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Parents of Sept. 11 victim go to court over his remains PDF Print E-mail
Written by DeadGirl   
Thursday, 18 September 2003
Parents of Sept. 11 victim go to court over his remains
9/17/2003
Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine -- The parents of a Gorham native who was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are mired in a dispute over where his remains should be buried.

Stephen G. Ward died at age 33 shortly after moving to New York to work at a bond-trading firm. A year and a half passed before police discovered some bone fragments that were believed to be his.

Ward's mother, Victoria Randall, wants to bury the fragments in a plot she purchased in Portland's Evergreen Cemetery. But her ex-husband, Gordon Ward, thinks their son should be buried in Gorham, where he grew up, played on the basketball team and lived most of his life.

Since both parents have equal standing under the law, the dispute was brought to Cumberland County Probate Court on Wednesday.

Judge William Childs asked Ward's parents to see if they could resolve the dispute on their own, but a tentative trial date was set for Nov. 14.

Arguments over burial are common, lawyers say, but court hearings on those disputes are not. Typically, families face the deadline of a funeral and are forced to resolve their differences quickly.

But little has been typical for the families of the victims of Sept. 11, in part because they have had to wait through the slow process of finding and identifying remains.

Under Maine law, a deceased person's next of kin control the remains. When unmarried people die, control goes first to the parents, then to adult children, then to siblings.

When the next of kin cannot agree on what to do with the remains, a judge can be asked to make a decision, using criteria that include the convenience and needs of relatives and friends who want to visit the grave.

Randall, who has already placed a headstone at the Portland cemetery, could not be reached for comment. But her lawyer, Patricia Nelson-Reade, said Ward's mother bought the plot at Evergreen Cemetery so she and her family would have a quiet, private place to grieve.

At the time, they did not expect Ward's remains to be found. But that's now happened, Randall said in a court petition, so she, Ward's brother and two sisters want the remains to be buried in Evergreen.

"The entire family except for Stephen's father believes that Evergreen Cemetery is more peaceful and private and allows the maximum participation in grieving their loved one," the petition states.

Gordon Ward said that a more appropriate site would be Hillside Cemetery in Gorham. Stephen Ward had deep connections to the town, his father said, and when he died, the whole town seemed to grieve along with the family.

Stephen Ward had no connection to Portland or Evergreen Cemetery, his father said.

"Both his parents live here, and Stephen had lots of friends and relatives here. It just seems natural that he would want to be here," Gordon Ward said.

Paul Bulger, a lawyer representing Gordon Ward, said dividing the remains, which are being held by a local funeral home, would be acceptable to his client and might please both sides.

 
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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

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“Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.”

Robert Frost--Nothing Gold

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