Corona Daily 140: Ellen Torron’s Story: Part Final

At the Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten island, the chief Rabbi greeted Donofrio. A group of volunteers wearing protective gear dressed Ellen’s corpse in eight separate pieces of white linen clothing, including a bonnet, shirt, pants, gown and belt. They carried the coffin to Ellen’s new burial plot, in section 91 of the cemetery. The Rabbi opened a prayer book and recited prayers in Yiddish. The ritual was over once the coffin was covered with soil.

*****

About a month later, Rhoda Fairman, 83, accidentally saw a brochure from the Hebrew Free Burial Association. Normally, it would have been junked, but Rhoda noticed it on her kitchen table. The brochure displayed the names of the 333 people the association had buried in the past few months. Rhoda was stunned to see the name Ellen Torron.

Rhoda and Ellen had worked together for more than twenty years as legal secretaries at a Manhattan law firm. Ellen had never opened a Facebook account, and lost touch with colleagues. The two women would share lunch, shop together, occasionally visit museums. On 9/11, they were together watching the second plane crashing in the South tower from their 49th floor office of One Penn Plaza.

Ellen was born in 1946, the only child of Polish and Lithuanian immigrants. Since the age of 18, she lived on her own, graduating with a double degree in English and classical studies. As far as Rhoda knew, Ellen had never married. She claimed to have a daughter in Brazil, but nobody ever met her or saw any picture. Ellen was intelligent and well travelled. She didn’t mind travelling alone.

*****

In the eight months since her second burial, investigators found over $56,000 in her bank accounts plus jewelry including a pearl necklace, silver brooches and ruby-diamond earrings. By law, the Queens county public administrator must attempt to track down Ellen’s relatives to distribute the estate. No daughter has ever emerged. Only relatives who are siblings or first cousins (till once removed) are eligible.

Meryle Mishkin-Tank, 56, was found to be a daughter of Ellen’s first cousin. She had never met Ellen Torron, nor was she aware of her existence. However, Meryle, a paralegal, has taken great interest in trying to uncover details about Ellen’s life and death. Thanks to this episode, and extensive genealogical research, she has found and contacted five more cousins and an aunt. None of them knew anything about Ellen Torron.

*****

Meryle Mishkin-Tank grew up in Manhattan. But until she was told about the death of Ellen, her unknown cousin, Meryle had not heard of the Hart Island or the Mount Richmond Cemetery. Through her committed research, she found out that Ellen’s paternal grandfather, Zelman, and grandmother, Elka, were buried in the Mount Richmond cemetery as well. In fact, it turned out that their graves were located quite close from their granddaughter’s plot.

In that sense, Ellen Torron is not alone any more.

*****

P.S. In summer 2020, TIME magazine was granted unprecedented access to Hart Island to observe burial and exhumation operations. W. J. Hennigan, a TIME reporter witnessed first hand the retrieval and formal reburial of Ellen Torron. He just happened to be there on that day. TIME was also allowed to join the investigators’ team and visit Ellen’s apartment in July. W.J. Hennigan deserves readers’ thanks for unearthing the story.

More than a million people are buried in unmarked graves on Hart island. Most of them are anonymous and forgotten. But Ellen Torron’s story shows that with the efforts of social workers, government employees and reporters, a biography of an anonymous person can be resurrected.

Ravi