Last year, my church sent out a survey to find out what the membership thought about building a columbarium (a structure of vaults lined with recesses for cinerary urns) on the church grounds. While I was intrigued, I was also quite surprised. It’s a Southern Baptist church, although we rarely talk about our…Baptist-ness.

Cremation is something Southern Baptists would have not even considered 50 years ago. It wasn’t even talked about when I was younger.

The Church’s changing attitude and the fact that cremation is becoming a more popular option got me thinking. What is the history of cremation and why was it considered taboo for so long in the U.S.?

History points back to the last Stone Age around 3,000 B.C. as when primitive forms of cremation began. It was quite popular with the upper classes in Ancient Rome and Greece. For the wealthy, remains were often kept in a larnax, a small coffin or ash-chest, usually made of decorated terracotta. Occasionally, these vessels were made of precious metals, as with the fourth-century B.C. gold larnax found at Vergina, in Northern Greece. It was in a tomb believed to be that of King Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great.

Cremation via the use of a crematorium became an option in Western Europe during the 19th century. In 1874, Sir Henry Thompson, surgeon to Queen Victoria, visited Italy and saw a demonstration of equipment used for carrying out cremations. Impressed by the demonstration, he invited some like-minded friends to form the Cremation Society of England in order to promote the use of cremation as an alternative to burial.

The Society bought some land next to a cemetery in Woking with the intention of building a crematorium on the site but local opposition meant they had to halt work. However, an event in 1884 changed the situation. Dr. William Price, a very eccentric doctor who claimed to be the Arch druid of a lost Celtic tribe, cremated his son, who had died at the age of only five months, on the local hillside. Price was prosecuted but found not guilty. This ruling effectively made cremation legal and led to the Cremation Act of 1902.

As time passed, cremation became more acceptable and popular in England. Because land for burial had become scarce over the centuries, it made sense to many people. In 2008, statistics show that about 72 percent of people in the U.K. chose cremation.

Here in the U.S., attitudes about cremation are different. Christianity, by and large, has been the major religion. Opposition to cremation centered on the Christian belief that it was a pagan practice. A major argument against cremation by Christians has been anticipation of a bodily resurrection at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul, for example, talks about a “resurrection body” in 1 Corinthians 15. As a result, many Christians choose to stick with burial so the body is kept intact.

The Catholic Church forbade members to cremate for many years. However, in 1963, the Vatican lifted the ban on cremation. But the cremated remains or “cremains” could not be present at the funeral mass. Burial was (and still is) the preferred method for Catholics. In 1997, the Vatican approved new liturgical norms allowing for the cremated remains to be present at a funeral mass and the remains are to be treated with the same reverence as a whole body in a casket. However, the spreading of cremated ashes (or keeping them in an urn in a home) is still technically forbidden by the Catholic Church.

Cremation’s become more popular in the U.S. for many reasons. Our multi-cultural society includes a much broader range of religious affiliations and for some, the absence of any belief system at all. We’re are also a much more mobile society. Many people move from the state of their birth to another state then to another and another. This negates the existence of a “family cemetery” in which to bury family members. There’s also a growing interest in environmentally-friendly means of disposing of the human body. Burying a body full of toxic chemicals that will eventually leak into the groundwater supply is not appealing to a lot of people.

However, the biggest motivator in the last several years is the hit the American economy took in 2008. According to The National Funeral Directors Association, the national median cost of a funeral (including the service, casket, fees, etc.) for calendar year 2012 was $7,045. If a vault is included, something that is usually required by a cemetery, the median cost is $8,343. I think the NFDA low-balled that figure considerably. Cremation, with or without a memorial service and entombment in a columbarium, is much less expensive.

According to the Cremation Association of North America, in 2011, an average of 40 percent of Americans chose cremation. Considering that cremation, on a national average, stood at 33 percent in 2006 shows that the trend shows no sign of slowing down. Some states are more accepting of it than others. For Georgia, about 31 percent chose cremation while almost 56 percent did in California (in 2010).

Still, the Jewish community does not usually cremate. There are some Reform congregations who have embraced it but it is not common. In Jewish law, the human body belongs to its Creator. It is “on loan” to the person, who is the guardian of the body, but he or she has no right to deface it in any way. So, the body must be “returned” in its entirety, just as it was given.

