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What's New at Arcadia
Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast By Glenn A. Knoblock
Arcadia Publishing has releases a new title in the Images of America series, the historic account of the cemeteries along the New Hampshire Seacoast. This collection is a must for anyone interested in local history, genealogy, or colonial-era art. Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast and browse other cemetery books!
Green-Wood Cemetery By Alexandra Mosca
Arcadia Publishing announces the release of the historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery.
Announcements
Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb By Scott L. Newstok
An innovative study of the Renaissance practice of making epitaphic gestures within other English genres. A poetics of quotation uncovers the ways in which writers including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Holinshed, Sidney, Jonson, Donne, and Elizabeth I have recited these texts within new contexts. Visit Palgrave Macmillan and purchase your copy today!
Living by the Dead By Ellen Ashdown with illustrations by Mary Liz Moody.
A memoir about living beside a cemetery--and about the members of my family who came to rest at Roselawn Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. Please visit Kitsune Books for more information.
Graveyards of Chicago: The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski.
Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman
Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture is now available. Please visit Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark
Features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Dracut Funeral Home in crematory lawsuit |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Saturday, 04 June 2005 |
Over a dozen named for using N.H. facility
By DENNIS SHAUGHNESSEY, Sun Staff
DRACUT, MA -- Dracut Funeral Home is one of 18 defendants named in a class-action suit charging that they “turned a willful blind eye†to the mishandling of remains at a New Hampshire crematory.
At the center of the suit is Bayview Crematory of Seabrook, N.H., which was shut down in February after police discovered serious violations there, including unlabeled urns filled with ashes, two bodies stuffed into a single oven, a body rotting in a broken freezer and a trash bin heaped with charred pacemakers, hip replacements and prosthetics.
The suit, filed in federal court in Boston on Wednesday by Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins LLP, a Melville, N.Y., law firm, charges that the funeral-home operators ignored Bayview's practice of commingling bodies during cremation and mishandling the remains.
The Bayview Crematory had been operating without a license since at least
1999 until it was closed down by authorities, who also seized financial records.
Mark Gacek, the owner of the Dracut Funeral Home, did not return repeated phone calls to the funeral home or his residence.
In a press release, lawyer Sam Rudman said, “To save $75 per deceased body, these and other funeral-home operators turned over control of the bodies under their charge to an unlicensed, low-budget crematory ... where they were routinely mishandled. Anyone who has dealt with any of these funeral homes in the last several years has reason to be worried.â€
According to Michael Khoo, a spokesman with the law firm, Bayview contracted with funeral homes for a $190 package deal instead of following the standard industry practice of transporting the bodies themselves and witnessing the cremation, which could cost as much as $265.
The suit also alleges that funeral homes allowed Bayview employees to pick up the bodies in a box truck and take them to the facility where it is alleged that multiple bodies were cremated together, and the remains returned with no certainty that families would receive the ashes of their loved ones.
The lead plaintiff in the suit is Lorraine Hunt, whose father, Robert Lowe Cashman, died on April 6, 2004. His body went to a funeral home in Quincy that handed it over to Bayview for cremation. Bayview issued a cremation certificate indicating a cremation date of April 8, 2004.
“My father was a proud World War II veteran,†said Hunt. “He served in the Navy. We held his memorial service on the ship where he served, the battleship North Carolina in Wilmington Harbor. It was a very dignified ceremony and at the end we scattered what we believed to be his ashes into the ocean. My memory of my father and of his funeral will be haunted forever by what I now know -- that those were likely not his ashes at all.â€
When police shut down Bayview and obtained financial records, they discovered unlabeled urns filled with ashes, two bodies stuffed into a single oven, a body rotting in a broken freezer and a trash bin heaped with charred pacemakers, hip replacements and prosthetics.
It had operated without a license for at least six years. Before it closed, Bayview handled thousands of cremations a year from funeral homes in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island.
The suit names Bayview and its operators, Derek A. Wallace and Linda Stokes, as well as the American Society for Cremation, the American Society for Funeral Services, all based in Haverhill, and the Cremation Society of Massachusetts, based in Quincy.
Wallace lost his state licenses as an embalmer and funeral director in 2004 for unprofessional and unethical practices dating back to 2001.
Several area funeral-home directors not involved in the case said picking a crematorium can be tricky, but that good old-fashioned homework is the best way to make sure you're dealing with a reputable business.
Fred Healy, funeral director with the Morse-Bayliss Funeral Home in Lowell, and Jim Dolan, a funeral director with Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, both said that exploring a company's reputation, meeting the owners, and inspecting the business are the best way to check out a firm.
Jim O'Donnell Jr., co-owner of the James F. O'Donnell & Sons Funeral Home in Lowell, said making sure the facility is licensed is also important, as is a willingness to accept a higher price in exchange for knowing remains are treated properly.
O'Donnell said his employees deliver bodies to the Haverhill crematory they use in person so they know the bodies are treated properly up to that point. It is not as convenient to deliver the bodies, but it's more important to make sure the remains are treated properly, he said.
“It's just like everything else in life. You've got to be diligent,†Dolan said.
Sun staff writer Robert Mills contributed to this report.
Dennis Shaughnessey's e-mail address is
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http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_2778064 |
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