Community invited to burial of unclaimed persons; Harry Fields won’t be attending

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The coroner’s office will have one less set of unclaimed remains to bury next month, thanks to publicity generated from publishing a list of the urns that are stored at their office.

Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said a family member came forward and picked up her relative yesterday after news stories appeared.

Harry Edwin Fields Jr., 58, has been in the custody of the coroner since he died at his Chehalis home in October 2004.

McLeod didn’t say what the relationship was, just that the woman was local.

Over the past 14 years, each unclaimed person has been cremated and kept by the coroner.

McLeod thought they had exhausted all avenues for finding family members, and is making plans for a burial next month in a donated plot at Claquato Cemetery.

The 15 remaining urns will share a spot in a part of the cemetery known as the county section.

A non-denominational memorial service is scheduled for Aug. 22 at 2 p.m.

The public is welcome to attend.

Claquato Cemetery is about two miles west of Chehalis at 142 Stearns Road.
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For background including the list, read “The unclaimed dead of Lewis County” from Sunday July 29, 2012, here

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2012 at 5:46 pm and is filed under News briefs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Community invited to burial of unclaimed persons; Harry Fields won’t be attending”

  1. GuiltyBystander says:
    Sunday, August 5, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    I plan on being there and I hope I’m not alone…any of us could be one of these people someday.