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Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Ind. Law - "State law blocks backyard burial plans"
Reporter Laura Lane's story on this topic appeared in the May 25th Bloomington Herald Times ($$$). Here are a few quotes from the lengthy story:
SPENCER — Milo Ray Blaker took sick the day after Christmas, his wife Betty said, and never got well. “He told me the day before he died, ‘I want to be buried there on the hillside.’ So I had the grave dug.”The Herald-Times followed up with an editorial on May 28th that concludes:It’s still there, six feet deep, awaiting the remains of 88-year-old Milo Blaker. His unembalmed body ended up buried two miles away in the old Rose Cemetery — amid the graves of notorious Owen County bank robbers shot by police — because Indiana law requires that people be buried in established graveyards.
Not the backyard. Not 50 feet away from the Blakers’ home on a wildflower-covered hill visible from the kitchen window. * * *
The afternoon of May 16, Betty Blaker — in red wool knit cap, plaid flannel shirt and black rubber mud boots — appeared before the Owen County commissioners.
“I have to establish a cemetery, a green burial cemetery, for me and my husband,” the 83-year-old woman said. “No embalming, no vaults, just a burial ground. I will give you all the land. All I want is two plots.”
It seems simple enough. The Blakers own the land and they want it to be their final resting place. Milo Blaker’s obituary in The Herald-Times said that after his funeral at Whitehall Pentecostal Church, “interment will follow in a private service at the family plot of Blaker Cemetery.”
But that never happened, because no cemetery exists. And as Betty Blaker found out, anyone who wants to create a cemetery on private property must establish a $100,000 perpetuity fund to care for it into the future. She was surprised, and left with her husband’s body to bury.
There was room for him at Riverside Cemetery beside other family members, but Blaker did not want to be embalmed and buried there. The Rose Cemetery, with weathered gravestones dating back to the mid-1800s, does not require bodies to be embalmed, so there lies Milo Blaker. * * *
Larry Harvey is the director of compliance and investigations for the state’s professional licensing board, which oversees funeral homes, cemeteries and anything having to do with cosmetology and barbering. He explained that Indiana law requires that humans be buried in established cemeteries. A funeral director must be present to see the body go into the ground and then sign a death certificate saying the burial happened in a legal place.
“She could have been charged with a Class C felony” had she gone ahead and buried her husband in the grave she had dug up on the hill at home, Harvey said.
If Milo Blaker had been cremated, his ashes could have been scattered anywhere. But he chose a simple burial in a casket made by lifelong friends instead.
There are public policy reasons to require some formality where cemeteries are concerned; official confirmation of death and burial may be necessary for legal reasons that benefit families of the deceased as well as the general public.But the law shouldn’t get in the way of consumers’ pursuing alternatives to traditional burial. There should be more options available for people who want “green” burials, which could include cardboard caskets, no embalming and natural outdoor settings.
In an age when consumer choice is paramount and demand for eco-friendly products and services is increasing, it only makes sense that people should be able to choose a final resting place in greener pastures.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 31, 2011 01:27 PM
Posted to Indiana Law