This is really horrible

[Hardbopjazz]

Jumbled bones at Ill. cemetery may be hard to ID

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CHICAGO – Human remains strewn amid overgrown weeds have deteriorated into jumbled bones. Paper records in a rusted metal cabinet have dissolved into dust.

Days after horrified relatives learned that former workers at a historic black cemetery near Chicago allegedly dug up hundreds of bodies in a scheme to resell grave plots, relatives are learning that DNA likely won't help them find their loved ones. The piles of bones and deteriorated records may make identifying many remains impossible.

"Identifying everyone would be a tremendous long shot," John Howard, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said this week.

Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place several famous Americans including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave plots. Till's grave was not disturbed.

Full story

[Jazzmoose]

I understand that this is a horrible story for many people, but in all honesty, I don't understand the human reverence for dead bodies. I fully admit that this is probably a lack of understanding on my part; I'm not saying the rest of the world is wrong and I'm right. I just don't get it. My first choice upon my death would be to have my body thrown to the wolves, but barring that, cremation seems to be the way to go.

[Van Basten II]

Agree with Jazzmoose what's the old saying let the dead bury the dead

[BruceH]

Personally, I tend to agree, but it's a cultural tradition. We remember the dead by showing respect for their remains, and this place sure didn't.

[Hardbopjazz]

Personally, I tend to agree, but it's a cultural tradition. We remember the dead by showing respect for their remains, and this place sure didn't.

True, even Elephants remember their dead ones.

[Niko]

wouldn't want to miss "my" graves... always thought of that whole procedure as the last service the dead person did for those who were left... (and not as something the dead person does "for his or her own pleasure")

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

was it white people scheming the thing or was it fellow black workers

[king ubu]

wouldn't want to miss "my" graves... always thought of that whole procedure as the last service the dead person did for those who were left... (and not as something the dead person does "for his or her own pleasure")

did you buy a plot at the cemetery already?

here, graves will be emptied and re-used after a certain amount of time has passed (10 or 15 or 20 years, I don't know... you can pay to prolong it for some more years).

would be quite crowded with cemeteries if all mankind still inhabited their own grave

[Niko]

wouldn't want to miss "my" graves... always thought of that whole procedure as the last service the dead person did for those who were left... (and not as something the dead person does "for his or her own pleasure")

did you buy a plot at the cemetery already?

here, graves will be emptied and re-used after a certain amount of time has passed (10 or 15 or 20 years, I don't know... you can pay to prolong it for some more years).

would be quite crowded with cemeteries if all mankind still inhabited their own grave

no, not yet (though i did tell my girlfriend that i want to go here if possible and if it's reasonably convenient for her... http://www.melatenfriedhof.de/html/meta/index.html )

[king ubu]

ok, but in true Habsburgian fashion you'd have to make sure that the heart, the viscera (?) and the mumified body will be stored in separate places... (you know, like those people that keep back-ups of their external harddrives in lockers or safes, in case their house burns down...) - I mean, you never know what happens in Cologne... maybe the ground will just disappear some beautiful day...

Edited July 17, 2009 by king ubu

[Niko]

I mean, you never know what happens in Cologne... maybe the ground will just disappear some beautiful day...

guess that's mostly a concern to those who still live up there... but you're right i'm not yet through with all this...

[JSngry]

Jumbled bones at Ill. cemetery may be hard to ID

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CHICAGO – Human remains strewn amid overgrown weeds have deteriorated into jumbled bones. Paper records in a rusted metal cabinet have dissolved into dust.

Days after horrified relatives learned that former workers at a historic black cemetery near Chicago allegedly dug up hundreds of bodies in a scheme to resell grave plots, relatives are learning that DNA likely won't help them find their loved ones. The piles of bones and deteriorated records may make identifying many remains impossible.

"Identifying everyone would be a tremendous long shot," John Howard, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said this week.

Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place several famous Americans including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave plots. Till's grave was not disturbed.

Full story

Somebody told me that the remains of Willie Dixon were also among the victims here (i guess that's how you'd put it...).

Can anybody confirm or deny?

[Niko]

Jumbled bones at Ill. cemetery may be hard to ID

Buzz Up Send

CHICAGO – Human remains strewn amid overgrown weeds have deteriorated into jumbled bones. Paper records in a rusted metal cabinet have dissolved into dust.

