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Kristi's Crypt

• No longer are our choices limited to burial or cremation!

  • Disaster Victim Identification

    It is time to heighten awareness among governments, the military, international and national organizations – including the worldwide Red Cross and Red Crescent network. As well as the general public about the tragedy of people unaccounted for as a result of disasters and random violence. The anguish of the families also needs to be addressed by creating and making available tools for action and communication. Ensure accountability on the part of the authorities responsible for resolving the problem of missing people.

    Pearl Harbor cremains interred within the hull of USS Utah

    Release Date: 12/16/2003 10:00:00 AM
    By Journalist 1st Class Mike Miller, Commander, Navy Region Hawaii Public Affairs
    
    PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (NNS) -- Dec. 7, a funeral service was finally held at the USS Utah Memorial at Pearl Harbor for a baby girl, Nancy Lynne Wagner, who died at birth. Few know the secret USS Utah (AG 16) has held for 62 years. Nancy's twin sister, Mary Kreigh, visited the memorial at the 60th anniversary in 2001. Mary Kreigh returned with her daughter Nina Kreigh for the funeral service. Friends and family were present, along with active-duty and Reserve Navy personnel.
    
    Utah was sunk by a Japanese torpedo off Ford Island in Pearl Harbor during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. Fifty-eight enlisted men and six officers perished aboard and all but four remain inside the hull. Baby Nancy's father, Chief Yeoman Albert Wagner, was attached to Utah at the time of the attack. Wagner had planned to scatter Nancy's ashes at sea when Utah left Pearl Harbor, but he never had the chance. Chief Wagner survived the attack and remained in the Navy until 1952. He passed away in 1975 prior to interments aboard Utah and was buried at sea off San Diego. Baby Nancy's urn is still in her dad's locker aboard Utah.
    
    Mary Kreigh is USS Utah Association's Public Relations Director. The Navy holds a special place in her heart. "For sixty-two years, the courageous crew of USS Utah has watched over a tiny secret copper urn hidden in my father's watery locker," Mary Kreigh said after the funeral service. "Nina and I are so grateful that my little twin sister Nancy Lynne has finally received God's blessing in the presence of men and women of the United States Navy. Our tears are tears of joy, not sadness. One day I hope to join Nancy Lynne aboard our beloved ship."
    
    Chief Journalist (SW) Tim Paynter said, "I think it is very fitting that we, as Sailors, paid our respects to baby Nancy and her father, Chief Wagner. It's sad that he couldn't be here with us today for her funeral service, which he had originally intended to hold 62 years ago."
    
    The Utah Memorial rests on the western side of Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. Utah lies firmly within the borders of the naval base, rendering her less accessible to non-military personnel. Dedicated in 1972, active duty, Reservists and veterans pay their respects at the monument located at the site where the hull is still partially exposed.
    
    Utah, a 21,825-ton Florida-class battleship, was built in Camden, N.J., and commissioned in August 1911. Her original hull number was BB 31. Following operations off the U.S. east coast, Europe, and a goodwill visit to South America, Utah was extensively modernized in 1925. In 1928, she carried President-elect Herbert Hoover on his return from a visit to South America. In 1931 Utah was converted to a radio-controlled target ship and redesignated AG 16, a role in which she would spend the rest of her active service.
    
    Just prior to 8 a.m., Dec. 7, 1941, men aboard Utah saw three airplanes heading north from the harbor entrance. The planes dove low at the southern end of Ford Island where the seaplane hangars were located and began dropping their bombs. The attack went quickly for Utah. At 8:01 a.m., the venerable target ship took a torpedo hit forward and immediately listed to port. At 8:12 a.m., her mooring lines snapped and Utah rolled over. Through the heroic efforts of their shipmates, 10 men were rescued from the capsized hull. Sixty-four died aboard. Four were later recovered and interred ashore.
    
    Pearl Harbor-attack survivors who served aboard Utah are entitled to have their cremains interred within the hull. Navy funeral honors are rendered on the memorial, and the urn is slowly lowered to divers in the water, who place it inside Utah. Utah is the final resting place for 60 men along with their shipmates who choose to join them &endash; and baby Nancy Lynne Wagner.

