Poll: Gravesite or not?

[RetireeRobert]

Read up on it. Don't take my word for it...I am just a stranger on the internet. There are cameras EVERYWHERE on the property, especially in/on the rides. The only place you could do this and not risk being caught is the bathrooms. It's widely known that if someone does this and it's noticed, at MINIMUM, the ride is SHUT DOWN while it's cleaned up which isn't very nice for those that paid a significant amount of money to visit the park. I have more to say about this, but in the interest of being nice, I will just shut up about it.

Thanks for your response, "nicely", to me. Since you obviously missed my statement, my wife and I have side by side burial plots in a local cemetery, so our kids won't be faced with the humiliation of any possible permanent ban from WDW or WDL.


Your statement: "It's widely known that if someone does this and it's noticed,...." is a gaping caveat. Coud be construed as a "dare"!

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Some more thoughts.

My brother broke from family tradition and requested to be 'buried in high country' in a plain pine box. This was at the end of his battle with cancer and he lived in the Rocky foothills... So we had to research and found a cemetery in Estes Park, CO. When they were figuring out what to do as far as casket they were pushing very fancy caskets. He pretty much died broke - with the little left over going to his church. My sister accidentally flipped to the back of the casket catalog and found a very inexpensive 'plain pine box'... Turns out it was a cremation box. Turns out there was no reason it couldn't be used... So it was closer to a biodegradable burial since the casket would decay.

BIL recently passed. Again - he knew it was coming because of cancer. He had prepaid most of his expenses. When he found out it was $500 just to open the family columbarium to put his ashes in with his parents he balked. So his ashes are scattered at his favorite spot in Pennypack Park per his wishes.

MIL and FIL prepaid their expenses - so they thought. When FIL died it turns out there were a LOT of additional expenses. Also - the cemetery/funeral home poor record keeping due to management changes. DH had to produce the original contract (which he had, fortunately.) Learning from that DH (MIL's legal guardian) has prepaid everything for her final resting. Buying a plot and cremating are only small parts of the process. There was an additional $3000 in 'stuff'. (Like the above mentioned $500 for opening to put in the ashes. ) Both contracts are kept in our safe deposit box. As management changes - that contract is our only proof that everything should be paid for already.

It's big business.

(And confirms my choice to donate to medical school... )

That is all good info. DW and I have been discussing the med school route since it has been mentioned here. Our current plan is "plain box" or burlap sack on family land (no markers except as required by law) but I think it could be useful to get something out of the remains. We are already organ donors but have been gun shy with the recent revelations about the commercial practice of selling parts when folks thought they were donating to science.

 

[Koolau]

What is there to visit?

An urn full of ashes?

A steadily decaying lifeless body in a box?

Once I am dead why would I care? Why would I even know?

My parents both pre-made their own arrangements. Cremation and scattering of ashes.

No expansive anything and we were to stick to it. All monies to be used for the living, not the dead. They were very specific. They could afford any type of burial they desired.

So...the funeral home director/salesperson started to give me all this flannel about nice coffins, what my loved one deserved, yada yada yada. All the usual patter. I refused to even go into the sales area. I told him to deliver exactly what each parent had contracted for and to forget all the BS.

As far as I was concerned he could make his margins on some other deceased's family. He was not particularly happy with me.

We both plan to do exactly the same. Life is for the living, not the dead.

I actually have developed a philosophy similar to yours over the years. However, I completely understand that other folks have different beliefs and especially rituals around death. I think it's part of the coping and grieving process to some folks.

Within reason (as in if you can afford it and it's legal) I support anyone's right to deal with death in the way they see fit. I actually do occasionally visit my parents graves NOT because I believe they are there but because that was THEIR ritual with their loved ones when they were still alive.

"Honoring" my parents' customs occasionally brings me closer to their memories. Going to grand parents (plus great aunts/uncles/inlaws and a few outlaws) graves was a ritual we did as a family when I was a little kid. I honestly think it helped prepare me for the inevitable when folks I loved began to pass on.

