When I signed up for Ancestry.com, I was excited about the adventure I was about to start. Maybe I’d find out I was related to a king. Or discover that one of my ancestors invented something cool like the swizzle stick (I did not).

Instead, I found out that one of my ancestors is buried in a large cemetery behind what is now Ohio University’s Kennedy Museum of Art.

I was able to contact someone who lives near the Athens area who promised she would stop by and locate his grave. True to her word, she did so and took several pictures. My heart caught in my chest when I saw the cemetery. So many numbers to represent lives lived and lost. So many who died alone, unmourned and misunderstood.

That’s because the cemetery is on the grounds of what used to be the Athens Lunatic Asylum. His name is not on his grave marker. Just a number.

Levi Martin Mercer was born in Mason, Va. in 1808 and grew up in Jackson County, Ohio. In 1828, he married Belinda Melissa Cantwell. The justice of the peace who married them was Michael McCoy, my great-great-great-great grandfather. He was also Levi’s brother-in-law. By 1850, Levi was farming in Hamilton Township, on the South side of Jackson County.

After 1850, something happened. The 1860 U.S. Census lists Levi as living as an inmate in Ward 1 of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Columbus, Ohio. He is listed as insane. The same Census lists Belinda as still living in Hamilton Township with their two youngest children (Levi D. and Andrew), farming 200 acres of land.

The Ohio Lunatic Asylum, sometimes called the Central Ohio Asylum, opened in 1838. It covered 30 acres and was purported to be where residents could actually be “cured” of their mental condition. In 1843, the Asylum’s director Dr. William Awl claimed a 100 percent cure rate of his patients.

He didn’t mention that the “cure” often meant the patient’s demise.

The Ohio Asylum burned to the ground in 1868. Only seven people did not survive. I don’t know if Levi was still living there at the time of the fire but reports say patients were routed to surrounding facilities during the years that the Asylum was rebuilt. A new, much larger building opened in 1877 with much fanfare.

The 1870 Census reports Levi as living in Jackson County again, now as a member of the household of “sheriff and jailer” Jonathan Wade. He is still listed as insane.

What many people don’t know about the asylums of this era is that they were not used just for the mentally ill. It was common for families to drop elderly relatives off at the hospital when they could no longer afford to care for them. Parents committed teens for minor acts of rebellion. The homeless used it for temporary shelter. As a result, the Athens Asylum’s population went from about 200 to nearly 2,000 by the early 1900s.

Truthfully, I don’t know what kind of “insane” Levi was. But it was enough to separate him from his wife and children. Belinda died in 1874 and is buried in Glendale Cemetery in Scioto County, Ohio, not far from Jackson County. Daughter Mahala (and her husband) are buried nearby.

In 1880, Levi appears on the U.S. Census for the final time. Still listed as insane, he lived in the household of J.M. Lynch along with his family. Lynch’s occupation is listed as jailer. Also listed is a 13-year-old servant named Elizabeth Spriggs, whose surname crops up frequently in my family tree.

Sometime after 1880, Levi moved into the Asylum in Athens and eventually died on Nov. 8, 1888 from some sort of heart ailment.

I can’t help wondering if Levi was one of those elderly relatives that was no longer convenient to have in the home.

The cemeteries at the Ridges (as it is now called) contain about 1,700 graves of patients who died there. There are mostly numbers. They didn’t start putting names on the graves until the 1940s. So most, like Levi’s marker, only have a number.

The Asylum was closed in 1993, its remaining patients bused to other more modern facilities before Ohio University purchased it.

Some say the place is abuzz with paranormal activity, haunted by the souls who lived there.

The Ridges is a rarity among former asylums that have come and gone. Many fell into decay after closing and had to be torn down. Some had cemeteries that time and the elements destroyed. Many remain a mystery because the shame that went with mental illness was so great in decades past. In some ways, it still is.

The Athens branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has spent the last several years cleaning up and repairing the cemeteries, which had fallen into a sad state by the 1990s. There’s also a walking trail.

A group called the Friends of Athens Asylum Cemeteries was formed to help connect the descendants of those buried at the Ridges to their loved ones. They are working to raise funds to put new markers with names and dates on them. To give an identity to those numbers. As it turns out, a number of men buried at the Ridges were military veterans. So far, 43 of the 89 known veterans have received a stone.

