A Salt Lake City homeowner got far more than a cleaner backyard when he removed an old deck and uncovered a child’s headstone buried beneath it. The marker names Elva J. Fessler, a 4-year-old girl who died in 1940, even though her grave already has another headstone at Salt Lake City Cemetery. One question now hangs over the discovery: How did a child’s memorial end up beneath a backyard deck?
On Wednesday, FOX 13 News Utah reported that Osvaldo Ocegueda had planned to replace the deck for years. He initially thought the object was a piece of concrete, then realized what he had found while sweeping after removing the final board.
The cemetery connected to the mystery is still an active, city-operated burial ground. Salt Lake City’s Public Lands Department says the cemetery’s first burial dates to 1848 and provides a public tool for locating graves and burial plots.
Why Elva Fessler Appears To Have Two Headstones
The most plausible explanation is that Elva’s original marker was replaced, according to FOX 13 News Utah. Donny DePasquale, owner of Utah Headstone Design, reviewed photographs of both stones and said older marble markers are sometimes swapped for more durable granite monuments, with families occasionally keeping the original.
That theory explains the duplicate headstones, but it does not explain the more peculiar part of the story: why the older marker apparently remained at a home once occupied by Elva’s family and was eventually covered by decking. The available evidence suggests a moved or retained memorial rather than a second burial, but the stone’s journey remains undocumented.
A Historic Record Trail And A New Memorial
Utah’s archival paper trail may offer more context. A FamilySearch collection of Salt Lake City cemetery records acquired from the Utah State Archives includes general indexes, plat books, interment records, deed registers and grave-opening orders dating back to the city’s early burial history.
Ocegueda said he plans to build a small memorial for Elva near the spot where the original headstone was found. It will not solve the mystery of who placed the marker beneath the deck, but it could give a long-hidden piece of Salt Lake City history a more fitting place in the open.
