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Daughter receives mother's cremains in time for Mother's Day

It took nearly a decade, but Ursula Staack has been reunited with her family in time for Mother's Day.

Staack was scheduled to be interred by the Kane County coroner's office with the rest of the unclaimed cremains in a ceremony May 31. But through the sleuthing of Coroner Rob Russell, Staack was saved from an anonymous interment.

Staack's name was clearly marked on the container containing her cremains, but there were no other identifying details, such as birth or death date or next of kin.

Russell decided to enter "Ursula Staack" into an investigative database, and because she had such a distinctive name, he scored a hit. The coroner discovered that Staack had died Sept. 3, 2009, in Streamwood, in Cook County, and decided to track down her family.

"We are the guardians of the deceased and we must do our due diligence in locating next of kin, even if he/she isn't from our area," Russell said.

Russell found Tina Moe, Staack's 70-year-old daughter, who lived in an assisted living facility in Rolling Meadows.

"My heart was pounding," Moe said, recalling receiving Russell's phone call in late April. "I was taken aback, I couldn't believe it."

Moe said her mother's cremains went missing in 2014 when Moe had to move out of her apartment. She said several people helped with the move and her mother's cremains likely just got misplaced.

Whoever ended up with the cremains ended up donating them to a local Goodwill along with a bunch of other stuff, Russell said. He said once store employees noticed the cremains, they called the police and the police took the cremains to Russell's office.

On Friday, Russell personally reunited Moe with her mother's remains.

"I am happy that we could reunite mother and daughter just in time for Mother's Day," he said.

Moe said she took her mother's cremains to the Friday night happy hour at her senior living facility so her and her neighbors could toast her mother's memory.

"With all the craziness in the world this is a really nice thing to have happened," Moe said. "It goes to show you there are still good people left in the world."

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