Usually a neighborhood is happy when a new business opens, but that wasn't the immediate reaction in the Montgomery Garden District recently. The new business is a crematorium. As much as most of us try not to think about the end of the road, I can understand why residents near 901 South McDonough Street were a bit put out when Magnolia Crematorium and Embalming opened. The neighborhood's "Garden District Preservation Association" newsletter tried to put a positive spin on it by pointing out there would be an employee on site 24/7, suggesting it would be a deterrent to crime. And they report there have been zero issues with "emissions" from another crematorium that opened recently in the Highland Park neighborhood. The new business is just a few blocks from the Governor's Mansion.
Who knew Alabama was becoming such a hot spot for cremation? I had heard we were among the states with the lowest cremation rates. Yet there are at least several hundred places where the departed can be returned to ashes in Alabama. And there is (of course) a two-part video on YouTube from The History Channel describing how it all works, though the details may be somewhat distressing for someone handling funeral arrangements.
Then there's the "perpetual care" aspect of a traditional in-the-ground burial. Heck, I'm hesitant to sign up for a "lifetime" subscription to a magazine or web site...if they go out of business, who's left to sue?
The Department of Insurance took over Memorial Gardens in Cullman a year ago, and is just now settling that case. At least with cremation, you've got the urn and the ashes and I presume they won't come take it back.
I produced an APT documentary about cemeteries in Alabama that had basically been forgotten, with forests growing in them. Mostly the property of churches that had gone out of business and all of the relatives of those in the graveyard moved away. Not much perpetual about that! I did get some severe red-bug bites tromping through the woods for that story, and they seemed like they would last forever.
Your piece on cemeteries was the first show of yours I saw. I'd ordered a copy from APT when I was living in Alaska and searching for a 150-year-old missing cemetery in Alabama.
ReplyDeleteDid you find the place you were looking for?
ReplyDeleteYeah. The big breakthrough was an aerial photo of the land where the family's pioneer homestead had been. They lived there 100 years and left marks that were still easily visible from the air, if not on the ground. Fortunately for me, nothing had been done with the land in 70+ years except some logging and deer hunting.
ReplyDeleteI had a brief description of the homestead from an old letter and was able to turn the aerial photo into a map. After two years of researching it from 5000 miles away, I walked into those woods and found graves within a couple hours.
Not all of Alabama's lost cemeteries were simply abandoned. Many on private property were quietly destroyed by new owners who didn't want a cemetery on their land. The bodies are all still there - just no markers. Such is the case with my particular cemetery. Somewhere between the '30s and '50s, all the headstones were removed.