Yesterday we told you of an effort to find unclaimed cremation remains permanent memorial places through a non-profit group.  Today we just want to tell funeral home operators of another way that they can help with the final memorialization of our veterans.

I never thought of this issue before, but it is out there and this article from WFXG in Augusta,Georgia, tells of an old building that once housed the Dent Undertaking establishment.  The article tells of the discovery of 135 bronze veterans markers, that were ordered but never placed, found in that building.  They date back to at least 1970 and are as current as 2005.

What is known is that there are 135 veterans who were willing to place their lives on the line for this country who, more than likely, do not have their grave sites marked or honored with these markers.

The article explains, through another funeral director, that it maybe is not the defunct funeral homes fault.  Many times, as we have done at our funeral home, we provide a place for the marker to be delivered to and the family is to make arrangements to get it placed in their cemetery once it arrives.  Sometimes that placement costs money that the family just doesn’t have at the time and, over time, a family forgets about the marker at the funeral home.

As for the 135 markers in question, Richmond County and its coroner’s office has located 90 of the 135 grave sites and is still working to locate the rest.

Funeral Director Daily take:  As I mentioned, our funeral home helped families take delivery of these markers.  There was more than once when a marker sat in our garage for a long period of time.  It behooves all of us in the industry to make sure that does not happen and we get those markers placed in a timely fashion.

Take a look in your storage area and see if you have any of these type of markers sitting around.  See if you can locate the family members.  As I said yesterday, if funeral directors don’t argue for the importance of permanent remembrance, who will?

Here are a couple other articles I noticed in the news that may be of interest to funeral professionals:

This article and news video tells the story of a Wisconsin cemetery that has changed its memorial policy and despite their best efforts to notify relatives of the deceased, some people are not happy about the outcome.

Here is an article from Lynchburg, Virginia, where funeral directors comment for the local newspaper on general changes in the death care industry and consumer practices over the years.

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