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A couple of dozen times a year, Alan Sundquist gets a query about plots at the Orem Cemetery -- not to bury someone there, but to take them out.
"We get down as close as we can with the back hoe and it's all handwork from there," says Sundquist, the cemetery sexton, who actually has four or five disinterments a year.
Because of the growing number of requests, Orem recently made changes to its disinterment policy. The requests are coming from all sides.
"I think the baby boomers are coming in and thinking 'We want to have everybody together,' " Sundquist said.
That means digging into a grave that is likely decades old and moving the remains to another grave within the same cemetery, where there's room for others in the family. A problem arises in that things tend to fall apart after being in the ground for any length of time. A vault system, which caskets are placed into in the ground to improve longevity, didn't gain popularity until 20 years ago, says Dennis Bubash, a funeral director at Berg Mortuary.
Even then, there's no way to completely stop the inevitable. Life spans for caskets are, roughly, 25 years for wood, 50 years for steel and 100 years for copper or bronze.
"After a while it's eventually going to fall apart. Everything does," Bubash said.
Provo Sexton Milton Deleeuw doesn't allow family to be at a disinterment "for fear of what they might see."
Deleeuw said he discourages disinterments for that reason and for the fact that when graves are close together, making sure others are not disturbed is no small task. Orem's new policy requires participants to sign a liability waiver because the process can be "ugly and gruesome," said Mike Barker, the assistant city attorney who worked on the ordinance.
Orem's policy states that in the case of contagious disease, disinterments are prohibited within the first two years of interment because of the possibility that pathogens can survive the embalming process. An applicant for a disinterment must give the city seven days advance notice, obtain a permit from the Board of Health, arrange to have a funeral director present, and enlist the services of a vault company.
Provo has a similar policy, and while exhumations are relatively rare in Provo. Deleeuw gave an example of a young BYU couple that loses a child but then moves away shortly after to establish roots in another state.
"It's typically just because families want to be together, you know. That's the motivation," he said.
Other people want to be with their pets in death.
Pet owners who want to take their beloved animals with them to the grave at the Orem City Cemetery can now do so -- under specific conditions.
New requirements will allow pets to be buried with their owners if the animal is cremated and placed in the casket with the person at the time of interment. The city will not allow human remains to be disinterred to place a cremated pet in a casket, nor will it allow graves to be dug just for a pet.
Steve Weber, division manager with the city public works department, told the council that his family owned a beloved golden retriever that was cremated, and the family kept the remains in a box. His wife wants the remains buried with her when the time comes, he said.
"I'm not saying we're going to have a horse," Weber said, to mild laughter from audience members at the meeting on Tuesday, "but a dog, a cat, a ferret. ... If people want to go to the expense, or a family has a closeness to a pet that they have had for years and years and years -- it's a service to families."
"There are people who just look at a pet as a member of the family," said Mayor Jerry Washburn.
• Reva Bowen contributed to this story. |
