We went cemetery plot shopping...... (move, stepfather, state, separate)
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My mother chose her cemetery and paid for a plot there. My sister knows mom's plans, but I don't. Cremation or not? I am a Veteran, so I am going to be cremated and buried at a National Cemetery. Possibly the same one my father is in Battle Creek MI. I don't know if my spouse can be there if he passes before me - but I may check into that. My father-in-law and MIL are both buried in Phx Her urn is with him now.
Your spouse can be buried in a National Cemetery even if he passes before you do. For us, I have already pre-registered with the East Tennessee State Veteran's Cemetery in Knoxville for both our ashes to be buried there.
This is one of many reasons everyone in our family has decided to go with cremation. Having said that, I now have my father's ashes in a scatter urn and am finding it's not as easy as one would have thought to find somewhere to scatter ashes if one wants to stay within the confines of the law.
Best of luck selling your plot. I second the earlier poster's idea of posting something at a local senior center if you have one.
I can't grasp the mindset of planning for death in the way that the OP did...forty years ago, how old were you both, 30ish? Investing in a mausoleum space wouldn't have even been on my radar at age 30 (or even now).
However, I applaud the OP for looking into alternative options, and escaping the money-grab of the modern day funeral industry. "Green burial" is a better choice not only for the earth, but also the economics of the surviving family, and allows them to visit the gravesite in a natural setting - hopefully with trees and native plants all around rather than a sterile grass lawn with invasive headstones planted throughout and tons of chemicals buried six feet under.
It depends on your life experience. Certainly, having a family member pass away and trying to struggle to come up with the money for funeral arrangements and trying to find a cemetery while in the midst of grieving the loss of the person has a way of resonating with you. I lost a parent around the age of 30 and having the cemetery logistics prearranged was a blessing.
I'm not, yet, 60 and I'd do that type of planning now if I had any idea where we'll end up. I don't want to set things in stone in one state only to wind up living half way across the country in another state.
I am now the head of my line. I had 7 urns of ashes of loved ones, including 2 dogs, in my curio cabinet, beginning in 1992. It was comforting to have them with me. Now that I am older and have one child who is not at all sentimental, I took matters into my own hands and made decisions for all 8 ashes final resting place. My church has a Columbarium so we are all there. 2 slots with 2 parts fit all of us. I kept the urns, my child can decide what to do with them.
I am now the head of my line. I had 7 urns of ashes of loved ones, including 2 dogs, in my curio cabinet, beginning in 1992. It was comforting to have them with me. Now that I am older and have one child who is not at all sentimental, I took matters into my own hands and made decisions for all 8 ashes final resting place. My church has a Columbarium so we are all there. 2 slots with 2 parts fit all of us. I kept the urns, my child can decide what to do with them.
Your child can decide what to do with empty urns?? WHY? You already said your child is not sentimental, do them the favor and toss them.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
My parents bought six double graves, so room for twelve, in 1953 when my grandfather died. The cemetery was fairly new, and maybe they thought it was a good investment. But it's weird, because my mom would have been 25 and my dad 32 at the time.
Anyway, there are only four people in there. My brother, my parents, and my brother-in-law. I intend to be cremated if I can't do a pod burial (where the body is placed in a burlap sack and a tree is planted over it--the body feeds the tree for about 25 years) because I don't think it's legal anywhere in the USA yet. But you CAN have a tree planted over your cremains, and I'll be OK with that. The "bone meal" also feeds the tree.
Cemeteries are great for historians and genealogists, but they are definitely a waste of space, and the whole idea of trying to preserve a dead body with chemicals and then place it inside a fancy box and then inside a concrete casing and bury it underground and mark the spot sounds silly and wasteful these days. At least my parents' cemetery has flat plaques rather than headstones.
Weird little sidebar: The original deed for the cemetery plots states that "only persons of the Caucasian race are to be interred at George Washington Memorial Park". That's changed, I know, because our African-American high school chemistry teacher is buried there, as I'm sure are others. There's also an area that seems to be mostly Muslim burials, judging by the crescent and star on the plaques, and I'm guessing many of them did not have white skin in life, either. But...1953, it still said that.