It's my opinion that the rituals and practices ARE indeed for the living - not for the dead. The dead are beyond it all but those who remain may need help in the adjustment. Whatever works is what I always say about most situations.

Our desire to be sprinkled over the pet cemetery is for us while we live. It's a light hearted way to prepare us for the inevitable. If it never happens the way we want it to, I won't care. I'll see that it happens for DW if I remain - not because I think DW will know. But I will know. I will know I honored her memory and that will bring me joy (I think.)

Wow. This subject is bringing out memories and feelings (virtually all good ones) that I hadn't thought of for a while. YMMV

 

[Telly]

Some families splurge and pay a builder to construct a maseoleum to bury their loved ones. It is not cheap.

Yup. Like the Taj Mahal!

This topic has made me realize that I really don't know what DW would want done, for herself. I have a guess, but I need to ask her, especially about details. It will be an awkward conversation. I also think I need to lay out details of what I want to happen to me, which will be a short conversation! Though I would be dead and not care, the thought of embalming sounds ghoulish to me. I prefer to be cleansed by fire ASAP, and don't scrimp on the gas!

 

[Midpack]

I answered (none, cremation and scatter) a while ago. But the whole tradition of leaving a gravesite forever seems impractical. You see cemeteries with graves of people who died generations ago and I suspect almost none of them are visited again. The first generation might visit for a while, but eventually they’ll stop coming and subsequent generations won’t. I have no idea where my grandparents or their predecessors are buried…

 

[braumeister]

I have no idea where my grandparents or their predecessors are buried…

I have seen, in the course of genealogical research, the graves of some of my great-great grandparents and a few great-great-greats. That can actually be interesting.

I found one legal reference that states:

it is vital to note that one is not “buying land” with inalienable rights when one obtains a lot or vault. The contract and the bylaws do delineate the rights and the ability of the cemetery to be altered, to close, or to move one’s loved one.

More common in Europe where land near cities is scarce, but I know of a few cemeteries in this country that are so old and unused that it's quite likely they will eventually be turned over to other uses.

 

[Dash man]

DW and I have walked many cemeteries looking for ancestors. We live in an area with a lot of history and it’s very interesting to search. The website findagrave is very helpful.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Behind our back fence and across the street from us is a tiny family graveyard underneath a tree. Since it is on private property I have not ventured to take a look. Our area in Central PA was settled in the 1700s.

A childhood friend from California has great great grandparents who lived and died in the PA town where I live. The world seemed a lot smaller when I walked around looking for his family grave site in a cemetery here.

DH and I want to be cremated, but do not have fixed plans yet. Probably a marker in a mausoleum, for genealogical purposes.

 

[skyking1]

https://www.naturalburialground.org/

My niece opted for this, preplanned due to cancer.
Exerpt from another posting:
" She was buried today in a plain pine box put together with wooden pegs. There are a couple of places in the state that do this without the concrete vault or the embalming. It was like it used to be, and she will be back to nature soon. I have always wanted cremation, but this is nice. I post this up for the information.

"Ellie is under a garry oak tree. And if you didn’t know, her life symbol is an acorn. On a large ranch with horses, chickens, goats, and a big garden. Strong young women dug the hole and lowered Ellie into the ground. We put ponderosa pine needles over the pine box, and buried her pioneer style with shovels and had a picnic in the woods. It was in a ponderosa pine and garry oak savannah. There are lupine, Carey’s Balsamroot, arrow leaf Balsamroot, western wallflower, multiple types of desert parsley, and buckwheat perennials and shrubs. Those are just the ones I noticed. "

 

[street]

skyking1>> very interesting experience and thanks for sharing that. What is common here is just a small gathering of people and having a grave site burial. And happens within a day or so of death. Nothing fancy but a few love ones can part take in on site in the actual burial. A very humbling genuine experience.

 

[Nick12]

Some wear the ashes of their loved ones in a necklace and have the urn displayed in their home.