And let’s be honest. Despite the fears of funeral directors across the country, traditional ground burial is not going to stop anytime soon. Especially here in the Southeast. The attitude of “my great-grandpa did it, my grandpa did it so I am doing it, too” still persists. While I’ve become much more open to the option of cremation, I’m still pretty set on traditional burial when my time approaches.

My church did choose to go forward with building a columbarium and it’s just about finished. It’s not very big but is a quiet little area on the property, complete with a tree and a few benches. I’m glad it’s there for those who want it.

But I can’t see myself, even if I chose cremation, having my remains put in an urn to go into a niche. I’d rather they be buried in a cemetery with a unique stone marker, maybe. Something with a swan on it, because they are my favorite bird in the world.

As a cemetery hopper, that seems like the right thing to do.

 

Last year, I wrote about Adeline Bagley Buice, a brave woman who was sent north by the Union Army during the Civil War (along with many other Roswell woolen mill workers) and spent five years walking home. She’s buried in Sharon Baptist Church Cemetery in Forsyth County, Ga.

At some point during the two occasions I visited that cemetery last spring, I took a lot of random photos. I looked to see if any were already posted on Find a Grave. For those without a memorial, I created one and posted the photo.

Most of the time after I do this, nothing happens. Once in a blue moon, I get an e-mail from someone thanking me for helping them locate a family member they’d been looking for. The amazing story of Carrie Turner is one of those occasions.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a woman named Jenn. She wanted to thank me for photographing a grave and creating a memorial for a young man named Joshua Stulick.

The name was not familiar to me so I looked him up. He had died in 1992 at the age of 19 for reasons I didn’t know at the time. I do remember his tender age had stood out to me.

Jenn wrote:

Thank you so very much for your post of a grave for Joshua Stulick. I have looked for so very long to find him. At last I have it because of you. There was no goodbye when he was tragically killed. Now at least I can visit. Thank you! It means a lot.

Whoa.

I took a moment to Google Joshua’s name to find out what happened. Tragically, he was murdered late at night in a park in Staten Island, N.Y. in April 1992. His murder remained unsolved for many years.

According to an article in The Staten Island Advance, Joshua went to a friend’s house for drinks after finishing his shift in the hospital cafeteria where he worked. From there, he and some other people went to Ingram Woods (a nearby park) to continue drinking.

On April 28, 1992, Joshua’s body was found by a man walking his dog. It was covered in the park’s underbrush. He had a fatal stab wound to the throat and was wrapped in the interior lining of a car trunk.

Suspicion quickly fell on James Russell, a co-worker Joshua knew from the hospital. Russell was on probation for a felony assault conviction when Joshua was killed. In that case, Russell had plead guilty to a 1989 attack.

The trunk lining Joshua was found wrapped in was thought to have belonged to Russell’s 1986 Pontiac Grand Am, which was impounded. But no other evidence was found. Russell claimed he knew nothing about what had happened, was released and the case froze up. Russell went on to become an oncology radiologist at the hospital and he got married.

In 2005, after 13 years, an anonymous female witness came forward. Based on what she said, Russell was arrested and later charged with second degree murder. He initially plead not guilty.

In December 2007, after spending several months in jail, Russell changed his story. He claimed that he and Stulick were drinking and doing drugs that April day before they took their party to Ingram Park. There, he said, the two of them started to “fool around with knives that we each had, playing karate moves and lunging and sparring with each other.”

“Joshua lunged at me as I was swinging my arm with the knife, and I cut him,” Russell admitted. “To my horror, the knife cut into Joshua Stulick’s throat.”

He said he covered the body in Ingram Woods and left after realizing that “everyone would blame me no matter what I said.”

Justice Stephen J. Rooney sent Russell to prison for a minimum of three and a half years up to a maximum seven years under an agreement by which Russell pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Had he been found guilty of second-degree murder, he might have faced a lifetime jail sentence. As part of the deal, he was not allowed to appeal his sentence.

Joshua’s mother, Kathleen Melchers, was justifiably outraged and said so at James Russell’s sentencing:

Your actions of cold violence not only took my son’s life, but to drag his body onto a car trunk liner and lay him on the ground behind a rock for two days until being found by someone walking a dog, is an act of sensitivity coming from a wicked heart and extreme lack of respect for the human body and soul.

