With the sound of cicadas coming from the trees and a gentle breeze in the air, the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cook County officials buried the cremated remains of 160 unclaimed or indigent adults and 39 unborn children June 5 at Mount Olivet Cemetery. It was the 35th committal service since 2012 and brought the total of those whose remains were buried to 5,240. Father Larry Sullivan, director of Catholic Cemeteries and pastor of Christ the King Parish, led the service and told participants that he saw the face of God in them. “It’s clear your presence here today is an example of God’s love and God’s presence in the world,” he said. The 160 adults being buried who either had no family to bury them or whose families could not afford to bury them undoubtedly experienced difficulty in life, he said. “It is my hope that throughout their lives they were able to see the presence of God in the words and actions of others because that is what we are all called to do,” Sullivan said. Several staff members from the Cook County Medical Examiners Office attended the service, including Indigent Family Services Manager Rebecca Perrone. About two months before the burial service, Perrone starts gathering unclaimed cremated remains that have been with the county for a year. Students from Worsham School of Mortuary Science help her get everything ready. For this burial, there were nine caskets containing the remains of multiple people, but Perrone says she has coordinated burial for up to 18 caskets, each containing the cremated remains of multiple people. Staff from Cook County Facilities Management make the wooden caskets and deliver them to the Medical Examiner’s Office. Then, Perrone and the students arrange the remains in the caskets and Perrone prepares the necessary permits for their burial. Finally, she puts tags on the caskets identifying each person’s remains. Perrone said she is happy to see how many people come out to support the burials. “When I started here in 2015, the burials were very small and there weren’t many people who attended it. It’s just blossomed into a really great community of funeral directors, of the mortuary schools, of the staff that come here and the elected officials,” she said. “Like Father [Sullivan] said, we are the community. We are their families and I think it’s really special.” Students from local Catholic high schools are among those who attend the burials to act as honorary pallbearers. At this burial, students from Brother Rice and St. Laurence attended. June 5 was the fifth time Brother Rice student Jay Jilek served as a pallbearer. He learned about the services through his school’s advocacy club. “It’s just a really nice way to be that last touch for these people before they’re buried, because they don’t really have anyone else,” Jilek said. “It’s nice to be able to offer that support.” This burial was the first for Brother Rice student Ronin Perez. “I thought that it was beautiful,” he said. “It’s an honor and a privilege to be here. I think that for these people, it means a lot to them. Even their families, even if we cannot reach out to them. Just the thought that we were the last people to be with them is just amazing. I would love to do this again.” St. Laurence High School student Konrad Szymusiak has also attended other burials as a pallbearer. “These people don’t have families and I just figured they deserve just as much respect as other people do,” he said. “They deserved to be buried and remembered.” Tim Harrington, owner of Barr Funeral Home and a parishioner at St. Gertrude Parish, was one of several funeral directors who donated their time and services to transport the remains from the Medical Examiner’s Office to the cemetery. The directors also accompany the remains to the graves and stand by them during the service. He has been attending for seven years. “I just think it’s so worth doing,” he said. While there is often news coverage of the service, the funeral directors don’t volunteer for that reason, he said. “It’s a great thing to give back,” said the third-generation fu
Students from Catholic high schools serve as pallbearers at indigent burial The more than three dozen students from Brother Rice, Mother McAuley and St. Laurence high schools who served as honorary pallbearers for the burial of indigent people at Mount Olivet Cemetery Oct. 26 bore witness to the human dignity that each of the 202 souls whose remains were interred possessed, said Father Lawrence Sullivan, priest director of Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago
Final burial of the indigent held at Mount Olivet On April 23 Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago welcomed the last group of indigent deceased people from the Cook County Morgue for burial at Mount Olivet Cemetery, 2755 W. 111th St. Twenty three adults and 92 unborn babies were buried.