Lonely Grave in the Sierra:
Nothing but Dead Ends

[Skip]

The librarian in Mammoth Lakes patiently listened to me, and then said that they unfortunately didn't have old Mammoth newspapers archived. However, he kindly checked the main Mono County library, and soon confirmed that local newspapers from the thirties could be found in Bridgeport, the county seat some fifty miles to the north.

I stayed in Mammoth Lakes for the next few days. On Thursday, I did a solo trip from Sky Meadows via Blue Couloir to Duck Lake, and back via Woods Lakes. Dom came on Friday, and we made a super-sized day hike from Devils Postpile over South Notch to the other side of Minarets, following for a time the route that Walter Starr took on his last journey. We returned via Beck Lakes Pass, totaling well over twenty miles in 14 hours. The next day we climbed Mt. Morrison, one of the most striking peaks near Highway 395 in this part of the Sierra. Before I left Mammoth Lakes, I visited the main Inyo National Forest Ranger Station in the town, and asked if they knew anything about the Rettenbachers' grave. They didn't. If I hadn't produced a copy of Alan's pictures, they would probably have thought that I was some kind of crackpot. Ranger Mike took my email address and copies of the pictures, and promised to get back to me if he found anything. Unfortunately, it ended at that, and there was no further communication between us.

In the next few days I was in the Southern Sierra, having a lot of fun on a Mt. Langley hike with colleagues from my office. I then returned all the way to Bridgeport and found a cozy library on a small street near the Old Courthouse. It turned out that no newspapers were published in Mammoth Lakes in the thirties, but the library had a collection of microfilmed copies of Bridgeport Chronicle Union from that time. The paper proudly called itself "the only Mono County newspaper". The librarian, Ms. Vineca, kindly showed me how to use the microfilm reader, and full of hope, I checked all July 1934 issues and one or two August 1934 issues of this weekly paper. There were several news items from Mammoth Lakes, and there was one report about a climbing accident in another Sierra county, but there was nothing about the Rettenbachers.

On the way back home via Sonora Pass, I wondered what was going on. How could it be that the rangers in Mammoth Lakes didn't know anything about the grave site on the territory under their control, and why was there nothing about the accident in the only local paper? A conspiracy? A mystery? An accident that never got reported to authorities? Even more surprises waited down the road.

A small disaster became apparent when I got home: The camera had malfunctioned in the mountains, and not a single frame of the film got exposed. There will be no pictures of the grave or of the west side of Mt. Ritter this year!

After checking several European Web sites, I got a slightly better understanding of what the organization called Die Naturfreunde ("the friends of nature") was all about in the first half of the 20th century. By that time, Die Naturfreunde had spread throughout the German speaking world, as well as to the countries with significant German-speaking immigrant populations. It was a gathering place for people who liked outdoor activities, such as hiking, rock climbing, boating and skiing. Other members had keen interest in natural history (particularly botany, geology and ornithology). Many Naturfreunde authors in Europe viewed "nature" in idealized terms as a more appropriate setting for human relationships; it offered what modern society lacked. On the other side of the Atlantic, in the United States, Die Naturfreunde was also a social club in which people were able to talk in their native tongue and keep alive customs from the faraway homeland. Consequently, Die Naturfreunde Inc in San Francisco could have been a kind of combination of a tourist and social club for people of German and Austrian origin. Then, as well as today, a member of Die Naturfreunde from one country would be welcome in all chapters around the world. Many people used this benefit of membership to travel abroad and experience their favorite activity in another country. The fact that the San Francisco branch was mentioned on the Rettenbacher plaque could indicate that Conrad and Anna had been local members, but it could also mean that they were visitors from another country and using the hospitality of the San Francisco branch at the time of the accident. I was hoping I could learn more about Die Naturfreunde in San Francisco and determine which of the two options was correct, but I had no idea whom to contact or where to start.

One Saturday morning in September, I took the train to San Francisco, and visited History Center at the sixth floor of the main City library. A friendly reference librarian tried to help as much as she could. I checked their card catalogue for any reference about the Rettenbachers or Die Naturfreunde Inc., but no luck. The librarian then brought a microfilm copy of the California Death Index, letter R, for the period 1930-1939. The names of the deceased were sorted alphabetically, and for each person the dates of birth and death, spouse's name (where available), and information on the county in which the death had occurred, were listed. But no one with the name Rettenbacher was mentioned.

