Beth LeBlanc

Port Huron Times Herald

For nearly three months, a woman killed in a Port Huron hit-and-run crash remained nameless.

Investigators spent weeks sifting through records, databases, and files until an X-ray out of San Francisco positively identified the 79-year-old homeless woman as Eleanor Denise Smith.

But the long-unidentified Smith still has no family to claim her, no loved ones to lay her to rest.

And while the state has paid for her death certificate and cremation, a Macomb County funeral home doesn’t want to lay her in an unfamiliar grave.

Michael Kolb, a funeral director at the Harold W. Vick Funeral Home in Mt. Clemens, is raising money to bury Smith with her mother at Mount Sinai Cemetery in Port Huron.

“We know she can be placed with her mother, it’s just a matter of making it financially possible,” Kolb said.

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While searching for Smith’s identity, investigators discovered her mother, Gertrude Smith, was buried at Mount Sinai Cemetery in Port Huron.

Kolb would like to bury Smith with her mother during a spring service. He’d also like to purchase and install a headstone.

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He expects the cost of the transportation, opening and closing the grave, the remembrance service and headstone will come to about $2,200.

He’s set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for the effort.

“We would like to host a public memorial event in the spring of 2016 at the cemetery,” the fund-raising site reads. “Your donation of any amount will help provide in death, what Eleanor missed during her lifetime — dignity and honor."

Smith was fatally injured in an apparent hit-and-run crash on Oak Street Sept. 2.

She was taken to a hospital in Macomb County, where she died from her injuries.

Her belongings were left scattered in the roadway, including a bag that held cards identifying the woman as Eleanor Denise Smith. But police needed a positive identification from family to ensure that the woman killed in the crash was the same one listed on the ID card.

When no family came forward, Port Huron police and the Macomb County Medical Examiner’s office spent weeks searching for X-rays or medical records that could confirm the woman’s identity.

In late November, they found a chest X-ray belonging to Smith at a hospital in San Francisco. It matched the woman police found on the side of Oak Street Sept. 2 and a positive identification was made.

No one has been arrested in the crash and police said there were few clues left behind as to who was responsible.

Port Huron Detective Chris Bean said evidence gathered at the scene indicate the vehicle involved in the crash was a 1998-2002 silver Dodge Dakota or Dodge Ram pickup.

He asked that anyone with information contact police at 810-984-9711, or call the CAPTURE hotline at 810-987-6688.

The Mt. Clemens funeral home received Smith’s body from the Macomb County morgue on Jan. 20 and cremated her the same day.

Kolb said, usually, the state provides a funeral home about $700 for the final burial expenses of an unclaimed person. That amount usually pays for a death certificate and cremation.

If the person is a veteran, the funeral home will bury them at a national cemetery.

“Otherwise, they end up staying here for two years,” Kolb said. “We put all of those names on our website in an obituary. If a family member, if they ever do a search for them, they’ll find them here. That’s kind of a rarity, but it does happen.”

At the end of two years, the funeral home takes the cremated remains to Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield.

Kolb said no family has come forward since the Times Herald featured Smith’s photo, identification and story in a November article.

But he hopes Smith’s story will encourage others to donate and lay her to rest.

Contact Beth LeBlanc at 810-989-6259 or eleblanc@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @THBethLeBlanc.