March 21, 2008 Unclaimed ashes cause problems for funeral homes Play video

(NECN: Worcester, Mass.) - Some funeral homes in Massachusetts are holding boxes of cremated remains. Some date all the way back to the 1800s. They have gone unclaimed and funeral homes can’t legally dispose of them…but that could change.

Jennifer Eagan explains.

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For decades, there has been no where else to place them...

“We have others that go back 60, 70, 80 years.”

Ashes of the forgotten people.

Unclaimed, they end up in the basements of funeral homes across the country.

“Approximately 25,000 urns of ashes that have either gone unclaimed or there's been no disposition that's nationwide.”

Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Director Peter Stefan has hundreds of them in the basement of his Worcester funeral home.

“We have run out of space there so we're filling this closet up and then another and on and on it goes until something is done.”

Under Massachusetts law, funeral home owners can bury unclaimed ashes but could face legal action if a family member comes to claim them years later.

Stefan has been working with Worcester State Representative John Binienda on an amendment to the law.

It would allow funeral homes to respectfully scatter ashes in cemeteries after they have gone unclaimed for two years.

“These are people that are homeless, maybe living in Hammond St. nursing home...haven't seen family members in 30, 40, a number of years.”

The proposed

Stefan, who takes in dozens of unclaimed bodies a year, can end up paying for the funerals himself.

“Having the person cremated makes it more acceptable, more palatable, because it's less expensive.”

Stefan says funeral directors would have to be respectful of religions, like Islam and Judaism, which are opposed to cremation.

He says something needs to be done to fix the problem that will only grow worse.

“At one time they were human beings...you have to do something.”