  • Corpses on the NJ Turnpike

    Posted: 9:01 a.m. EST October 29, 2002
    TRENTON, N.J. -- The New Jersey Turnpike Authority will spend nearly $4 million to remove thousands of bodies from a five-acre grave site in Hudson County and rebury them at another location. An archaeologist, osteologist and mortician were hired Monday to help unearth the remains from a potter's field. The work, which is needed to make way for a new turnpike interchange in Secaucus, will cost $3.89 million and be overseen by state Superior Court Judge Thomas Oliveri. "In essence, we are following the rules established by the court," Joseph Orlando, a turnpike spokesman, told The Record of Bergen County for Tuesday's editions. "It shows we are going about this with the best of intentions and in full compliance with the court." Officials said the work should not interfere with construction on the interchange, being built between Exits 15E and 16E on the turnpike's eastern spur. They still expect to complete the project in 2004. The cemetery was used by Hudson County's former poorhouse, mental hospital and penitentiary, and officials believe that more than 3,500 bodies may be buried at the site. Details about the grave site remain sketchy, but records suggest that the bodies were buried there sometime between the 1860s and 1950. An unknown number of remains were disinterred and relocated when the Turnpike was built in the 1950s.

  • New funeral option puts bikers in Hog Heaven

    CNN: Wednesday, June 30, 2004
    
    ALUM BANK, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Harley-Davidson fans can finally take their final ride in style.
    
    Tombstone Hearse Co. two years ago began building hand-crafted Old West-style casket carriers that are pulled by a modified Harley-Davidson Road King.
    
    "We take a regular bike and turn it into a motortrike with special gears to pull a heavier load," said company co-founder Dave Follmar. "We can accommodate most caskets, including oversized units."
    
    Follmar, a retired cabinetmaker, came up with the idea 12 years ago. With the help of construction expert Jack Feather, Follmar has now franchised the idea and has a network of hearses in service stretching from Texas to Michigan and New Jersey.
    
    Rental prices for the hearses range from $500 to $600. Traditional hearses range from $125 to $475.
    
    Tombstone's hearse is designed with the traditional amenities but features a glass-enclosed carriage with curtains and tassels. Four gold lanterns adorn each corner and it's fitted with a black vinyl top.
    
    Tombstone's drivers are dressed in white tuxedo shirts, string ties, black pants and Calvary-style knee-high boots with a single spur.
    
    "For any guy or gal who has sat their butt in a Harley seat all their lives, it doesn't seem fitting to lay them in the back of a Caddy for a farewell ride," Feather said.
  
  
  

  • In this new century, our choices are getting diversified. We are not limited to choosing between just earth burials or cremation. Even storage of cremated human remains is growing in vast selections we have available to the public.

  • Who says "you can't take it with you?"
  
  
  

  • Casket Furniture

    
    Your sofa, for just $2500, can convert to a casket when the time comes. Or use it as a phone booth now and deposit your mortal remains later for just $2800. An entertainment center/casket is $2250. Fido hasn't been neglected either, and you can make his final resting place from a pet bed or coffee table.
  
  
  

  • Eternal Reef

    
    A permanent memorial that replaces cremation urns and allows future generations to enjoy the environmental legacy without the concern and responsibility of finding a final resting place for the previous generations remains.
    
  
  
  

  • LifeGem

    
    LifeGem merely chooses an exact carbon source to create a beautiful and meaningful memorial for you and your family.
    
    Simply put, we have discovered how to capture the carbon that was always present, and until now, lost during cremation. Once captured, this carbon is placed in one of our unique diamond presses replicating the awesome forces of nature – heat and pressure. A diamond that takes millions of years to occur naturally can now be created from the carbon of your loved one in a matter of weeks.
    
    The entire process of creating this beautiful, unique, and certified LifeGem memorial diamond involves cremation, creation, and faceting.

  Strange, but True

  • Mummufication is Possible

    Summum, a church in Salt Lake City believes in preserving the body after death by Mummification. Mummification is the spiritual organization's preferred method of body preservation. But unlike the ancient Egyptians, who mummified bodies by dehydration, Summum uses a patented modern technique. The technique minimizes decomposition of the body and maintains the body's appearance after death.
    
    In Egyptian times, only pharaohs and other members of the nobility were mummified because it was time consuming and expensive. If a person were to pay to use Summum's procedure, Ra estimates a cost of about $63,000. This includes the funeral, the viewing, the mummification process, the mummy-form and the mausoleum.
    
    The church's founder, Corky Ra, began seeking a patent for his modern process after he experimented in mummifying his cat, Oscar, in 1980. He perfected his technique on human cadavers at the University of Utah's Pathology Department. Rom Temu, a Licensed funeral director who helped Ra develop the process, says that, by federal law, human remains have to be embalmed before the mummification procedure occurs. So far, Summum has provided services only for people's pets, but Temu, also a founder of the church, says, "it's only a matter of time" before it performs its first human mummification. Mummification is not just limited to the members of Summum. The service is available to anyone willing to pay for it.
    
    "But," Ra says, "if you know you want the process done when you are in your mid-20s, and you expect to live into your 80s, you can invest $10 a month for 10 years and only have to pay $12,000." By Ra's thinking, it is a small price to pay for a body that will last into eternity.
  
  
  

  • For information on the mummification process click here:

    How Mummies Work