Here in our state there are places that turn the body into soil for growing a tree, but the tree pod burial is also legal and quite popular here.
I decided a long time ago on cremation, I'll be the first in the family to do that (& that includes all my extended family afaik). But I haven't decided on how the ashes should be handled. Not buried if that requires a plot, I'm kinda "anti" cemeteries these days especially in urban areas where living people could use the land for living.
They say one dies twice: once when we cease to live & again when the last person who can remember us dies. I live about a 20 minute walk from what is purported to be the largest cemetery configuration in North America. There are said to be 3 million souls in there, plus it borders on another sizable cemetery. I go walking around there occasionally & typically I'm the only living human I see visiting the graves of the departed, maybe one other person in a car may drive by. It just seems to me to be the height of folly to construct monuments to ourselves, who will be forgotten in 2 generations, when living people could use the land. This one cemetery has a larger "population" than all but 2 US cities.
So I haven't instructed my family on how to handle my ashes yet, I'm still considering but they will be scattered somewhere with no fuss.
About 40 years ago we purchased an Interior Mausoleum Crypt at Pre-Construction Pricing. It was in a very plain looking Cemetery about 15-20 miles away, but the price was great and we 'assumed' the cemetery would develop in the years before our required use with decades of landscaping design and greenery growth.
It required many years for the Mausoleum complex to be fully constructed. That, plus its distance from our home and our ages, means that we never saw it in its completed state until ~5 years ago. We were very disappointed!
The completed building is not even close to the renderings we were shown decades ago, and the cemetery has added zero landscaping improvements during the intervening decades. But the Mausoleum is very popular! All of the ~400 Interior Crypts are fully sold.
We have agonized over what to do with our crypt during the past 5 years. Well, mostly my wife agonized as I assume I will die first, and once dead the appearance of the Mausoleum will no longer matter to me.
But we went looking, found something we both like, a hill side plot in a historic cemetery which practices green burial of cremains. No Urn is required and no Vault is required, cremains are buried as received from the Crematorium - unless the client wishes a Vault or Urn - and pet cremains can be buried with the owner.
So that painful discussion is settled, but now we need to sell our crypt.
We bought plots and prepaid our funerals years ago (15-20??)
Back story....The cemetery is a traditional Jewish cemetery that is over 100 years old. The problem is that the neighborhood has deteriorated and it is so bad that we will not go to visit our parents and relatives graves without carrying guns.
All of the Jewish cemeteries in Greater Cincinnati are now owned by one group.
Flash forward several years...Because of the dangerous neighborhood, drug use on property,etc, we wanted to transfer to another of their cemeteries. We were told that the only thing we could do is sell our plots and buy new ones. The problem was that no one would buy plots in the bad neighborhood, so we decided leave well enough alone and stay.
Flash forward a few more years...I received a call from the president of the burial society. He told me that another family wanted one of the two spaces we had for a relative and asked if we minded moving over a space.
I said I wouldn't mind as long as they moved us to the new cemetery. They needed the space so bad that he OKed the move for both of us.
The whole point of this long post is that it is never easy to sell plots or mausoleum crypts because the cemetery loses money on a private sale (I'm sure your crypt would cost a large multiple of what you paid)
We were in our late 20's with two toddler age children when a Door-to-door salesman stopped by. Pre-construction pricing and Zero Percent financing for something we knew we would need someday. Sounds worth looking into! We toured the cemetery prior to deciding to go forward. IIRC up front cost was $150.
Yes, all our friends thought we were crazy too.
But then a couple of years later a friend's Dad died early, with no pre-planning, and the family was forced to tour cemeteries, buy a plot, select and order a headstone, etc., in addition to the already mentally taxing Funeral Arrangements. Suddenly, others started similar considerations.
Very smart move on your part. Plus, it takes a lot of pressure off your children or family
When my father died 40 years ago his funeral was 4K
Mom died a few years later years ago and her funeral was 5-6K
When we paid for our funeral it was 10K
A good friend's ex-wife is dying and his daughter just paid +/- 15K
All at the same funeral home and all basically the same services (ours are exactly the same as my marents, including the same coffin. Not sure what coffin our friend's daughter just bought, but all ather funeral services are the same)
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