This past summer while I was in Missouri, I was privileged
to tour the newly created columbarium erected by the Odd Fellows of Washington,
Missouri. Frankly, I had no idea what a
columbarium was until Marc Houseman—my favorite Odd Fellow—explained it to me
some time ago. (And if you’re curious
yourself, here’s a link to a very brief but very cool YouTube Video with Marc
explaining—as he stands in front of the new columbarium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To5koYnMwyo)
When Marc became involved with the Odd Fellows, he realized
that part of their charter dictates that they have a responsibility to “bury
the dead,” an edict Marc—as a mortician and as a humanitarian—feels quite
passionately about. He presented the Odd
Fellows with the idea of building a columbarium—a consecrated venue created to
respectfully house unclaimed cremated remains.
When he told me about this project, it brought to mind the day, a few
summers back, when Marc took me to a cemetery in St. Louis and we toured the
crematorium. In a dusty back room (yes,
dusty with the ashes of countless Missourians), stacked upon several wooden
shelves in a most undignified manner, sat row after row of nondescript
cardboard boxes, each holding the “cremains” of someone whose family had never
come to collect the ashes. We began to
read the names and death dates on the boxes, and after only a few minutes, the
three of us--Marc, myself and our companion, Ginger Justus—were so overwhelmed
we left the room to get back to the open air and serenity of the cemetery.
It happens frequently, Marc told me, that people are
cremated… and no one picks up the ashes, even when the cremation has been paid
for.
And so the project was discussed, funds were collected, and
the columbarium moved from dream to reality.
Upon its completion, Marc contacted every crematorium in the state of
Missouri to offer the space for unclaimed cremains. Cool, right?
But being a historian, Marc felt compelled to go further, to search for
possible living family members of those who came to be interred at the
columbarium.
So it was that on September 11th, 2013, Private Albert
Louis Onyika was laid to rest at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery with full
military honors, including the playing of “Taps” and the folding of the flag
passed on to a family member—just like my mom and dad had for their memorials. Because when Marc went digging, he discovered
that Albert Onyika was a veteran of WWII where he earned a Bronze Star and a
Purple Heart, and as a veteran, he had earned the right to a military burial. Arrangements were made by the Odd Fellows, and
Pvt. Onyika’s remains were accompanied to the cemetery by the American Legion Riders and the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Thirty individuals attended his memorial service, including his
granddaughter and representatives of MIAP, the Missing in America Project whose
members track down “lost” veterans who are deceased.
So, so cool, right? When Marc told me this story in an email
recently, it just brought me to tears. Would that every civic or community
group would dedicate itself to such altruistic endeavors.
Amazing.
Humbling.
Wonderful in a way words can’t describe.