I’ve never been to the Ridges but someday I will. I’d like to give Levi a proper marker after all of these years. To give his number a name, an identity. As someone who has struggled with chronic clinical depression since my 20s, I know what it’s like to have the label of mental illness attached to me. Maybe not the way he did. But I understand what that means.

I owe him that much.

 

 

Note: Today’s post is a little graphic in describing how cremation works.

I recently wrote about the history of cremation in America and how it’s becoming more popular every year. However, an alternative form of cremation is gaining attention that’s truly different. Resomation, bio-cremation and flameless cremation are a few of the buzzwords used, but the scientific name for the procedure is alkaline hydrolysis (AH).

So how do you cremate a body without a fire?

Alkaline hydrolysis is a water-based chemical resolving process using strong alkali in water at temperatures of up to 350F (180C), which quickly reduces the body to bone fragments. Experts say it’s basically a very accelerated version of natural decomposition that occurs to the body over many years after it is buried in the soil.

AH was originally developed in Europe in the 1990s as a method of disposing of cows infected with mad cow disease. In England, AH for humans is not fully legalized yet. It’s usually referred to as resomation there because the commercial process was first introduced and trademarked by Resomation, Ltd. They received the Jupiter Big Idea Award (from actor Colin Firth, no less) at the 2010 Observer Ethical Awards.

The University of Florida and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota already use AH to dispose of cadavers. It’s not surprising that both states were among the first to legalize its use. The other states are Colorado, Oregon, Illinois, Kansas, Maine and Maryland.

But why would someone want to do what amounts to liquifying the body with lye instead of traditional cremation? Some people worry about the carbon footprint left behind by traditional cremation. AH is supposed to remove that problem.

In the traditional process that uses fire, cremating one corpse requires two to three hours and more than 1,800 degrees of heat. That’s enough energy to release 573 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to environmental analysts. In many cases, dental compounds such as fillings also go up in smoke, sending mercury vapors into the air unless the crematorium has a chimney filter.

During AH, a body is placed in a steel chamber along with a mixture of water and potassium hydroxide. Air pressure inside the vessel is increased to about 145 pounds per square inch, and the temperature is raised to about 355F. After two to three hours, the corpse is reduced to bones that are then crushed into a fine, white powder. That dust can be scattered by families or placed in an urn. Dental fillings are separated out for safe disposal.

AH is purported to use about one-seventh of the energy required for traditional cremation. Some studies indicate that AH could save 30-million board feet of hardwood each year from cremation coffins. That’s very attractive to some people. However, one question remains. What happens to what’s leftover from the process (besides the ashes)?

That’s when the “Ick Factor” comes in.

Leftover liquids – including acids and soaps from body fat – plus the added water and chemicals, are disposed of through a waste water treatment process, according to John Ross, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America.

In other words, it goes down the drain like everything else.

“It’s very similar to the treatment of excess water from any (industrial) facility. In fact, it probably has less of a chemical signature than would you find (in liquids) coming out of most (industrial) plants,” Ross said.

Still, the visual picture that creates is not very attractive. In fact, a 2008 article about AH said the thick coffee-colored liquid left behind resembles motor oil and has a strong ammonia smell. Not exactly something you want to put on a colorful marketing brochure.

AH became legal in Colorado in 2011. Steffani Blackstone, executive director of the Colorado Funeral Directors Association, spoke frankly about the “Ick Factor” when legislation to approve AH was being crafted.

“People seem to have objections when they actually think about that too long. They ask: ‘Well what happens? Does (the body) turn to sludge?’ And the thought of grandma being sludge is kind of disgusting to them.”

While currently legal in only eight states, the movement to make it so in others is real. In New York, the legislation became known as “Hannibal Lechter’s Bill.” New Hampshire legalized AH in 2006 but banned it a year later. In Ohio, the Catholic Church is a vocal opponent to AH and it has yet to be fully approved there.

Jeff Edwards, an Ohio funeral director who performed several AH procedures before being told to stop, filed a lawsuit in March 2011 against the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors after ODH quit issuing permits for AH body disposals. A judge ruled that ODH and the board had the authority to determine what is an acceptable form of disposition of a human body, as set forth in the Ohio Revised Code.

The cost of an AH machine can range from $200,000 to $400,000, depending on its size and capacity. That hefty price tag did not stop Anderson-McQueen Funeral Home in St. Petersburg, Fla., from becoming the first in the state to purchase one to provide AH to their clients. They refer to AH as “flameless cremation”.

