Veterans’ Ashes Finally Receive Burial

The ashes of seven Douglas County veterans’ who died without enough money for burial will finally be welcomed to their final resting place after years sitting on shelves in local funeral homes.

On November 3, the ashes of two veterans from World War II, two from the Korea War, and three from the Vietnam War will finally be interred. All this is being paid for by donations dropped into buckets set up at local businesses.The burial bucket brigade is Joe Penny’s idea. But he’s a bit on the shy side, and didn’t want to be recorded.

Mark Snow owns the Campus Barbershop in Superior. He says when Penny asked him to having a donation bucket in his shop, it was a no-brainer, “I’m a vet myself so it made sense to me. It was like yeah we couldn’t wait to help.”

Penny says he has been working to raise money to bury the ashes of veterans for eleven years but only started fundraising about a month ago. What he calls the Veteran Burial Fund received enough money to for seven burials and still had some left over. That money is being used for four more burials in the Greenwood Cemetery.

Greenwood Cemetery receptionist Terri Hammerbeck says unfortunately, this isn’t unusual, “I know some funeral homes and or cemeteries have had them are their shelves for year and years and years because there’s no family left, nothing to do with them.”

Downs Funeral Home Director Jeff Cushman says there are a lot of people whose ashes are never picked up from funeral homes, “He knew one of his friends was here. We went through all our cremains that were just sitting in the building, people didn’t do anything with them, pick them up or burying them and we checked them for which one were veterans because veterans are entitled to a free grave. And then the money is raised for the opening and closing the grave for the cemetery fees.”

Penny chose to have the funeral on a Saturday so the business who donated and anyone else who would like to come pay respects will be able to attend.