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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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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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Burial mix-up brings back grief |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Monday, 27 September 2004 |
By Joseph Barrios
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
When Gertrude Johnson died in September 2002, her grieving family took some comfort that she would be laid to rest near her husband and her daughter, in Space 3, Lot D, Block 167, Section 18 at South Lawn Cemetery.
That was her wish, said her son, Randall Johnson. She wanted to be buried with her husband on one side and her daughter on the other.
But shortly before the funeral was to begin on Sept. 12, workers at South Lawn told him they discovered a problem while excavating his mother's grave site.
An unidentified coffin was already there.
Workers had to dig up the "final resting places" of Randall Johnson's father, Arthur Johnson, and Randall's sister Shirley May.
He and his living sisters learned Shirley May was buried in the wrong place.
"First question out of my mouth was, 'How do you not know who's in there?' " Randall Johnson said. "All they could say was they didn't have answers."
The Johnsons, like dozens of other families across Arizona, found themselves at odds with their "death-care" service at a time they were already devastated by the loss of a loved one.
In recent years, such problems included:
● A local funeral home had to pay $1,000 in fines and administrative costs after a package carrying the cremated remains of a man's brother was damaged in the mail. Valley Funeral Home failed to send the package via registered mail, and the "family did not received (sic) cremains of their deceased brother," according to an Arizona Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers report.
● A letter of concern was sent to a funeral director at Bring's Broadway Chapel after a family complained staff members were insensitive and "failed to apply additional cosmetics," according to a report to the same board. State authorities found no violations of funeral law.
● A Phoenix woman filed a complaint against a Tucson crematory claiming that because of a "series of administrative errors . . . she lacks the confidence that the cremains that are sitting on her mantel in her house are actually those" of her daughter's father, according to a claim letter sent to the cremation and burial company. That case has not been resolved.
In the Johnsons' case, what was supposed to be a final resting place for loved ones turned into a place of anguish, said Tucson lawyer William Nelson, who filed a lawsuit on the family's behalf Sept. 2 in Pima County Superior Court. The lawsuit was filed for Randall Johnson, Pamela Johnson, Katherine Johnson and Barbara Molchan. It names SCI Arizona Funeral Services, Inc. as a defendant.
"From the Johnsons' standpoint, they actually did everything right. They planned beforehand. Even when you do everything right, it's out of your control and you have to rely on the cemetery that you're dealing with," Nelson said.
Nelson has handled two other cemetery complaints in the last three years, including one where he negotiated a settlement about two years ago with a Tucson cemetery after officials there asked a widow to dig up her husband's remains because he was accidentally buried in a spot that had already been promised to another family. The man's remains were left alone.
South Lawn Cemetery managers declined to comment on the lawsuit. But Terry Hemeyer, managing director of SCI in Houston, said, "The issue involved is human error. We have been doing everything we can to satisfy the family." He declined to comment further.
The family claims that the cemetery "negligently removed, withheld or mutilated" the bodies and alleges intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress as well as professional negligence.
Shirley May Johnson died in March 1990. Her parents, Gertrude and Arthur Johnson, thought they buried her in Space 2, Lot D, Block 167, Section 18 at the cemetery, 5401 S. Park Ave.
Family members regularly visited the grave site over several years. Arthur and Gertrude Johnson also purchased interment rights for spaces 1, 3 and 4 right next to their deceased daughter.
In July 1995, they bought a double headstone to be placed over Space 3 and 4. About two years later, Arthur died and was buried in Space 4. When Gertrude Johnson died about five years later, the "unidentified" coffin was found.
Cemetery workers then dug up the coffins of Arthur Johnson and Shirley May Johnson to determine if they were properly buried, according to the lawsuit. Shirley May's remains were found in Space 3, which is not the space where family members had paid their respects for more than a decade.
Her coffin was found partially opened and some personal items buried with her were floating in water.
Her coffin was so badly damaged, workers did not want to move it for fear the entire coffin would fall apart.
Formal complaints against cemeteries are relatively rare, according to the Arizona Department of Real Estate.
Since 1987, there have been 20 complaints that have warranted follow-up investigation by state officials. The state took action in four of those cases, none of which occurred in Pima County. The other 16 were closed for lack of jurisdiction or lack of evidence.
Complaints against mortuaries and crematories are more common, according to the Arizona State Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers. There were 14 complaints filed in fiscal year 2004, 17 complaints in 2003 and 12 complaints in 2002.
The best time to make deathcare arrangements is long before they're needed, said Bob Fells, general counsel and chief operating officer of the International Cemetery and Funeral Association.
There are a number of consumer-oriented Web sites that can offer advice to families, he said. But there's also some "gumshoe" work that families can do. They might want to consider talking to people who live near the cemetery to ask if they've been good neighbors. Talk to friends or acquaintances who have a loved one buried in the same place.
"It's always good to ask around," Fells said. "Check the grounds and the landscaping. Are the grounds kept up? When you see other people there, you can ask them."
Talk to local churches or clergy to see if the cemetery or funeral home has been sensitive and responsive.
And check with the Better Business Bureau for complaints.
"You almost go into the same steps if you were to purchase from any (other) business," Fells said. "The difference is, you need to do this in advance. If you just suffered . . . that's not the time to, say, comparison-shop for a funeral."
But Arthur and Gertrude Johnson had preplanned their own funerals for years. Randall Johnson said he feels they did everything they could to avoid such terrible problems.
Family members visited the same grave site for more than a decade. Pamela Johnson said after her sister Shirley May died, visits to the cemetery were almost like picnics. Arthur would visit on the way to work at Hughes Missile Co. and Gertrude would go just about every weekend. Family members visited at least once a month and stayed for hours.
Randall Johnson said he hasn't been back in more than a year.
The whole experience has been fraught with details that leave grisly images in the minds of family members.
Last year, in an effort to correct the problem, cemetery officials again dug up the grave sites so the remains could be placed in new caskets and then buried in their originally intended resting places.
When Shirley May's damaged casket was raised, it was filled with water. Family members stood vigil, waiting for the casket to drain. "They couldn't put the casket in the hearse, the muddy water was still coming out, so they had to wait," said sister Barbara Molchan.
And sister Shirley, who had Down syndrome, was buried with several favorite items, including a set of car keys and a can of Pepsi, her favorite drink. When her casket was found in the wrong place and workers attempted to move it, some of those items fell out into water that pooled in the grave.
Randall Johnson said it's also sad that family and friends never had a proper day to gather in remembrance of his mother.
"It was supposed to be her day," he said, crying. "She never really got her day."
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/40702.php |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“The silence that guards the tomb does not reveal God's secret in the obscurity of the coffin, and the rustling of the branches whose roots suck the body's elements do not tell the mysteries of the grave, by the agonized sighs of my heart announce to the living the drama which love, beauty, and death have performed.” Kahlil Gibran From Broken Wings , 1910
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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