Unclaimed Ashes

I was disgusted that in some cases patient records were left in file cabinets in abandoned hospitals. It turns out that was only a small sign of the disregard in which mentally ill people are held.
----------------------------------------------
Ore. Seeks Burial Site for Unclaimed Ashes

Gustav Metzgus died in 1938 at the state psychiatric hospital where he was being treated for dementia, and his cremated remains were stored in a nameless metal canister alongside hundreds of others in a dank room.

Then his granddaughter, Roseann Ismert, learned about his whereabouts. She recently picked up his urn and took it to her pastor to give him a blessing.

"Before that he was just stacked on a shelf. There was no final prayer or send-off for him back then, so I felt something should be done," Ismert said.

Soon, the 3,500 other former patients whose remains have been cremated and stacked in a storage facility may also get a dignified final resting place.

Legislators, mental-health advocates and others are working to find a proper burial place for the remains and possibly a memorial. Because no state funds are available, private donations are being sought.

State Sen. Peter Courtney, who is leading the effort, said he became aware of the roomful of urns last fall when he took a tour of Oregon's crowded, run-down psychiatric hospital, where much of the 1975 movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was filmed.

Courtney said he was shocked to see the canisters stored in an abandoned storage building that once served as the hospital's mortuary and crematorium.

"I found myself thinking 'This is like sacred ground,' and yet it isn't a proper place for these people; it isn't a respectful place," said Courtney.

Until the early 1900s, unclaimed hospital patients were buried in a cemetery. In 1913, the Legislature decided it needed the land and ordered the hospital to build a crematorium, exhume all bodies from the cemetery and incinerate them.

The remains were placed in the welded copper cans and stored in a hospital basement for more than six decades. They were moved to an underground vault in 1976, then transferred again four years ago to the abandoned storage building.

There are no names on the urns, only numbers that correspond to names in the hospital's records. As many as one-quarter of the 3,500 sets of remains can't be identified, hospital officials said.

The cremation policy at the hospital was halted in the 1970s. Unclaimed bodies are now sent to funeral homes for burial.

"We want to bring dignity and respect to these people," said Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland. "People with mental illness have been disenfranchised and set aside throughout history."