As a mother of a son myself, I felt disbelief and anger when I read about James Russell’s plea deal. Yes, he was finally brought to justice but it is bittersweet. His sentencing took place in 2007 so he’s probably out walking the streets again as I write this.

There are few articles about Joshua online. I think Kathleen lives in North Georgia, which explains why he’s buried in Forsyth County. I emailed Jenn back to ask her if she would like to share some of her memories of Joshua. She said she might be able to do so at a later time. The memories are still very painful.

By reading the comments following an article about the trial, I learned that Joshua was in a band called Section 8. One of his friends left this comment:

I can’t stop thinking of his father waiting for Josh to come home from work and not knowing his son was dead. How could James Russell just leave his FRIEND there? If he was afraid, how about an anonymous call to the police and save Josh’s family and friends 15 years of wondering why?

Nothing will ever bring Josh back, will never pay for the life that was taken-so much potential wasted-what he could have become, and he would have grown up to be. I hope his family finds peace and takes some comfort that some justice was finally served.

There’s a lot about Joshua Stulick I will never know. I do know that he deserved more time on this earth than he got.

Nineteen years is not enough.

I am blessed with friends. Even more so because one of them lives in Savannah, which is a cemetery hopper’s paradise.

Frank and I have been friends since junior high. We were in church youth group together (along with our pal Steve Reagin) and our fathers were both deacons. He was in his senior year and editor of the school newspaper when I came on board as a staff writer. Thanks to Facebook, we got caught up last year and met for lunch at the Colonnade (one of the best places in Atlanta for fried chicken!).

I found out about Savannah’s Jewish roots when I visited with my husband some years back. We toured the Temple Mikve Israel, the only Gothic Revival-style synagogue (consecrated in 1878) in the country. Our tour guide, a Holocaust survivor, filled us in on Savannah’s history of having an active Jewish community.

On July 11, 1733, 43 Jewish immigrants from Europe arrived in Savannah on the ship the William and Sarah. Their trip was paid for by members of a London synagogue. Of the 43, 34 were Sephardic Jews, of Spanish and Portuguese heritage. The rest were of Ashkenazic (German) German descent. Europe was a difficult place for Jews to practice their faith, so while setting sail for an untamed land was a bit scarey, it had to be better than their current situation.

Only five months before this, on orders from England’s King George II, James Oglethorpe founded Savannah as a garrison and military buffer between the English settlements farther north and Spanish Florida. Although some protested their arrival, the Jewish immigrants’ timing proved to be perfect.

One of the group was a Portuguese doctor named Samuel Nunez (I’ve also seen it spelled Nunes). The colony’s only doctor had died recently and a yellow fever epidemic was taking its toll on the city. Oglethorpe allowed Dr. Nunez to begin caring for patients and when the number of deaths dropped dramatically soon after, local protests against the Jews staying in Savannah subsided.

When my niece and I went to visit Frank recently, he told me that his friend, Alice, who is a cemetery enthusiast like me, knew of two very old Jewish cemeteries on the outskirts of town. The only problem was that Alice couldn’t remember exactly where they were. Trailing her in Frank’s car, we took a circuitous route through some rough parts of town and pulled several illegal traffic maneuvers in the process. It was one wild ride.

Situated beside a school and the remains of a decrepit railroad building are the Levi Sheftall Family Cemetery and the Mordecai Sheftall Cemetery (Jewish Burial Grounds). Both are enclosed by high walls and locked so you can’t go inside.

Established in 1773. the Levi Sheftall Family Cemetery was used for about 80 years. There aren’t many graves inside but there are several square stone-bordered graves and a few gravestones still standing. The walls are made out of rough stone bricks and because a few on the top have come loose over the years, Frank and I temporarily removed a few from the top and he took a few pictures for me.

Across the way is the Old Jewish Burial Ground established in 1773 by Levi’s brother, Mordecai Sheftall. This cemetery contains many more graves because it was a community cemetery and not a family one. The land parcel was granted to Mordecai by King George III in 1762. Its walls are thicker because the cemetery was involved in battle during an ill-fated French attempt to take control of Savannah from the British in 1779.

Unfortunately, seeing inside the cemetery was impossible. I don’t hop fences or trespass to get pictures. But when Alice suggested standing on top of her car to see over into the cemetery, I was only momentarily deterred. With Frank’s help, after Alice pulled her car up beside a wall, I climbed up and took some pictures.

