http://ozarkspub.vo.llnwd.net/o37/KSMU/audio/mp3/thealmshou_6211.mp3
Most of us hope to be missed once we’re dead and gone. But a tiny sliver of the population consists of people who have no one to bury them. KSMU’s Jennifer Moore reports on what happens when someone who falls into that category passes away.
Reporter: “Right now, I’m standing at the gate to the Alms House Cemetery, just on the northwest corner of town, not too far from the airport. This used to be known in the olden days as the ‘Pauper’s Cemetery.' It’s where the poor were laid to rest if they didn’t have money for a proper burial. Today, it’s still the site where Greene County lays to rest the remains of some of its poorest citizens.”
“It’s people that passed away without anyone, which is very sad,” says Dave Coonrod, presiding Commissioner for Greene County.
“It may be that they lost their family and just don’t have any relatives here. Maybe they’re indigent and they don’t have money or the wherewithal to do anything. Maybe it’s just their personality; they’re loners. We can’t find any connection with anyone to take on the responsibility of providing a proper burial upon their departure,” Coonrod said.
So it falls upon the public sector, and the county in particular, to provide that service.
The cost incurred by Greene County ranges from $300 to $600 per case. According to the Greene County Medical Examiner’s office, more often than not, these people do have family, but the family doesn’t have the money for even the simplest burial.
The number of people needing the service has remained steady over the past several years, the office says, even throughout the recession. It’s right around 20 cases per year.
The county works with Springfield Mortuary Services to cremate the bodies of the deceased.
If the person is known to be a veteran, his or her ashes are brought to the Veteran’s Cemetery by Lake Springfield. All others are buried here, at the Alms House Cemetery, near the Partnership Industrial Center West.
Sound: Gate opening
A gate opens up into the cemetery. There are no headstones, just a chain link fence surrounding a plot of land. Tall, lithe trees loom overhead, moving slightly in the winter wind. Every few feet, you’ll see a dip in the ground—that’s where someone’s ashes are buried, Coonrod says.
Right next to the gate is a memorial for the poor from days past: a semi-circle of old headstones which were vandalized. Many of them are broken. Each one bears a large number, but not a name.
“It goes back to the early 1900s. And these stones represent people who might have been in our Alms House cemetery, or they may have been residents of the Sunshine Nursing Home that the county used to operate out here,” Coonrod said.
About ten years ago, the county built the memorial to honor these nameless, faceless people who once called Greene County home. Perhaps the greatest irony, both then and now, is that many of them had essentially no one, but in the end, they were buried by everyone—a final tribute to truly poor and lonely human beings.For KSMU News, I’m Jennifer Moore.