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Mustonen comes home
Senior Reporter No longer resting in a glacier's embrace, Leo Mustonen was buried Friday with the mother who grieved his loss.
Leo Mustonen, a blond 22-year-old Brainerd man, vanished in 1942. Mustonen was one of three aviation cadets and a pilot, all in their 20s, on a routine training flight that left Sacramento on Nov. 18, 1942, and disappeared. Climbers discovered his body in October 2005 in the receding Mt. Mendel glacier and military forensic experts spent months working to confirm his identity.
His nieces, Leane Mustonen Ross and Sister Mary Ruth (Ona Lea Mustonen), made the decision to have Leo's remains brought to Brainerd for burial in his hometown with his parents.
"He's no longer out there on a mountain all alone," said Sister Mary Ruth at a gathering before the funeral service. She said the services marked a life that ended and a new beginning.
For the family, finding Leo has brought them closer together and continues to leaf out a family tree.
"This is the beginning to a wonderful story that will continue," Ross said.
The Resurrection message was a strong one throughout the funeral service. First Lutheran Church Pastor Andy Smith said he was struck along with attention around the world that the discovery of Leo's body and completion of his life connects to a deep human need in everyone to experience redemption and closure offered by the Resurrection.
"In our own ways, we can find our own empathies today for what Anna and Arvid Mustonen must have felt sometime after 1938 when their son, Leo, graduated from Washington High School just down the block and eventually enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and flew off on a training mission over the Sierra Nevada from which he never came back?" Smith said.
"I think it's always important to show our support for our men and women who served in the military," said Sen. Paul Koering, R-Fort Ripley. "I think we need to show people it doesn't matter how long it's been."
Ron Holloway, Brainerd, was part of the Legion Post 255 contingent at the funeral services.
"I just can't imagine what his mother and his family went through all those years," Holloway said.
About 100 people attended the service. The burial took place, with full military honor guard, at Evergreen Cemetery.
"It turned out to be just a wonderful thing," Smith said after the graveside service was completed, adding he felt the family, particularly Leo's nieces, had a real sense of closure. "For them, I think it's just a big sense of fulfillment."
RENEE RICHARDSON can be reached at renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5852.
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