Declares His Wife's Body Vanished, Man Sues Cemetery

1920

NEW YORK, N.Y. — The alleged disappearance of a woman's body from the receiving vault of Calvary cemetery during the influenza epidemic in 1918 was the basis of a suit for $100,000 damages filed against the trustees who control the cemetery.

The suit is brought by Gaetano Ripatranzone, whose wife, Annie, died Oct. 12, 1918. Frank J. Rinaldi, his attorney, said the body was placed in the receiving vault of the cemetery, and the family was to be notified when a grave was ready. When no word was received, the attorney said the husband investigated and learned his wife's body had been lost or had disappeared.

John G. Agar, vice president of the board of trustees, was served with the summons. He said the cemetery officials claimed every body had been accounted for and any trouble should be between the family and the undertaker.

The Rev. William J. Stewart, who was managing director of the cemetery at the time specified, produced a letter which Supt. J. J. Cunningham of the cemetery sent him, saying Ruggiero Trepani & Co., undertakers, had brought a body described as that of "Anna Ripatranzone, 37 years," to the cemetery, and it was placed on the floor. He explained that bodies were coming faster than graves could be opened, and the receiving vault became filled, so arrivals were placed on the floor and a record of their location kept.

"The orders of the health department to place all bodies in temporary graves within a given time," he wrote, "tended to increase the work of identification."

It is said that when the department of health ordered the immediate temporary burial of all bodies they were placed in three trenches 16 feet wide, 330 feet long and 4 feet deep. They were tabulated, and later were interred in their proper grave holdings, except the body of one woman. It is said 14,000 bodies were received during four months of the epidemic.

Note: The last name of the man and his wife is spelled two different ways in the article. "Ripatranzone" is the first instance, "Repatrazone" is how she's referred to. I changed it, somewhat arbitrarily, based on the number of Google hits for each.