Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech alumni Jim Dalmas and John Dalmas solved a mystery that took 87 years to surface in Giles County.

The brothers believe they have discovered the identity of human remains recently found in Mountain Lake and are looking to put the case to rest.

"Last Saturday, as a matter of fact, my brother found it in a newspaper in Columbia, S.C., called The State," Jim Dalmas said. "July 26, 1921. That is the paper that said S.I. Felder had fallen overboard at Mountain Lake and divers were trying to recover his body. It didn't say in that article whether they ever found him or anything about that. Once we found that, we had all the pieces that fit together. When we put them all together, you saw the picture."

S.I. Felder has been suspected to be Samuel Ira Felder. Jim Dalmas said the picture of what happened became clear as he and his brother delved into the past of the generation-old remains.

INITIAL INVESTIGATION

Jim Dalmas, a noted author on the Roanoke area and 1960 Tech graduate, initially read a newspaper article on the discovery of the body, and decided he could aid the progress of the case.

"Since I've done a lot of genealogical research, I thought I might be able to help with the case. Then I got my brother involved, because he's also interested in genealogy," Jim Dalmas said.

Without official involvement with the police, Jim Dalmas said three items found with the remains offered clues to the identity of the body: a pair of shoes, a ring and a belt buckle with initials.

The shoes placed the man in the New York City area.

"On the bottom of those shoes it said 'McCreary,'" Jim Dalmas said. "I discovered that the shoes came from a department store in New York City that existed from sometime in the 1860s until 1953."

However, the ring and belt buckle became the key clues in the case. The belt buckle was scrutinized to give investigators hints at the man's name.

"Police originally felt that the initials on the belt buckle were SCF. I had about five experts, including my brother and myself, look at it, and we concluded it was SGF," Jim Dalmas said.

The ring, which was correctly presumed to be a class ring, also offered puzzling initials, with the letters "MC" on one side, and "CA" on the other.

The Dalmas brothers initially searched for colleges that existed in 1904, with names that began with "M."

Their search yielded six possible matches, but when contacted, all colleges responded with no information on the topic. However, the brothers already had their next lead.

"At the time that I learned it was Clemson, I had already got reports from those six schools that they were not the one," Jim said. "So then I was going to start with the letter 'C.' In the meantime, someone noticed that on the side of the ring, in between the letters, there is a tree. That is actually a palmetto. Somebody recognized that as the state tree of South Carolina, and suggested that they pursue schools in South Carolina."

 In the early 1900s, what is now Clemson University was known as Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical College, or CAMC. When the brothers contacted Clemson, it turned up no matches with the initials SGF.

"The closest one was SIF," Jim Dalmas said. "So then I looked at the SIF and I went back and looked at the engraver's art that I had previously found, and concluded that 'I' was indeed a possibility."

THE ALMA MATER'S IDENTIFICATION

The match Clemson provided was Samuel Ira Felder.

"I got my brother involved heavily at this point," Jim Dalmas said. "We went back and looked at the census records to see if we could find anybody that matched the criteria of Samuel I. Felder. So we looked at all the census records, and the main thing we discovered was in 1920 he was living in New York City with his wife Catherine. Then, in 1930, she was the head of the household and was listed as a widow."

Another check of an earlier census added feasibility to their New York City match.

"In 1900, we found him living with his father, John, in Orangeburg, S.C. So it all kind of fit together. He lived in South Carolina; he went to Clemson," Jim Dalmas said.

Last Saturday's newspaper discovery helped confirm their strong suspicions.

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