Area funeral homes to host interment of unclaimed remains with Ridge Hill Memorial Park

AMHERST — Area funeral homes have come together with Ridge Hill Memorial Park to hold a communal burial of several dozen unclaimed remains this Friday. While the practice is not uncommon, this is the first time Ridge Hill and area funeral homes have organized such an endeavor. John Dovin, owner of Dovin Funeral Home in Lorain, brought up the idea during a conversation with Gavin Baker, operations manager of Ridge Hill. "We realized a lot of funeral homes have cremated remains that have never been claimed," Baker said. "The law says the funeral homes can dispose of them, but funeral homes want to be very careful about how they proceed with people's remains." About seven of the 15 funeral homes contacted will be participating in the interment. "We may end up with hundreds (of remains), and we have room for that," Baker said. "This is kind of new and novel. We've had a lot of cooperation from funeral homes so far, but I think some are hanging back to see how everything plays out." And that's fine, according to Baker. "We will absolutely do this again," he said. "There has long been a need for this." Some of the remains have been stored for decades with no family member coming forward. "Remains may be from the county coroner or the hospital," Baker said. "Maybe some were never identified and mostly, no one was ever able to identify next of kin." Mike Ireland, president of Ridge Hill, and Eric Hempel, owner of Hempel Funeral Home in Amherst and board member at Ridge Hill, were instrumental in making sure the burial took place. "It just seems like a decent thing to do for the community," Baker said. "These remains are just hanging around at the funeral homes. What happens if it goes out of business or there is a tornado or a fire? Knowing that people's remains are just hanging out on a shelf, it didn't seem right. This feels like the least we can do for a member of the community." A brief service will be held at 1 p.m. Friday. The unclaimed remains will be placed in a vault and interred at Ridge Hill, where a marker donated by Matthews International will memorialize the site. A list of those buried will be kept in case a family member does come forward in the future, and the vault can be reopened, if needed. "For whatever reason, these people were not fortunate at the end of their lives," Baker said. "The interment is open to anyone who might want to come. We never close the gates to anyone." Charitable outreach is nothing new for Ridge Hill, which gives to the community in several ways. For example, if a family loses a baby, Ridge Hill does not charge for the plot, burial or marker for the infant. Contact Christina Jolliffe at ctnews@chroniclet.com.