Cremation

Just as with traditional burial, you may choose to hold a memorial service, gathering, or visitation. After the process, some families keep the cremated remains. Others request disposal at sea, or scattering in a place that has special meaning. There are several cemeteries that offer beautiful memorial gardens where cremated remains may be scattered and returned to nature. There are also many other meaningful options.

The cremation service can be as unique and individual as your loved one, because there are so many possibilities. We offer a superior selection of urns, keepsake jewelry and other commemorative items, and will be happy to suggest all the choices that accompany the cremation process.

Transfer from the Place of Death into Our Care

Once given permission to bring your loved one into our care, we will go to the place of death and bring your loved one to the mortuary.

Positive Identification of the Deceased

When death has occurred at a family home or medical facility with family present at the time we arrive to bring your loved one into our care, or if public or family visitation is scheduled, positive identification is not an issue. If, however, no public viewing is going to take place and death occurred and the family was not present when we arrived to take your loved one into our care, we prefer that positive identification be made. When requested and authorized, the loved one will be prepared for viewing we will place them on a cot, cover them with a sheet, and then present them in one of our chapels or facilities.

Transfer to the Crematory

After medical certification of death has been secured and authorizations to cremate have been signed by next of kin and permit issued by the county health department, we will then arrange for the transfer of your loved one to the crematory.

Placement of the Personal Identification Disc

Upon arrival at the crematory, crematory staff will place a metal tag with your loved one. This metal tag, marked with a recorded tracking and crematory identification number, is able to survive the entire cremation process. Throughout the entire process, this metal tag is never separated from your loved one and is therefore returned to you in the same container holding the cremated remains.

Individual Cremations

All of our cremations are preformed individually by highly trained and authorized individuals. Under no circumstances will multiple cremations be preformed at the same time in the same cremation chamber.

Return from the Crematory

Once the cremation is complete and the cremated remains have been properly processed at the crematory, your loved one’s cremated remains will be transferred from the crematory to our mortuary. If you have made arrangements for us to transfer your loved ones cremated remains to a place of service or ceremony or to the location of final disposition, you will be contacted and arrangements will be made to carry out such arrangements as you wish.

Signed Release of Cremated Remains

After all of these practices have been enforced and we have your cremated remains once again in our possession, we will only return them to the next of kin or the individual appointed by the next of kin. This transfer of cremated remains must be accompanied by a permit for disposition and signed release/receipt, indicating the transfer of custody.

Assistance/Counsel on Further Methods of Final Disposition/Memorialization

As with families who bury their loved ones, We are able to assist those who cremate with all suitable methods of further disposition including burial of ashes in a cemetery plot, entombment in a columbarium, division and distribution of ashes, scattering of ashes, and other methods of disposition and memorialization.