If a death occurred in California today, and was reported to authorities, a death report would be filled, even if the deceased were not a citizen. Unfortunately, the librarian couldn't tell if the same rules were in effect in the 1930s. Perhaps, at that time, the death of a tourist or a short term visitor would not have been registered? Or, could it be that the deaths of the Rettenbachers had never been officially reported to a coroner and police?

On the fifth floor, the Library has a nice collection of microfilmed newspapers, including the main San Francisco papers from the 1860s until today. If you have ever tried to read a large sized newspaper on a microfilm reader, you know how tedious and slow this process is. I checked all issues of San Francisco Chronicle and of another local daily paper, San Francisco Call Bulletin, from July 1 to August 5, 1934, but couldn't find anything about an accident in the Sierra mountains. I could have missed a small article tucked away somewhere at the bottom of an internal page, but I don't think I could have missed an article with a bigger title or in a more prominent position. Yet, not a word about the Rettenbachers. I also checked the San Francisco and Bay Area phone book from 1934, but neither the Rettenbachers nor Die Naturfreunde Inc were listed.

This was clearly going nowhere. I didn't have a single tangible fact about the accident or the victims. The grave was real, but actually, there was still a possibility that only one person was buried there, somebody who for strange reasons had a double name "Conrad-Anna", perhaps in honor of his grandfather and grandmother (remember that the text on the plaque says: here rests Conrad-Anna…).

In mid September, I made a Web search for email addresses of people with the last name "Rettenbacher", and found about 25 different entries, mostly from Austria. The remaing few were from Germany, mainly from Bavaria. I asked those people if they could remember old family stories about Conrad and Anna traveling to America and then tragically loosing their lives there. I got quite a few replies, and learned many interesting things about various Rettenbachers, but there was no clear "smoking gun". A separate section in this report will be devoted to Rettenbacher families, but I have to mention here at least two of the people who replied. Dr. Arno Rettenbacher, currently doing his postdoc research in the United States, was extremely helpful and supportive from the first moment he learned about my quest. He also found something that could be a hot trail regarding the birth places of Conrad and Anna, however no final results are available at this time. Another Rettenbacher played a major role, because his email started a chain of events that ultimately led to some important discoveries: Mag. Richard Rettenbacher from Tulln, Austria, carefully checked the Web site of a German branch of Die Naturfreunde, and found the email address of Ms. Susi Raub, who was listed on that Web site as the International Secretary for "The Nature Friends" in the U.S. I didn't find her name and email address earlier, because I didn't know that the organization in the U.S. is now called "The Nature Friends", no longer "Die Naturfreunde". Thanks to Richard, I finally had a contact address for the elusive American branch of the Naturfreunde organization. I immediately sent a note to Susi, and she replied the same day. Find more on what Susi knew about the Rettenbachers in the section called Die Naturfreunde.

At about that time, I also found a wonderful Web site that had a database with the records from Ellis Island. This small island, just south of Manhattan, is likely to connect with more of the American population than any other spot in the country. It has been estimated that nearly half of all Americans today can trace their family history to at least one person who passed through the Port of New York at Ellis Island. The database contains more than twenty million names of people who arrived to New York between 1892 and 1924. If Conrad and Anna have arrived to the New World before 1925, their names would have been in the database, and we would know their ages and the place from which they came. Sadly, there was no match in the database. The Rettenbachers were either recent immigrants or were tourists visiting the States.

Several days later I sent a letter to the Editor of Mammoth Times, a weekly newspaper printed in Mammoth Lakes, and asked for a help from the readers who might have knowledge about the grave in the Ritter Range. The letter eventually got published, but there have been no replies thus far.

Although at that time I was inclined to believe that Anna and Conrad were from Austria, I did write to a friend who works in a library in Hamburg, Germany, and asked her for help. She and her son did their best, but there just wasn't enough information to start with, and their search didn't produce any results. However, the string of dead ends was now coming to a close, and so did the month of September.

NEXT: Accidents and Rescues in the Ritter Range

If you have any reliable knowledge about the accident or the Rettenbachers, please drop me a line at

indicates that more information is available in the footnotes section.