2nd Hand Urn Story

This is not my story, but I'm telling it anyway because it's one of my favorites, and it comes from my cousins and my uncle. Reading about the Farmer's Market's 75th anniversary reminded me of it because of the LA location and the images I get when I think of the Farmer's Market in the early days. I may not have all the names, dates and places perfectly correct, but it's the concept that gets me every time!
My uncle, AC Black was one of the first developers of the Marina Del Rey. He built condos and 1200 boat slips there in the late 60's. On his first day of dredging, up comes a crematory urn. It was inscribed with the name of a young woman, Anna Painter, who died in 1932. As my uncle was wont to do, he took out his trusty labeler, and punched out Marina Del Rey, First Day of Dredging, and the date. He kept it at his office until he retired, then brought it to his various home offices. AC Black passed away Christmas, 1999.
When his daughters were packing up his personal effects and wondering what to do with all the various and sundry items, there stood the urn. My cousin Susan thought it would be a mitzvah to find a family member of this urn and return it. She took the fat LA phone book and turned to the page with Painter as the last name. She found "Otto Painter" listed and decided that sounded old fashioned enough to go with the urn. It was her first call, and sure enough, he was the man responsible for the urn going into the Pacific Ocean.
His young sister died of consumption in 1932, and she wanted her ashes spread over the ocean. Otto could not spread the ashes right after the cremation. He kept them with him from their original home state, New York, brought them with him to his move to Florida and finally to California, where he moved into an apartment in West Los Angeles, not far from Farmer's Market. In the early 1950's, he finally felt ready to keep his promise to his dying sister, and decided to spread her ashes in the Pacific. He drove down Washington Blvd. to Bologna Creek. As he waded into the water, holding the urn and pouring his sister's ashes on the waves, he was overcome with grief and in a moment of catharsis, sacrificed the urn to the ocean. Twenty years later my uncle recovered the urn, and twenty years after that, my cousins returned the urn to Otto. She said as he took it from her hands, he kissed it.