published: Sunday, December 14, 2008

Funeral home seeks variance to bury abandoned remains

By CHRISTOPHER TUFFLEY

christopher.tuffley@newssun.com

SEBRING -- Tuesday night at the regular city council meeting, the Stephenson-Nelson Funeral Home and Crematory will ask for a variance from the city's cemetery ordinance. Currently only two sets of remains may be placed in any one vault.

A vault is a weatherproof barrier buried in the ground.

The variance requested is a limited, special-needs situation. The funeral home has been storing on its premises about 44 sets of cremated remains that have never been claimed by the families.

"It blows our minds (that remains would be abandoned), but there are a variety of reasons and if everyone was the same it would be a boring world," said Darin MacNeill, funeral director.

In fact, he pointed out that the law allows funeral homes to dispose of unclaimed remains however they see fit. "But we just can't do that," MacNeill said. "It's an ethical issue with us."

Instead, because the business owns a plot in the Pinecrest Cemetery and has a vault available, the funeral home wants permission to intern all the remains -- which are in separate containers -- in that one place.

"Being in the vault in the cemetery not only protects them," MacNeill said, "but also gives them a dignified place of rest. If a family member ever wanted to recover them it would be possible."

Both the funeral home and the city will have a list of whose remains are in the vault and the funeral home would pay the city for the marking of the grave to remove the cremains if that became necessary.

If the council decides to amend its cemetery ordinance to allow this, the amendment will have to make clear it pertains only to licensed funeral homes and cremains which have basically been abandoned.