At Nebraska's Native American boarding school, search for child graves and closure continue

Carolyn Fiscus knows where her aunt, Mildred Lowe, spent her final days.

She knows the 12-year-old Winnebago girl became gravely ill in the winter of 1930 at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial Boarding School. She knows Mildred died.

She does not know where her aunt was buried.

It's a mystery Fiscus pondered as she sat in a folding chair beneath the sweltering sun in July 2023 and watched as a small team of archaeologists dug into the hardened Nebraska dirt. They were searching for the graves of children. Fiscus hoped her aunt might be among them.

The excavation had days to go, but the longtime...