Golf and Cemetery Department Director Kevin Thurman said more people are choosing to be cremated, and he has to make arrangements to handle their cremains.
“Whether we like it or not, it’s coming,” Thurman said. “Change with it, or you’re going to be lost in the shuffle.”The city is building a columbarium at Graceland Cemetery and more will follow, he said. A columbarium is an above-ground structure that contains niches for placing urns and other cremains. Thurman said he wants to have about 200 niches in the columbarium.
“With the trend toward cremation … the industry’s changing and I think this will extend the life of so many cemeteries, the useful life,” Thurman said.
Thurman said younger people are more likely to want to be cremated.
“I would have to say yes,” he said. “Our younger generation, they’re not going to be tethered to tradition like the older generation.”
There have been about 15,000 burials in the 60-acre cemetery, which he said is a little over half full.
He said there are about 50 sets of cremains in Mitchell awaiting a proper place to store them. The columbarium will get those cremains out of closets, off mantles and in the cemetery, Thurman said.
There is already one columbarium in Mitchell. It opened in the spring.
It’s located in the Servicemen’s Memorial Cemetery, a private cemetery located next to the Graceland Cemetery. Lyle Sunderland, of the Mitchell American Legion Post’s executive committee, said it’s the first columbarium in the area.
“It’s a huge convenience for those who choose to be cremated,” Sunderland said. “It’s a nice, attractive way of accomplishing it.”
He said there are 44 single and 44 double niches in the reddish granite structure, which is 6 feet tall, 5 to 6 feet wide and about 20 feet long.
Thurman said the city columbarium will have the same basic color as the veterans’ columbarium. The trim will be different in an effort to save money.
Two Minnesota monument companies submitted bids to build the new columbarium, but Thurman felt the bids were too high for the project. Thurman was given permission by the City Council to negotiate with the Cold Spring Granite Company, of Cold Spring, Minn., to make a deal to build the city-owned columbarium.
The structure will be made of South Dakota mahogany, which is a form of granite.
“I would say it would be ready by spring,” Thurman said. “We’re working on the foundation for it now and the sidewalks.”
There are about 150 burials each year at Graceland, Thurman said. A growing number are of cremains, which he said surprised him.
“Yeah, I am surprised,” said Thurman, who has held the job for 29 years. “When I started, you were looking at two, three maybe a year at the most. The most we have had was 38 in a year.”
There is a considerable savings to being cremated as opposed to a traditional burial.
Mitchell charges $500 for a grave plot and also charges a $450.50 interment fee. Burial in the cremation section costs $250 for the space and $212 for the inurnment. The columbarium fee has yet to be established, Thurman said.
The cemetery allows more than one burial per plot. Two coffins or a coffin and one or more urn can be placed in the same plot, Thurman said.
“That’s an option just available to families because of the tightness of the cemetery,” he said. “Some people want to be buried with grandpa, mom or dad or relatives.”
The cemetery installs concrete grave boxes or vaults, which allow the placement of more than one coffin or urn, Thurman said.
The columbarium will also offer an opportunity to spend eternity with a loved one.
It will be octagon-shaped, while the veterans’ columbarium is a rectangle.
Thurman said the city has budgeted $45,000 for the project, including sidewalks, seeding and drainage.
The granite that will be used is a reddish-colored stone that appears to be various colors, including gold or brown, at different times of the day as the sun strikes it. While it’s a different form of burial, Thurman said, the goal is still to provide the maximum comfort to people who are grieving.
Cremations are increasingly common with veterans, Sunderland said. The space used to bury people is also getting short.
“It’s becoming quite a problem,” Sunderland said. “They’re running out of available space in the Legion section of the Graceland Cemetery.”
Thurman said more veterans’ columbariums will be built.
“I’m sure they will,” he said. “They’re planning ahead for four or five of them.”
Veterans and a spouse are offered one free burial space in the cemetery, Sunderland said, but must pay $200 per person for perpetual care.
Inurnment at the veterans’ columbarium costs $750 plus tax for a person, or $1,500 for a couple, plus tax. A person must have been, at any time, a Davison County resident who served honorably in the armed forces, or the spouse of such a person, to qualify for that rate.
Current members of a Mitchell veterans’ organization who have never been a Davison County resident can be inured in the columbarium for the same cost plus an additional fee. Local veterans associations can be contacted for more information.
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