{"id":13692,"date":"2012-07-29T19:38:21","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T02:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=13692"},"modified":"2012-07-29T19:41:45","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T02:41:45","slug":"the-unclaimed-dead-of-lewis-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=13692","title":{"rendered":"The unclaimed dead of Lewis County"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2012.0727.unclaimed.remains.trim_2\"<\/a>

The Lewis County coroner displayed the urns of the unclaimed dead for the news media in hopes a bit of publicity might turn up relatives.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker
\nLewis County Sirens news reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

CHEHALIS \u2013 Anyone out there missing a grandmother? A cousin? Maybe a great uncle?<\/p>\n

More than a dozen individuals who have died with no family to claim them for burial remain in the custody of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office.<\/p>\n

Over the past 14 years, each unclaimed person has been cremated, their ashes placed in a a temporary plastic urn or even just a cardboard box, and then shelved.<\/p>\n

Many of them were older when they died, although David J. Robertson, for example, was just 48 when he passed away at a Centralia nursing home in June of 2010.<\/p>\n

Two local men who passed away earlier this year are among them.<\/p>\n

Some may have been estranged from their family, or simply had no living relatives, according to Coroner Warren McLeod.<\/p>\n

“One gentleman we spoke to his neighbor, he said no, he doesn’t have any family,” McLeod said.<\/p>\n

It’s been somewhat distressing to McLeod and employees at the coroner’s office that so many have not gotten a proper burial.<\/p>\n

“It’s frustrating,” McLeod said. “I mean, these folks have been stored in the back store room.”<\/p>\n

“You gotta figure somebody somewhere loves them,” he said.<\/p>\n

When McLeod took over as elected coroner in January 2011, there were many unclaimed sets of cremated remains being stored in the office.<\/p>\n

Last year, volunteers worked with the coroner to take the military veterans among them to be buried<\/a> at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent.<\/p>\n

Since then, McLeod’s deputy coroners have checked and re-checked and found relatives of just a few.<\/p>\n

Just last week, they matched up an urn containing a woman’s remains with her son who lives in Olympia, according to McLeod.<\/p>\n

“When he was contacted, he said, oh, I thought someone else in the family took care of her,” McLeod said.<\/p>\n

Five families have been found in the past several months, he said.<\/p>\n

Now that virtually all avenues have been exhausted, the 16 remaining individuals will finally go to their final resting spot.<\/p>\n

Claquato Cemetery west of Chehalis has donated a plot. A burial service is in the planning for next month.<\/p>\n

The 16 urns will be placed in a shared concrete liner in a part of the cemetery known as the county section.<\/p>\n

McLeod said he was told that’s where the county buried people who were unclaimed from the 1930s until the mid-1990s. He said he didn’t know why that practice ended.<\/p>\n

Just in case in the future, a relative turns up who wants to retrieve their loved one, each urn will be sealed separately with a copy of the death certificate.<\/p>\n

Their names won’t be engraved on any headstone, but the grave will be marked, and the cemetery will keep a listing as well as copies of the death certificates on file, according to McLeod.<\/p>\n

The burial and a non-denominational memorial service is tentatively set for the week of Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

If any of them do have a family member who wants to claim them, there is still time. The coroner thought publishing a list could possibly turn up more relatives.<\/p>\n

Some of them still have friends in the area, just not family who could legally claim their bodies, according to the coroner’s office.<\/p>\n

“Once we have the date, if people from the public want to come, they’re welcome,” McLeod said.<\/p>\n

The following individuals are scheduled to be buried at Claquato:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Lawrence T. Erickson, Centralia: 7-10-1915 to 5-4-1998<\/p>\n

\u2022 Richard Farrell, Randle: 3-31-1943 to 10-26-1999<\/p>\n

\u2022 Delores Fletcher, Centralia: 10-11-1928 to 3-24-2000<\/p>\n

\u2022 Mary Katherine Gibson, Chehalis: 5-17-1936 to 3-31-2000<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gladys Vivian Pitts, Centralia: 10-5-1915 to 10-6-2003<\/p>\n

\u2022 Hiram Mahlon Coleman, Pe Ell: 7-22-1935 to 1-18-2004<\/p>\n

\u2022 Edward M. Dombrowe, Chehalis: 4-22-1924 to 7-15-2004<\/p>\n

\u2022 Harry Edwin Fields Jr., Chehalis: 8-25-1946 to 10-17-2004<\/p>\n

\u2022 Stella Richardson, Centralia: 3-7-1928 to 8-12-2006<\/p>\n

\u2022 Michael S. Edin, Centralia: 2-20-1944 to 10-5-2009<\/p>\n

\u2022 David J. Robertson, Centralia: 6-7-1962 to 7-27-2010<\/p>\n

\u2022 Eugene Briese, transient Chehalis area: 7-1-1943 to 12-6-2010<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gary M. Ward, Centralia: 8-23-1961 to 6-15-2010<\/p>\n

\u2022 William Dane, Centralia: 8-17-1942 to 3-1-2011<\/p>\n

\u2022 Richard Fisher, Centralia: 12-16-1938 to 1-14-2012<\/p>\n

\u2022 Curt Lynn Allison, aka Curtis Hughes, Curtis: 11-17-1950 to 4-7-2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker Lewis County Sirens news reporter CHEHALIS \u2013 Anyone out there missing a grandmother? A cousin? Maybe a great uncle? More than a dozen individuals who have died with no family to claim them for burial remain in the custody of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office. Over the past 14 years, each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10],"class_list":["post-13692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story","tag-by-sharyn-l-decker","tag-news-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13692"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13696,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13692\/revisions\/13696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}