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Last updated 9:56 am CT February 09, 2010.
What To Do with 82 Caskets?
The mausoleum at the city cemetery is crumbling and the bodies inside need to be moved.
Public Properties superintendent Gerald Mahan didn't expect it to be a lengthy process.
"We thought we could get this done in several months. It's been 18 months and we haven't got it done yet," Mahan said.
The mausoleum is the final resting place of 82 people. Many died in the early 1900's. Mahan has had difficulty contacting their descendents because "we're talking about great, great grandmas and great, great grandpas."
City officials worked out other details quickly. The caskets were donated. So was the space to store them, but now the Southeastern Illinois College Foundation has a renter for the room that's currently full of coffins.
"This space like most of the spaces is needing to be utilized, so that's why we're needing the city to go ahead and move them out," said SIC Foundation institutional resources director Tracey Wyatt.
Aside from having to move the caskets a few times, Wyatt admits storing them has been kind of fun.
"It's been a conversation tool," he said. "It's not often that you have 82 caskets sitting in a building."
Mahan believes there's space at the Saline County transportation building to store the caskets.
Since he can't locate families, he's hoping a judge will help resolve the rest of the situation.
"Our biggest problem right now is getting permission from the courts to put [the bodies] in the cemetery," Mahad said.
By Dana Jay
djay@wsiltv.com
Now: 1265731597
