No explanation on tombstone’s path to Austin
Published 10:10 am Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The case of the missing tombstone may never be fully solved.
Tyrone Joblinske, of Austin, uncovered the 118-year-old headstone of Clara Maria Houg in his backyard on Monday. Houg, who died at the age of seven, is buried at First Lutheran Cemetery in St. Ansgar, Iowa, and church secretary Beth Meitner said she’s not sure when the headstone went missing.
“The stone has been replaced,” Meitner said. “We don’t know if the family hauled off (the stone found in Joblinske’s backyard) when they got a new one or if it was stolen at some point and then they replaced it.
“We don’t know. It’s kind of a mystery.”
Joblinske turned the headstone over to the Austin Police Department after he uncovered it under a pile of brush in his yard. Meitner said the stone is already back at First Lutheran Church in St. Ansgar, but its fate has yet to be determined.
Since Houg’s old stone has been replaced already, the church trustees and cemetery sextons will likely decide what to do with the recent discovery.
According to her obituary, Houg died at age seven after a bout with pneumonia and “brain fever,” which is now known as meningitis or encephalitis. Her father, Halsten Houg, went on to be the Mitchell County Auditor in 1898, five years after his daughter’s death.