On Friday, August 22, Phaneuf Funeral Homes along with the NH Veterans Cemetary organized a special Veterans Memorial Service. The Union Leader's full article on the event follows:
Four veterans finally get last honors
By ROGER AMSDEN
New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent
BOSCAWEN – Four servicemen whose cremated remains went unclaimed for years at a New Hampshire funeral home were laid to rest with full military honors at the New Hampshire Veterans Cemetery yesterday.
More than 250 people representing all branches of the armed services and a variety of veterans organizations turned out on a hot August afternoon for the service organized by Richard Fredette, retired Army master sergeant and military forces honor guard coordinator, and Commander David Kenney, U.S. Navy Reserves.
Buried were John A. "Jean" Bissonnette, an Army veteran who served from 1924 until 1929, whose cremated remains had been at the Phaneuf Funeral Homes & Crematorium in Manchester since 1974; Robert A. Caughey, who served with the U.S. Army in 1941 and died in 1989; John E. Davison, an Air Force veteran of the Korean War who died in Claremont in 2002; and William J. "Jack" Mitchell, an Army veteran of the Korean War who died in 2005.
The Rev. Gary Rolph, chaplain at the VA Medical Center in Manchester, presided at the service in which urns containing the remains of the servicemen were escorted by a color guard to the center of the site with wrapped American flags, which at the conclusion of the ceremony were presented to representatives of the armed services.
Rolph said that he hoped the service would bring an awareness to other funeral homes and veterans organizations across the state that each and every member of the military is entitled to full honors for their service to their country.
"They have reached their final resting place in a ceremony which was final, solemn and reverent," said Kenney at the conclusion of the service. "We hope that this ceremony will help us reach out to others in a similar situation.''
Roger Desjardins, New Hampshire Veterans Cemetery director, said that the idea for the service came from a chance conversation with Arthur "Buddy" Phaneuf, owner of Phaneuf Funeral Homes & Crematorium in Manchester.
Phaneuf had told Desjardins about his efforts to track down relatives of those whose remains were at the home and Desjardins offered to help find military records that would show that some of them were honorably discharged veterans, making them eligible for free burial in the state Veterans Cemetery.
Desjardins credited Joyce Morton, staff person at the cemetery, with making all the phone calls and doing months of research that provided the proper documentation for the burial of the four veterans.
He said that in recent weeks at least 10 families who still had the cremated remains of veterans have come forward to arrange for funerals for them, including some cases in which the families have kept the remains for at least two generations.
"We're hoping to get the word out so that these veterans, who are our comrades, can have a honored place in this cemetery,'' said Desjardins.
Shelf people ready to go home
In the funeral industry, they are referred to as shelf people. Who are these people? They are men and women, young and old, rich and poor, from all different ethnic groups and religions. While they are all different, they all have three things in common. First, they have all passed away. Second, they were all cremated. And third, and the saddest of all, is that their cremated remains have never been picked up by their family. They sit, unclaimed, on the shelves of thousands of funeral homes across this country.
We have about fifty of these shelf people at our funeral home. Some passed away just a year or so ago and some have been with us for over thirty years. I was speaking to a friend of mine about this not too long ago and his first question was, “how could this every happen? Who would leave their loved-ones cremated remains at the funeral home indefinitely? The sad reality is that many of these people were alone in the world – having no family or even friends to take care of their final arrangements. At the time of their death, a stranger, probably a social worker at a hospital or nursing home had the daunting task of making their final arrangements. And with no family, and often very little funds, after their cremation, they sit here with no cemetery to go to, no family to take them home and no one to grieve for them.
Several of our shelf people were homeless, and after the City paid for their cremation, there was no place to have them buried. While these are sad cases, to me the saddest ones are those people who did have family yet their family choose not to pick them up after the cremation. After dozens of phone calls and letters to the family from the funeral home, their loved ones simple decided to abandon them. It is not for me to judge why someone would simply leave their family member to sit on a shelf. Maybe the family emotionally never accepted the death and does not want that reminder. Maybe the deceased was an abusive person who never really provided any love or support to their family. Or maybe their family had every good intention to pick them up but somehow lost track of the days, months and years and are embarrassed to show up to claim them.
There is somewhat of a happy ending to this. A few months ago, I was speaking with the Superintendent of the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery about these shelf people. He asked if any of these folks were honorably discharged veterans. Since we had limited information of many of these people, I told him I did not know so he offered to do some research for me. Come to find out, four of our shelf people had served in the military. Knowing that, and knowing that the VA provides for free burial space and military honors, we made arrangements to have these veterans interred at the NH Veterans cemetery in Boscawen. Finally, after years of no one caring about these people, we have now been able to entrust them to care of the Veterans Cemetery staff. At the time of their service, they were all given military honors with distinction, had a blessing by a military chaplain and have had headstones ordered thanks to the VA.
As far as the rest of our shelf people, we will watch over them. Hopefully one day someone comes to claim them.
