Whither our cemeteries in Morris?

Colorful Summit Cemetery

It is impossible for the University of Minnesota-Morris to expand to the west. You might doubt the use of such an absolute term, "impossible." But the problem is this: There is a cemetery or cemeteries next to our campus. We tend to view it all as one cemetery. Technically there are two with the Catholics having their own so they don't get tainted by proximity to the likes of Lutherans.
We have the Catholics and then we have the non-Catholics. And of course young people are alienated by these rigid ideas of how to approach religion or faith. Who gives a rip whether Catholics are buried separate? Surely the Catholics have bigger fish to fry than this. A city official once told me "there is a cemetery for Catholics and another cemetery for the rest of us." The Williams family is in the category of "the rest of us." In Glenwood there is a Lutheran cemetery.
Again, millennials are probably mystified or even amused by such distinctions. A major problem with cemeteries is this: The land cannot be re-purposed. We were made aware of this by a front page article in the March 27 Star Tribune. There is a photo of a cemetery business person at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Minneapolis. This individual is of course dressed as expected with black suit/pants, a white shirt and tie, looking to all the world like Brett Kavanaugh when Kavanaugh showed up for the hearing on his alleged sexual assault.
Ah, the funeral home business. Wonderful and caring people to be sure. They believe in what they are doing. The question is whether the rest of us will continue to believe in it much longer. Changes are already evident and seem to be progressing fast.
I wonder how many UMM students glance over to our cemetery (or cemeteries) and, subconsciously at least, wonder about the point of it all. Many of the older grave monuments are weathered to the point you can hardly make out the name. Those long-ago people have been nearly or completely forgotten. All of us will fall into obscurity someday. Oh, but it's important to remember? Oh of course it is. The value of a permanent rock with someone's name on it seems limited.
They say memorials are being done online today. Well of course they are, because nearly all facets of our lives are being touched by the Internet. It's a total no-brainer to conclude that online-based remembrances have more value than a monument. Whole biographies can be published for posterity. And then we have photo-sharing sites like Flickr. A bio site can link to the photos, because you can link to virtually anything. We learn that Facebook is a resource for all this but I haven't gotten into Facebook at all.
A simple blog or photo-sharing site can be established for free. Free! Compare that to what the "death industry" will cost you, and OMG. That dude in the suit and tie, the Kavanaugh wannabe, owes his livelihood to the traditional notions of how death should be handled.
On TV today we see life insurance commercials that start out with "the cost of the average funeral is going up." Oh no it isn't, because you can explore options to that. A real no-brainer for lots of people is cremation. The funeral industry has probably tried to cook up ways to charge more even with cremation. How? Oh, I'm sure the wheels are turning in their heads. You weren't born yesterday, were you?
I remember a conversation with the late Skip Sherstad where we felt amused along with dismay at commercials for life insurance companies. They seem so grim. "What if something were to happen to you?" Well, I guess tough bounce, Skip and I agreed.
So, a life insurance policy is needed to pay off funeral expenses? Well fine, but how else might the money be used? This isn't hard to answer. If you don't wish to keep the money for yourself - and you know darn well many of us might cite reasons to do that - then make memorial contributions in the name of the deceased. There are plenty of good causes around. Our family has one that is set up to benefit UMM.
We do have a monument at Summit Cemetery. It is a black bench monument in the newer portion. Feel free to use the bench anytime to sit and relax, like during the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Please. My parents made arrangements long ago where they assumed the traditional way was the way to go.
Unfortunately we were the kind of family that never wanted to discuss death. This was a mistake, but I suppose hindsight is 20/20. Death is easier to deal with now, now that two members of my family have entered eternity. They are with their Lord. The cemetery has no importance to them. My father would have been revulsed at the cost of funeral arrangements and the monument.
That funeral home guy with the suit has the last name McReavy, a familiar one from the Twin Cities funeral home scene. The article says Crystal Lake Cemetery became known long ago as the "ideal city of the dead." That's a logical challenge to weigh, isn't it: Dead people are not meaningful entities at all, so they cannot make up a "city." These souls have departed this life.
The article went on to note that "fewer people these days are choosing to spend eternity in this enclave of northern Minneapolis." Except of course that no one is "spending eternity" there. My late parents are with each other in God's realm. Or I wonder: Might they be with their own parents and siblings? Don't questions like this cross your mind? But surely they are not "spending eternity in a cemetery."
Owners of the Crystal Lake Cemetery have offered to donate it to the City of Minneapolis. The property is reportedly losing about $300,000 annually. This is due to maintenance costs and fewer burials. Isn't this a generous offer? Well no. The city is not considering it.
The article tells us about how the issue reflects the challenge of many cemeteries today, due to increased popularity of cremation. And while I'm sure funeral homes come up with creative ways to charge families a lot anyway - vulnerable families who are having to make decisions fast - the cost will have to be lower than for the old embalming/casket/vault routine.
I personally feel bad that my father's embalmed body is in a casket in a vault in the ground. It serves no purpose. I made the decision for cremation for my mom who died last April. Her urn is in the ground there. All the funeral arrangements were nice but they were not necessary for my benefit. It's untoward for an industry to ever make lots of profit from all this.
 
A burden for government?
My, some distressed cemeteries have had to turn to local governments. OK, now it's an issue that should concern all of us. We must face the stark and perhaps unsettling question: Will cemeteries become a total vestige of the past? In other words obsolete, outdated, a mere frozen curiosity in time for our UMM students to glance at as they go to and from campus.
If that ends up being the case, it's sad.
I regret I personally did not have more foresight. LaVerne Swanson told me I could have arranged to have my father's body buried at sea because he was in the Navy. He was a lieutenant in the Pacific for World War II. I have moved mountains trying to arrange for one of those stars with a hole in it for insertion of an American flag for Memorial Day. Unsuccessful so far. If nobody wishes to do this for me, then please do it for my deceased father.
Crystal Lake Cemetery is on land that I assume would have development potential. But it's a cemetery. Or to use the words of a mock/satire piece that once appeared in the University Register of UMM, "it's a friggin' cemetery." A mock professor was interviewed. It almost seemed like a legitimate article so I had to ask around. Jim Morrison assured me the thing was satire or whatever.
Our cemeteries in Morris can be viewed as offensive because of the blatantly anti-abortion political statement that those Catholics have been allowed to put at the edge. I wish to make it clear our family has no association with that.
I recently observed in my blogs that the cemetery is not handicapped accessible. It's not practical to try to push a wheelchair over the uneven grassy surface, is it? My mom used a "transport" which is like a wheelchair but has small wheels. It's intended for use by someone who has someone else doing the pushing. I assume a grassy surface is not practical for wheelchairs, or why else would the City of Morris expand sidewalk space at Eastside Park?
I suppose the city wanted to be sure the park is in top-notch shape for Prairie Pioneer Days. Wait a minute, PPD no longer exists as the big midsummer event. Oh, the Thursday night talent shows? Wait, these are gone too. Yes, time passes and we must adjust.
Who are my parents with in heaven? At what age are they? For sure they are close to our beloved dog "Sandy."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

The Williams monument before Mom's date of death was engraved

Sam Smith statue: the most striking feature of Summit Cemetery