Beautiful urns of sculpted bronze or brass, finely crafted
mahogany or marble, Tom Demuth held a white cardboard box that was about
12 inches wide and four inches deep.
Demuth opened the box to reveal a
folded plastic bag in which the cremated remains of a loved one would be
placed and held at Demuth Funeral Home until claimed by family members.
Sometimes, Demuth said, those family members never return to the Oklahoma
City funeral home to claim the cremated remains.
"It's very common,"
Demuth said. "A part of that may be they can't deal with it. Some people
don't care if they pick it up or not. They just decide to leave them
here, and they don't have to deal with it."
Demuth estimates that
about 5 percent of the remains from cremations done at his funeral home
are left behind.
Oklahoma law, which was updated in 2003 to deal with
the cremation issue, said Terry McEnany, executive director of the
Oklahoma Funeral Board. The revised law states that funeral homes may
dispose of the remains after 60 days if they remain unclaimed.
Until
the mid-1960s, there was only one crematory located between Dallas and
Kansas City, Mo., at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa. Vondel Smith
Mortuary built the first in Oklahoma City, McEnany said.
Demuth's
crematory was built in 1989 at its Britton Road location. The funeral
home created the Cremation Society of Oklahoma in 1984, and offers
memberships for a $15 per person one-time fee. The company charges
society members $950 for cremation services. Families of those who are
not members are charged $1,050.
"Most of them run between $1,000 and
$2,000," McEnany said of cremation charges throughout Oklahoma.
The
process takes 2 to 2½ hours, Demuth said. No casket is needed.
At
Demuth Funeral Home, family members can buy an urn in which to place the
remains -- never call them "ashes," Tom Demuth said -- that range in
price from $12 for a black plastic box to almost $500 for a beautifully
engraved bronze model.
Or family members can choose not to buy any
urn, in which case Demuth will place the remains in the white cardboard
box and hold it until it is claimed.
Demuth will store remains for one
year before scattering them over the ground at a local cemetery.
That
meets the state's requirement of disposing of remains in a "dignified and
humane manner," McEnany said. There are no health hazards associated with
cremated remains, he said.
Title:
Cremation earns respect By:
Stafford, Jim, The Daily Oklahoman (OK), May 25, 2006Database:
Newspaper Source
Page updated:
State Coordinator: Linda K. Lewis
Asst State Coordinator: Rebecca Maloney
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