 

[cooch96]

I like the idea of medical students using my carcass as a cadaver.

 

[Koolau]

I like the idea of medical students using my carcass as a cadaver.

I completely understand how important access to cadavers is in the medical field. But for some reason, this is the only "final solution" mentioned so far with enough "ick" factor to ME to say. Not interested. Not sure why? Imagination too vivid? Was it the fetal pigs I had to cut up in A & P class?

I'm glad other folks are okay with it as already mentioned. I believe it's a very selfless thing to do. Heh, heh, did I just make a 'funny' or a 'dummy' statement there? Hmmm. "Selfless" - I'll have to think on that for a moment. YMMV

 

[Walt34]

I picked cremation but I don't really care since I'll be dead anyway, and scatter the ashes in any nearby river (there are several to choose from including the creek out back). That's less bother than going to an ocean.

DW favors a more traditional cemetery burial and I told her if I go first she can take my ashes with her if she likes.

Warning: Off topic:

When I was learning to fly my instructor said that when he got his Commercial rating his first paying job was to fly a guy out over the Chesapeake Bay to scatter his father's ashes as instructed in the will. The airplane for the job was ideal: The Piper J-3 Cub, which can be flown with the window and door open, which is nice on hot summer days. The window folds up and clips to the wing, and the door just folds down and hangs there. It's also a stall warning indicator, as just before an (aerodynamic) stall the door will flop upward to about horizontal.

Back to our normally tight topic control....

 

[Music Lover]

No burial. I don't think people should own land after they're dead.

 

[RetireeRobert]

No burial. I don't think people should own land after they're dead.

Hehehe.

But actually, when one is buried in a plot, all the cemeteries I am familiar with, one does not actually own the plot as in owning a piece of real estate. One owns "interment rights" to have one's remains interred at that particular location.

I am not familiar with that many cemeteries though, so there may be some, perhaps in other areas of the country, where one does "own" a plot as one owns a piece of real estate.

 

[athena53]

Hehehe.

But actually, when one is buried in a plot, all the cemeteries I am familiar with, one does not actually own the plot as in owning a piece of real estate. One owns "interment rights" to have one's remains interred at that particular location.

Pere Lachaise in Paris (and maybe other European cemeteries) has an interesting model. After a certain number of years (typically decades), unless the family wants to pay longer to maintain the site, the grave is emptied and the bones placed with others in an ossuary and the grave is resold.

 

[RetireeRobert]

Pere Lachaise in Paris (and maybe other European cemeteries) has an interesting model. After a certain number of years (typically decades), unless the family wants to pay longer to maintain the site, the grave is emptied and the bones placed with others in an ossuary and the grave is resold.

Interesting. I suppose then, such cemetery plots in Paris at that locale do not have headstones? Or are any headstones returned to the family?

 

[Koolau]

My parents, wife's parents, my sister and her husband, DW's brother are ALL buried in the same building (6 story - works-in-a-drawer) mausoleum. The building has inside and outside accommodation (her parents side of the family are on the inside, mine on the outside - that's the cheap seats.) The interior is heated or air conditioned 24/7.

Several years back, a tornado hit the place and tore open parts of the concrete superstructure! Most of the external facia plates covering the coffins were ripped off and scattered. Fortunately, the building WAS reparable. It occurred to me at the time, if their insurance was shy, they might have made "other arrangements" for our loved ones. Not a big deal to me or DW, but I'm betting there would have been law suites out the, well, anyway.

 

[Sunset]

Some more thoughts.

.....
MIL and FIL prepaid their expenses - so they thought. When FIL died it turns out there were a LOT of additional expenses. Also - the cemetery/funeral home poor record keeping due to management changes. DH had to produce the original contract (which he had, fortunately.) Learning from that DH (MIL's legal guardian) has prepaid everything for her final resting. Buying a plot and cremating are only small parts of the process. There was an additional $3000 in 'stuff'. (Like the above mentioned $500 for opening to put in the ashes. ) Both contracts are kept in our safe deposit box. As management changes - that contract is our only proof that everything should be paid for already.

