A memorial service for 89-year-old Mabel Bink was held in Chicago on Saturday, despite a few setbacks. For starters, it rained, which reportedly hurt attendance. Also, the U.S. Postal Service lost Bink's cremated body during shipment from Phoenix to Chicago.
Bink, a Phoenix resident, died on June 18, from congestive heart failure. She was born and lived most of her life in a suburb of Chicago. So when she died, members of her family wanted her body back in the Windy City for burial.
Before she died, family members reportedly had to persuade Bink to have her body cremated after realizing it would be too expensive to have it transported to Chicago intact.
When Bink died, her son, 62-year-old Kenneth Bink, agreed to fly the remains back to Chicago. He even bought the permit required to transport human remains on an airplane.
Those plans were scrapped, though, when an entirely different shipping error sent a heavy vault the family had ordered to hold the remains to Phoenix instead of Chicago.
The vault was too big to go on the plane so the family took its chances with the mail system one more time and shipped the vault -- and the remains -- to Chicago.
As far as the family knows, Bink's ashes, and the vault, never made it to Chicago. They were lost by the USPS.
We called USPS spokesman Peter Hass to get an explanation, but he didn't immediately get back to us.
Customer service reps for the USPS told a Chicago television station that their records indicate the package arrived in Chicago earlier this month but apparently never made it to its final destination, Bink's family.
The rep goes on to say postal employees in both Phoenix and Chicago are on "high alert" and are continuing to looking for the package.
"My heart goes out to the family. I wish they could have some closure," the rep continued.
