Centre County commissioners are going ahead with a plan to buy a $19,530 columbarium to house the cremated remains of people who died in Centre County without anyone to claim them.
There are currently 41 simple cardboard urns stored in the Centre County government Willowbank building’s basement. Space is running out to hold the cremated remains.
“They're in an enclosed locked space, but it's piled top to bottom and all sides with urns. There's not room to put another one inside of it," said Commissioner Mark Higgins.
Higgins said the coroner’s office cremates bodies if no one has claimed them after a 30-day period and the county has not been able to locate a relative. He said some people don’t want to claim their family’s remains. Other times, there are no living relatives to contact.
“Families are smaller, and that's the problem. That's what contributes to it. If your parents were only children and you’re an only child and your parents are deceased, there's no brothers. No sisters, no aunts, there's no uncles. There's no cousins. You're the last one," Higgins said.
Higgins said other counties typically spread the ashes of unclaimed cremated remains. But Centre County commissioners want to pay respect to the dead and give more time for relatives to claim the remains.
“We're kind of going above and beyond by basically retaining these cremains until I'm assuming at some point, the urns will disintegrate. But that might take 100 years," Higgins said.
The names of the deceased will not be displayed in the columbarium, but Higgins said anyone who has been contacted by the coroner’s office will be able to retrieve their family member’s remains.
An anonymous family donated five plots and the maintenance costs for the columbarium, which will be at Zion Cemetery in Zion. Higgins said the county is using American Rescue Plan Funding for the actual columbarium, which should be installed by the summer. It will be able to hold up to 160 urns.
