GENEVA – Kane County Coroner Rob Russell said he knows there’s a lot of good in people, yet he still was surprised by the public’s willingness to find proper resting places for the 47 unclaimed cremated remains he found on a storage room’s corner shelf.

“The good people really shine when things are dire,” he said. “But I didn’t think we’d have the outpouring that we had.”

Russell this month invited reporters to see where the cremated remains – or cremains – have been kept: next to boxes of old files in a storage room crowded with such objects as furniture, shovels, typewriters and holiday decorations.