World War II veteran buried next to his family 80 years after his death | Mid-Missouri News

A World War II veteran was buried Saturday in Howard County next to his parents, even though he died 80 years ago.

Elvis Spotts, merchant marine wiper, died on February 22, 1944, at the age of 19, while serving in the military.

On Saturday, his family held a memorial service honoring Spotts' life, followed by burial at Wesley Chapel Cemetery.

Current military members attended the ceremony, playing taps with a trumpet and folding an American flag.

Spotts enlisted in the U.S. Marines in 1943, where he became a crew member on the SS Cape Isabel, a ship that transported military cargo alongside two other ships.

Spotts was a windshield wiper responsible for cleaning a ship's engine compartments and machinery as well as assisting the ship's engineers. The wiper is a training job to become an oiler.

According to a U.S. Navy news release, Spotts was in the central Pacific, about 12 miles off the coast of Tarawa Atoll, carrying supplies to nearby Betio Island on the day he passed.

He was in the process of closing the bilge shaft in the engine room when he accidentally dropped a portable hand lamp, which shattered the steam glass and shorted out the lamp. While attempting to retrieve the lamp, Spotts was electrocuted and died.

He was buried the next day at the US Naval Cemetery in Betio.

In 1947, 532 remains were recovered from Betio and returned to the United States

“I always had the impression that the family believed he was buried at sea and never expected to recover the body,” said his eldest current living relative, Linda Frink.

Frink was still a baby when Spotts died, but knew his parents very well.

“It was a great honor,” said Mary Jarboe, Frink’s sister. “We wish all the ancestors could be here because we were all good friends with his parents.”

After years of searching and identifying remains, a nonprofit organization called History Flight, Inc. found Spotts in 2017 and accompanied him to Hawaii.

Through mitochondrial DNA analysis, scientists assigned the remains to Wiper Spotts.

The genealogists then contacted his closest living relatives, who provided a resting place for their family member.

“There's a pretty thick pamphlet about the process of collecting DNA and sending it,” said Susan Donnelly, another sister of Frink and Jarboe.

“They're trying to find and house so many people that it just takes a long time to get them to the family they belong to.”

The sisters' father was Spotts' first cousin.