Most of the graves are of the above the ground brick box-style variety. There’s one large monument surrounded by a fence. An estimated 80 or so people are buried here, but many graves are unmarked. Several metal plaques list names from the various families with members probably buried there.

One of those names is Andre Daniel Nunez, son of Dr. Samuel Nunez (whose burial site is unknown). I found this out thanks to a Savannah Find a Grave volunteer who got to go inside the cemetery when Congregation Temple Mikve led a tour there.

Life for Jews in Savannah was not smooth sailing. In 1742, the Spanish invaded and many Jews who had hidden under the guise of Catholicism back in Europe feared persecution. Most fled the city but some eventually returned after the Spanish were defeated at the Battle of Bloody Marsh.

Despite many setbacks, the Jewish community in Savannah began to expand and thrive. In 1895, Herman Myers became the city’s first Jewish mayor. Today, there are three Jewish congregations in Savannah, with Congregation Mikve Israel (Reform) being one of them.

Next week, I’ll share stories about the other cemeteries in Savannah I visited, including the one made famous by “The Book” from 1994 that turned the city into a tourist mecca. It’s also known as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Now that I’ve been blogging for over a year, I’ve begun to hear from some readers overseas. So when I recently received an e-mail from a British copywriter named Dean Ronnie, I was intrigued.

Among other clients, Dean works for a funeral director (Laurel Funerals) in the U.K. He asked if I’d like to share an article he’d written about unique funerals. Because I truly enjoy sharing the writing of others, I gave an almost immediate yes. Here it is.

The times are changing and with changing times come changing traditions. One place this is becoming more and more apparent is in tributes to dead. The past has shown us some very spectacular ways of honoring and remembering the dead.

From China’s Terracotta Army to the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt and the Taj Mahal in India, people have always found spectacular ways to honor those who have passed on.

Today, this hasn’t changed. Memorials and funeral planning are still about being personal to the deceased. Let’s take a look at some of the more unusual ways that the deceased have been honored.

The Guitar-Shaped Forest

After the love of Pedro Ureta’s life, Graciela, unexpectedly died in 1977 at the age of 25, the Argentine rancher decided to plant trees in her honor. But not just any trees. Ureta decided to create an entire guitar-shaped forest on his farmland.

Cultivated because of her love for the instrument, Pedro Ureta worked tirelessly to plant the forest, crafting the perfect guitar shape complete with a star-shaped hole in the middle. Using cypress trees to form the outline, Ureta used blue eucalyptus trees to accent the trees and make his dedication to his deceased wife visible to all who fly over it.

According to a Wall Street Journal article, Ureta has never seen the guitar from the sky himself. He’s afraid of flying.

Launching Gene Roddenberry’s Ashes into Outer Space

As the creator of the highly successful and internationally recognized television and film franchise Star Trek, what better way would there be to honor Gene Roddenberry than to send his ashes into outer space? The answer is no other way.

After being sent on a flight on the Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-52 in 1992 and an unsuccessful previous attempt to have them sent into space permanently in 1997, the ashes of Gene Roddenberry and his wife Majel (who died in 2008) are set to be launched into space in 2014. A fitting tribute to an advocate of space exploration.

Jim Henson’s Muppet Memorial Service

Following the death of the Muppet’s creator Jim Henson in 1990, two incredibly distinct memorial services were held. Held in London and New York, both events were open to the public. Both services were held in famous cathedrals, both services were attended by no one wearing black, and both services featured a solo by Sesame Street character, Big Bird.

Following this was a gathered team of Muppets including Elmo, Gonzo, Scooter, Mokey Fraggle, Gobo Fraggle and Oscar the Grouch, who sang a medley of Henson’s favorite songs before ending with “Just One Person”.

Firing Hunter S. Thompson’s Ashes From a Cannon

In 2005, the father of gonzo journalism Hunter S. Thompson received a memorial that was equally fitting of his lifestyle, a memorial that saw his ashes fired from a cannon into the night’s sky.

The memorial which took place in Aspen, Colorado, saw Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes fired from a 150-foot tower, which was topped with a red fist with two thumbs — the symbol of Thompson’s first-person style of gonzo journalism. The tower was paid for by Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in the film adaptation of his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Following fireworks, friends at the memorial were then encouraged to remember him with the clink of ice in whiskey.