated remains of American veterans, counted Christensen as one of 21 veterans given military rites and a proper burial on Saturday at the Draper military facility.
"Mortuaries are the primary source of where we find our vets," said the project's Utah coordinator, Roger Graves. When they identified the remains, he said, they only had a name and a date of death and could not, therefore, contact any living relatives, who are sometimes "close to impossible to find."
"All we can do, from the Missing in America Project standpoint, is try and bring closure and put a period at the end of a sentence for these veterans," Graves said.
Turns out, however, the urn almost interred at the Draper facility contained only a part of Christensen — about 8 to 10 ounces of the approximately 6 or 7 pounds adult remains typically weigh, Leavitt said.
The mortuary buried the additional remains with the originally interred remains at the Ogden location on Thursday, under the marker that contained Christensen's name. The date on the marker, however, is incorrect, stating he died in 2002, which may have been when the headstone was placed.
Steve Christensen, of Ogden, said he was a little surprised to see his father included in the names of unclaimed veterans.
"I never suspected any malfeasance," he said. "I figured it was just an error."
He isn't angry, but a little confused at how it all could have happened.
Each individual that is cremated is given a stainless steel identification tag that is included in the cremains that are given to the surviving family. Steve Christensen said the box returned to the mortuary Thursday did not contain a tag, so he might search for it in the boxes kept by family members, just to be sure his dad's remains were properly handled.
He plans to follow up with the mortuary regarding the actual cremation.
While the Missing in America Project didn't contact anyone in the family, including Eugene Christensen's 94-year-old widow, Steve Christensen said he's glad for the outcome, at least so far.
"If they hadn't been doing this, we probably wouldn't have known there were ashes that weren't accounted for," he said. The family received an American flag from the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as a letter addressed to Eugene Christensen's widow upon his death. A memorial service was held for him in 2000.
Graves said he still counts Christensen's case as a success, because the family "finally have their dad laid to rest where he's supposed to be. All of their dad is where he should be."
Utah law states that a mortuary can dispose of unclaimed remains "in any dignified manner it sees fit" after 90 days, but many sit on shelves in basements or in various crypts throughout the state, in case a long-lost family member comes asking.
Leavitt said everyone "should have a place."
Steve Christensen said his dad's remains are prominently displayed in each of the family's homes. He had a "wonderful relationship" with his dad.
"It's been good to bring back some memories," he said Thursday. "You definitely look back at how it was. A friend of mine's dad just passed away, and I remembered how we used to talk about our dads."
Email: wleonard@deseretnews.com, Twitter: wendyleonards