Arrangements
Is a cemetery really necessary if you’re being cremated?
You may think that you don’t need a cemetery if you choose cremation. After all, you can just scatter a loved one’s cremated body in a favorite park, keep an urn on your mantle, or bury the cremated body in your backyard, right?
But what happens when there’s an office building built on top of the park, or when you sell your house where the cremated body is buried, or when your children – or grandchildren – don’t want an urn full of ashes anymore?
At St. Matthew’s, we believe that everyone deserves a permanent, protected place to rest. Here, you can have whatever type of funeral service you want, followed by cremation, and then placement of the cremated body either above ground (in a niche) or in-ground (scattering or burial). This allows for the natural grieving process to take place in a sacred environment. It also lets you create a permanent memorial – a plaque, a bench, even a sculpture – where loved ones can come to pay their respects. St. Matthew’s cemetery will always be here, just as it is now, for future generations.
In New York State you need a funeral home to handle the arrangements. The funeral director transfers the remains from the place of death to the funeral home. He (she) then prepares the death certificate and secures the medical certification and cause of death from the attending physician, medical examiner or coroner, files the document and secures the permit for the cremation, prepares the remains for cremation and places them in a cremation receptacle or casket chosen by the customer, transports to the cemetery and lastly retrieves the remains and executes their disposition as per a customer’s designation of intentions signed by the customer. The cemetery/crematory would only provide the service of cremation. For more information, visit the Erie Niagara Funeral Directors Association website at www.enfda.org.
To learn more about cremation, please click here or call one of our Family Service Representatives at (716) 822-1960, or email smc@stmatthewscemetery.com.