It's big business....

I've have the funeral home, attempt to tack on an extra $1,000 + as "costs have gone up since the contract".

The other issue I have with prepaid contracts is, person pays for example a service, then relatives decide just do the burial and skip the service. There is no refund of the $800 service cost.

This is without a location complication, meaning if you die far away, the funeral home contracted with won't be as convenient.

 

[jldavid47]

I’d love to have my ashes scattered over Wrigley Field but that’s unlikely.

Ahh. Steve Goodman beat you to that by 40+ years (Dying Cub Fan's Last Request):


He said, "Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field on some sunny weekend day, no lights
Have the organ play the "National Anthem" and then a little 'Na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, goodbye'
Make six bullpen pitchers carry my coffin and six ground keepers clear my path
Have the umpires bark me out at every base, in all their holy wrath

It's a beautiful day for a funeral, hey Ernie, let's play two!
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back, and conduct just one more interview
Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field, have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt and I'll be ready to die

Then build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats and toss my coffin in
And let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow from the prevailing thirty mile-an-hour southwest wind
When my last remains go flying over the left-field wall, we'll bid the bleacher bums adieu
And I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue

 

[kcowan]

When my brother died, his ashes were buried in the grave sites of our parents. The cemetary insisted on being paid for permission to do it for a disgraceful fee.

Then when I asked about a marker, they said the little brass nameplate to be affixed below Moms name for $500 was no longer available but they would add another gravestone for $3800. I said no so he is in an unmarked grave. He would have been ok with that.

 

[athena53]

Then when I asked about a marker, they said the little brass nameplate to be affixed below Moms name for $500 was no longer available but they would add another gravestone for $3800. I said no so he is in an unmarked grave. He would have been ok with that.

Heck, yes! I come from a very thrifty family (eminently solvent but all LBYM types who don't like to be ripped off) and would make the same decision for any of them. DH just sprinkled his Mom's ashes over her husband's (DH's stepfather's) grave. I don't think DH even told the cemetery management.

I imagine that with so many people choosing cremation, sales of the high-profit goods and services are down so they have to make it up somewhere. Before DH died I went to the funeral place to make arrangements for cremation and they gave me a catalogue of urns and other trinkets. I did go for a silver charm with one of his fingerprints on it (they do that anyway and store them in the computer) but we had a good laugh over the glass paperweight with cremains of the dear departed, tinted in pretty colors and swirled into a tasteful design- $485 plus tax.

 

[Koolau]

MIL and FIL prepaid their expenses - so they thought. When FIL died it turns out there were a LOT of additional expenses. Also - the cemetery/funeral home poor record keeping due to management changes. DH had to produce the original contract (which he had, fortunately.) Learning from that DH (MIL's legal guardian) has prepaid everything for her final resting. Buying a plot and cremating are only small parts of the process. There was an additional $3000 in 'stuff'. (Like the above mentioned $500 for opening to put in the ashes. ) Both contracts are kept in our safe deposit box. As management changes - that contract is our only proof that everything should be paid for already.

It's big business.

(And confirms my choice to donate to medical school... )

When MIL died, the FH who sold her the (essentially an annuity) to cover her final expenses tried to pull the same trick. It turns out, the annuity can be used upon death - for final expenses - anywhere that performs those services - not just the FH that sold the policy to you! So, DW walked the half block to ANOTHER FH and asked if they would perform all the services the original FH had promised for value of the annuity. They said YES and all was well. ALSO part of the "system." Competition among FHs. Use it to your advantage though YMMV.

 

[omni550]

Anyone who is planning on being cremated or donating their body to science might want to possibly consider donating their brain to science aka the Brain Donor Project. They have a very efficient nationwide network to retrieve the brain within an hour of passing (ideally.)

https://braindonorproject.org/

omni