“Place” is very important

August 26, 2024/Cemetery, Regulations/

Earlier in August I came across this feature article titled “One of Oregon’s most prominent families appears to want another family’s burial plot” from Willamette Weekly of Oregon about a disagreement in ownership of grave lots involving two families. And, Service Corporation International (SCI) as the cemetery owner finds themselves right in the middle of the fued.

It is an interesting article with lawyers and legal cases moving forward and an article which, in my opinion, stresses how important “place” can be to grieving families. Without commenting much more on the article, I would suggest reading it and pondering how important “place” and “finality” are to many grieving families.. . . . I think there is something about death, loss, heritage, and feelings as emotions of the human spirit that come across in the article.

And, I think it also shows how once decisions are made by grieving families, how difficult they are to reverse.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I was asked by a local cemetery years ago to try to mediate a disagreement very much like this one between two families. The cemetery asked me, as the small town “expert” on funerals to sit with the disagreeing parties and try to work something out.

Here’s the circumstances and what happened in my situation. There were two grave lots strategically located between the relatives of Family A and Family B. Family A, evidently purchased the lots and the cemetery gave them deeds but forgot to record that sale in their records.

A few years later Family B purchased the same lots which the cemetery inadverently thought were available because of the lack of the recording from a few years prior.

A couple of years later Family B noticed a preneed monument on what they believed were their lots and inquired at the cemetery. It was at that time that the cemetery recognized their error of not recording the deeds.

The cemetery tried to work it all out with the families and only made the situation worse and then they asked me to visit with the families. With the cemeteries permission I offered to either party that gave up their claim that they could have their money back and two free grave lots, that were unsold at that time, anywhere in the cemetery. Neither family budged on that offer.

I sifted through state statues and thought I had a solution but I did not want to suggest it as a layman. By this time neither family liked each other and I was reminded that I didn’t want to turn “conflict into combat” among the families or the disagreement would just get worse.

I talked to a well-respected retired judge and asked if he would be willing to listen to both families and make a ruling on what he thought was right. Luckily, both families agreed to this.

The judge ruled that Family A, the original purchasers of the lots could keep them. In essence he surmised that once those lots were originally sold, the cemetery did not have ownership or the right to sell the lots (to Family B) because they did not own them. Family B wasn’t really happy but they saw the practicality in that ruling and moved forward.

At my request, the cemetery gave Family B their money back and let them pick two lots free of charge after the ruling.

All parties are deceased now and our funeral home handled the services for all family members. Not getting to a “combative” stage and putting a solution in place without losing business was seen as a victory by me.

I’ve learned that there are tricky parts to public relations victories for funeral home owners, but I’ve often said I’m glad I don’t own a cemetery because the emotions of grieving family members that can occur over time can be very difficult to deal with.

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