Days after horrified relatives learned that former workers at a historic black cemetery near Chicago allegedly dug up hundreds of bodies in a scheme to resell grave plots, relatives are learning that DNA likely won't help them find their loved ones. The piles of bones and deteriorated records may make identifying many remains impossible.

"Identifying everyone would be a tremendous long shot," John Howard, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said this week.

Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place several famous Americans including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave plots. Till's grave was not disturbed.

Full story

Somebody told me that the remains of Willie Dixon were also among the victims here (i guess that's how you'd put it...).

Can anybody confirm or deny?

can't find anything except that emmett till is not among them, not who is (what a list of names on that cemetery... kokomo arnold, sonny cohn, willie dixon, otis spann, dinah washington...)

i mean, if they really tried to resell graves without anybody noticing (that's what they did, right, lots of new vocabulary for me in those articles...) then i guess the grave of willie dixon would be one of the last i'd touch...

http://www.deadbluesguys.com/dbgtour/dixon_willie.htm

Edited July 17, 2009 by Niko

[JSngry]

I understand that this is a horrible story for many people, but in all honesty, I don't understand the human reverence for dead bodies. I fully admit that this is probably a lack of understanding on my part; I'm not saying the rest of the world is wrong and I'm right. I just don't get it. My first choice upon my death would be to have my body thrown to the wolves, but barring that, cremation seems to be the way to go.

Understood in a lot of ways, but...a cemetery can also stand as a living memorial (yeah, I know...) to a time, a place, a culture, that might otherwise be forgotten. In the case of African-Americans, you're talking about a people who can often trace their ancestry back but only a relatively few generations. If/whem you definle, destroy, whatever, even that connection, you're further abstracting the notion of "rootedness", a notion that has been hard-fought for and hard won. And of course, that's true to one extent or another for all cultures. Something about knowing that the bodies of the people you hear stories about are "there" adds a resonance that storytelling, history, mythology, etc. alone just don't carry, especially as time passes. Legen is one thing, but a burial plot, headstone, etc is a lot more...real for those in the here and now.

In Dallas, the old Freedman's park was the focus of a not-uncontentious battle as "progress" threatened to wipe out the last vestiges of a people whose presence was under threat enough while alive... http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry...t/freedcem.html The line "Beginning in 1989 representatives of the community worked with the City of Dallas and the Texas Department of Transportation to preserve the historic Freedman's Cemetery site prior to highway expansion." is very....uh...polite.

[king ubu]

Interesting and certainly valid points there, Jim!

[Jazzmoose]

I agree. As I said, I'm speaking of my own lack of understanding, not criticizing in any way. I dunno, maybe it's a lack of empathy. I think it comes from my mother's funeral. I'd just turned nine, and I was forced to 'view' the coffin. The only thought I had for days after that was "that's not my mother"; they'd made her look like a cheap mannequin in a clothing store or something. So I'll blame it on the trauma and add it to my therapy bill...

[Claude]

I don't really understand what was going on there, and the excessive outrage.

In the weeks since authorities announced the graveyard scheme thousands of relatives have flooded the cemetery looking for answers. Some, who knew exactly where their family member was buried, reported missing gravestones or unkempt plots — but many others couldn't figure out where the relatives were buried because the cemetery's records were in such disarray.

Where I live, families own temporary grave concessions, which have to be renewed every 20 or 40 years. If it is not renewed, the grave is emptied and the cemetary space resold to another family. So abandonned graves automatically disappear.

If cemetary personel wanted to illegally resell graves which are still covered by a valid concession, they would have to find graves which seem abandonned (no more visits) and remove the name. If there were visitors (at least once a year, for All Saints' Day), they would immediately find out about the fraud, since the grave has disappeared.

So what I don't understand is why there are victim families who now want to have bones of people who died a long time ago identified by DNA, when they did not care to visit the grave previously.

Concerning the "reverence for dead bodies", I'm with Jazzmoose. Doesn't "dust to dust" mean that the remains become part of the earth and are not meant to be conserved indefinitely? As the far as the grave as a memorial is concerned, the temporary concession system (here in Europe) means that those who don't want to keep a grave will lose it after some years. What's the point of a memorial that nobody cares about?

[Dan Gould]

Obviously the system is very different here, Claude. You buy it, its yours, in true perpetuity. And if you'd put yourself in the place of people who had their loved ones treated in such a way, you might be a little more sympathetic.