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Where Chicagoist used to live, we were within walking distance to three (or more, depending on boundary definitions) cemeteries. Not one to be easily creeped out by the prospect, their proximity actually sweetened the pot for us. We’re no Fox Mulder, but we are of the ilk that likes the occasional cemetery walk: peace and quiet, nice funerary art, and a different angle on local history. Some of the places we know are full up and not accepting any new arrivals. However, others have plenty of exploitable space … perhaps too much.
All over the country, cemetery plots bought long ago are going unwanted. As evidenced by trends in Chicago, cremation and transplantation are contributing to an apathetic attitude towards the old-fashioned notion of a family plot. Say you inherit a number of eternal resting places from your mother. Maybe you’re planning on being cremated instead and put up in a columbarium. Maybe you’ve moved to Delaware and like it so much you’d rather be buried in your new digs. Or maybe your spouse would rather be buried with his or her family than yours. (There’s a conversation we would dread on so many levels.) No matter the case, chances are you’d end up like Jacqueline Heins Miles, who has seven plots in Oak Woods Cemetery she’s been trying to pawn off for three years. Three years! A long time, yet Donald Flack of Des Plaines has tried to sell his extra land for the same amount of time. Apparently we’ve gotten so far away from the traditional method of planning ahead that nobody takes the bait, even at 30-40% price reductions.
In the olden days, people put up fliers or bulletins advertising their extra plots. Today, nothing suffices like the Internet, where sites like PlotExchange.com and GraveSolutions.com work as brokers for the gravesite market. Still, the majority of inquiries facing sellers like Miles and Flack come from scammers. Take away the scammers, who we’re sure go after people trying to sell anything, and you’ve got … nothing. We briefly played devil’s advocate with ourselves and considered the purchase of one of these plots. What turned us off was the idea of spending eternity in a grave meant for another person, which just seems plain wrong; and the fact that we’re pretty gung ho on green burials. (For all our love of cemeteries, we see them as rather quaint and outdated.) Despite our preference, we don’t really have a plan yet for when we pass on. Do you?
Image courtesy of runjenrun01.
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Yes, yes I do Chicagoist. Can't say much about my plans for the my dead body, but it does involve delicious pie.
Cemeteries are such rip-offs! I wouldn't go near one or want to stick the cost of a burial ($10,000 on average) on anyone. I'm going up in flames when the time comes.
I'm totally going the "promession" route -- they freeze your body in liquid nitrogen then blast you into a gazillion pieces. Whee!
oo. how much does that run you, prescott?
Cemeteries are a poor use of real estate and the environment. Your not coming back so why be burried in a cement box.
I dunno, I think right now it's only being done in Sweden. I should have at least a couple of years left, hopefully it will be available in the U.S. by then.
Green burial all the way...
I have thought of this a lot. Everything is going to the internet including the family plot.
I have always loved walking in a cemetery wishing the stones could give up the stories of the lives of the people buried there...and other than names and dates, there were not many stories. Life is about the stories!
Its one reason I started InRepose.com
I got my very own cemetary plot as a CHRISTMAS GIFT from my maternal grandmother when I was in college (15 years ago). Sure enough, it's in the family plots in Podunk, Mississippi. Yep, Mississippi. A place I refuse to go alive when I have choices and sure won't be going when I'm dead. The best part is that we all got a plot - my mom, my dad, my brother, and me. And my parents have been divorced since I was 12. They don't want to be near each other in this lifetime and I can't imagine they want to share the next one. I'd love to dump my plot. I figure I'll wait a few years until after my grandmother dies and then give it to one of my cousins so their spouse/kids can be buried with them.
Wait. Is it true that the dead can still vote in Chicago? I've heard that the names of dead people routinely show up on the ballot polls.
I plan to explode. Then I want my loved ones to take all my stuff and get sloppy drunk. No wake/viewing/funeral/any of that crap.
I'm going to have my body enclosed in a giant crystal pyramid and fired into deep space. Either that, or I'm going to go the H.S. Thompson route and have my ashes shot out of a cannon during a huge, drunken party.
Air burial. Just hoof my fresh corpse someplace the buzzards can find it and let 'em have at me. Circle of life indeed...
I was visiting the folks over Memorial Day weekend, which is a great deal like Day of the Dead for southerners (I grew up here, they moved 'home' when they retired). It's a given you go out to the family plots and clean them up and put new flowers out and have a picnic. This year, we found *strangers* buried where my parents were planning to be buried! It seems no one is really sure who owns this cemetary, and the cousins (of each other, not my cousins) have each been selling the same plots to various people over the years. The dead people in question are some kind of distant relatives of Dad's; they had as much right to be there as he would. I think they got it straightened out, somehow, but I don't know the details.