Funeral home president and owner John McQueen said in a 2011 article that he planned to charge clients the same prices for AH cremations as the traditional ones, which can cost from $1,000 to $2,000.

So what do I think? In the end, traditional cremation sends its byproducts up into the air. AH sends them into the water for treatment. Which is better for the environment? I don’t know. I’m not fond of the idea of being burned up or liquified, especially the latter. The “Ick Factor” does give me pause.

A pine box in the cemetery still sounds better to me.

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility.

Truth be told, people still don’t like stopping for death. Emily Dickinson knew what she was talking about.

In past posts, I’ve mentioned how my life in the South has shaped my views on death and funerals. If one thing has stayed with me, it’s the level of respect most Southerners show for the dead.

Funeral processions (meaning the line of vehicles that follow the hearse when it leaves the church with the deceased to go to a cemetery) were not an everyday event in the small town where I grew up. But I do remember them. What stood out in my mind is that in every case, unless it was impossible to do so, almost every driver pulled over to the side of the road as the line of cars slowly went by. I remember asking my father why the first time I saw it.

He simply said, “It’s out of respect for the person who died.”

Fast forward to this week as I was doing some Internet research on this topic. I found an etiquette discussion board where people were hashing out the issue of funeral procession manners. One person described how her “DH” (dear husband) was forced by the police to pull over due to a lengthy funeral procession for a local boy who had been killed in a high-profile shooting. A tragic event, to be sure.

Apparently, having to do this was a major affront to her husband. She wrote:

DH was appalled. He was perfectly willing to give them space and be respectful but what about the rest of the public? Are they truly supposed to just shut down because someone they don’t know died?

Yes, ma’am, they are. It’s called respect.

Life is a lot more hectic in this modern age. The pace is faster and people have places to go, things to do. Even in the South, the practice of pulling over (especially here in Atlanta) is something I sadly see less often. The city “too busy to hate” can often be the city too busy to care.

But how often, really, do we encounter funeral processions these days? I see maybe two to three a year, tops. Is it that hard to give a life that has passed a few minutes of respect? Does it matter that you don’t know them?

No, it isn’t always possible to pull over. Maybe you’re in a congested highway and there’s no way you can safely do so. I understand that. Nobody should risk their life or that of their family for a funeral procession. That’s crazy.

But if you can, you should.

One issue I won’t quibble on concerns drivers cutting through a funeral procession to save time. It’s just plain wrong.

States have various laws concerning funeral processions. Some states say it’s okay for the drivers to follow the hearse through a red light, others forbid it. Some states have no formal laws about it at all. But almost all have something on the books forbidding anyone to cut into a funeral procession except for emergency vehicles like an ambulance.

In the past, most police departments provided their escort services to funeral homes free of charge. Some small towns still do. But with many police departments underfunded and understaffed, this is becoming a thing of the past.

Cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Minneapolis no longer provide funeral escorts unless it is for a fellow fallen officer, fireman or military personnel killed in action. So now funeral homes have to hire off-duty cops or privately owned security firms to do it. This cost is ultimately passed on to the family.

Liability concerns are another reason police departments aren’t providing their escort services. Courts in Tennessee and Florida have found that police and funeral homes that provide escorts for funeral processions can be held liable for crashes that occur during the processions.

In Memphis, Marcus Eddins owns Community Motorized Escort Service. In a 2011 news article, he said drivers are often distracted and don’t notice the man on the motorcycle in the middle of an intersection waving a procession of cars through. “I’ve seen them (drivers) texting, putting on makeup, eating cereal, reading a book — you name it,” Eddins said.

In addition, police officers acting as funeral escorts have been injured in Memphis by drivers attempting to cut through processions. In 2011, five police officers were killed while acting as funeral escorts.

A 2012 article in The Washington Post quoted funeral director Archer Harmon when he said, “We have cellphones in one hand, Starbucks in the other and what is in front of you doesn’t matter at that point. They just don’t care, in this society we live in now.”

It frustrates me that people cannot pause for a few minutes to recognize and honor the life of a fellow human being. Maybe deep down, some people are so scared of Death coming to stop for them that it’s easier to close their eyes and ignore it.

In the same 2012 article, funeral director P.A. Wilson said he thought respect for the dead hadn’t totally evaporated yet. “If you go to the South, they show respect. In the eastern part of North Carolina, the people pull to the side of the road on both sides, regardless of what race is being buried, black or white. They still show some respect.”

Maybe respect isn’t totally dead after all.