Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin left home on a sunny morning in 1942, planning to return to their seven children that evening.
The couple were never seen or heard from again.
They had left their village, Chandolin in Switzerland, and headed into the Swiss Alps to check on their cattle, but when both parents failed to come home their five sons and two daughters were orphaned.
“We spent our lives searching for them, relentlessly,” youngest daughter Marceline Udry-Dumoulin, who became an orphan at age four, told the Swiss newspaper, Le Matin.
“One day, we had to [accept] the obvious. They were not coming back.”
“We did not think we could ever give them the funeral they deserved,” she continued.
Now, the family finally know what happened to the missing couple – 75 years later.
Marcelin and Francine’s bodies were discovered last week in a shrinking glacier by a worker near a ski lift.
They were found still wearing World War II-era clothing with a backpack, watch, book and other personal items, Le Martin reports.
“I must say that after 75 years of waiting this news calms me deeply,” Ms Udry-Dumoulin, now 79, said.
“Mum and dad will finally have their burial.”
“For the funeral, I will not put on black. I think white will be more appropriate. It represents hope, which I have never lost.”
This article first published on Marie Claire.
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