My brother's ashes: Sister fights high cost to bury brother's urn
Nancy Reid resists when cemetery asks $800 for the simple burial of an urn in a plot the family bought
All Nancy Reid wants to do is bury her big brother's ashes.
If only the owners of the cemetery would let her.
But Moncton's Fair Haven cemetery insists Reid pay close to $800 first.
That's to add her brother's name to its records and to cover the cost of the service or, as Reid puts it: "Open a hole for the urn and cover it."
Reid calls it gouging, since Reid's parents had already paid for the family plot and what they believed was perpetual care.
Price of 'quality'
Fair Haven calls the fee a reflection of the quality service it provides.
"Each family plot has an owner on record," said Fair Haven cemetery manager Sean Melander. "So when a family wants to add or transfer to inter someone else there, we have to take the time and the due diligence to ensure that the legal documentation is correct and obtained from the proper person.
"We're offering exceptionally beautiful space for their loved ones and it's a priority here at the cemetery. And our pricing level of service to the families is a reflection of that."
He was clear about wanting to be buried with Mom and Dad. He was my beloved big brother. I am the one my father entrusted to see to these things.- Nancy Reid, Bob Reid's sister
When Nancy Reid's brother Bob died on the road between Saint John and Fredericton, she thought dealing with her grief would be her toughest ordeal.
She never imagined that a company in the business of grief could make her feel even worse.
Especially not Fair Haven.
Reid was five-years-old when she started visiting the cemetery with her family after her mother died at just 34.
Reid grew up hearing how her mom and dad and many members of her extended family bought spaces at the cemetery when it was opening.
"This was a new style of cemetery," Reid said. "It wasn't affiliated with any church, it was a landscaped memorial garden, not your typical headstone-type cemetery. And all of them all bought in, so all my aunts and uncles are there, I have cousins there. My grandfather is there, family and friends, my whole clan is there in this cemetery, and they all bought multiple graves."
A different look
At Fair Haven, the dead are buried with markers, bronze plaques laid flat to the ground with their names and dates of birth and death.
Reid's parents purchased a "family plot" at Fair Haven in 1958. The young couple paid for three graves and in the early 1960s invested in the cemetery's pre-planning deal for perpetual care.
Nancy Reid, who has the original deeds to the graves at her home near Fredericton, said they entitle the family to bury a casket and two urns in each space.
Over the years, the cemetery became more than just a burial ground to Reid. The family visited her grave weekly and Reid remembers feeling a closeness to the site. She spent many hours there as she grew up, just to talk to her mom and contemplate her own life.
When her big brother Bob died, she said, it was expected he too would be laid to rest at Fair Haven, since that was his wish.
Returning from blues festival
Bob Reid, a popular blues musician in Saint John, was driving on Route 7 in September 2009 when his car left the road and crashed. He had spent the previous week playing at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Fredericton and was heading home to spend time with his wife for their anniversary.
And they had put all these extra fees on it that I had no way of knowing or expecting and certainly couldn't afford.- Nancy Reid
But long before the fatal crash, Reid had promised him a burial next to mom and dad in the family plot.
It's something he confided in her when she was making funeral arrangements for their father.
"We talked about what he might want for himself, and later we talked with his wife about how to deal with the eventuality of his death," Reid said.
"He was clear about wanting to be buried with mom and dad. He was my beloved big brother. I am the one my father entrusted to see to these things. I would like to honour that trust."
Reid says her trouble started the moment she contacted the cemetery about burying Bob's urn.
"I was met with a lot of roadblocks that really surprised me,"she said.
The biggest roadblock was money.
The cemetery wanted almost $800 "for what I thought was a really simple thing," Reid said.
"And they had put all these extra fees on it that I had no way of knowing or expecting and certainly couldn't afford."
Perplexed by additional fees
Fair Haven Funeral Home and Cemetery was asking for money to pay for things the family assumed were already covered.
"When we first inquired about what it would entail, they talked about the fee they wanted, a transfer fee or a conveyance," Reid said.
"When we asked them to explain what that was, it was simply to add my brother's name to their records, which I'm assuming would just be a computer entry. They made it sound like it was a legal document that had to be executed, but I don't see that anywhere on [the deeds] that are in fact a legal transaction. "
The $770 fee demanded by Fair Haven breaks down this way: $505 for burial, $265 for a conveyance fee.
"[The conveyance fee] covers a multitude of important aspects to the interment," Fair Haven's Melander said.
"It includes the contract processing and the preparation of certificate for entitlement, changing those records over and the retention of those records for an eternity. We encourage anybody with any concerns to come on and speak to me, you know, specifically to their case."
Lower costs elsewhere
Reid had already done some research with other cemetery managers and was told to expect a reasonable charge to open a grave and place a cinerary urn would be $150 to $300. None of the managers mentioned transfer fees to add a deceased's name to the records.
When Nancy Reid balked at the Fair Haven fees, she said she got a sales pitch rather than sympathy.
"Well, we can waive that fee if you buy one of our markers," she recalls being told.
"I don't want a bronze tablet. I just want to inter ashes," she told one of Fair Haven's managers.
"Perhaps we can find a way to knock the price down," the manager replied. "Now would you like to plant a tree? Those cost $1,500."
Reid put her foot down.
"These vultures are death gouging," she said. "But my grief is in a good place now. So much time has passed. Dad died, gosh, 15 years ago. My brother, eight years ago. So I'm not an easy victim for them to try to sell up.
Not asking for much
"I don't want any bells and whistles. I want a simple resting place for my brother's ashes."
She's now in her second year of confrontation with the cemetery managers over the cost.
Her husband, Robert McDowell, a retired clergyman who has sat on cemetery boards himself, tried to help resolve the dispute and, according to Reid, was met with aggressive, confrontational behaviour from a cemetery manager.
"At one point, when my husband thanked him for his information and said, 'My wife would look at her options,' the guy asked, 'Are you threatening me?' This, from someone in the grief industry? We were left shocked and speechless.'"
Melander said he invites anyone with any issues with service to come and speak with him about it, and noted sometimes parties can come away from discussions with different impressions of what was said.
Part of a chain
After her brother's death, his widow held a memorial service at Brenan's in Saint John.
When someone is cremated, the family is not under pressure to bury the remains
"The family has time to collect themselves and make some decisions at an easier time."
The family held a symbolic scattering of some of Bob's ashes off Caissie Cape, near Moncton, one of his favourite places to spend summers. The remaining ashes were kept for burial at Fair Haven,
Several years passed before Reid finally felt emotionally strong enough to deal with making the final arrangements, Reid said.
But her experience with Fair Haven and Arbour Memorial, the Toronto-based corporation that took over the cemetery, has left her sad and disappointed.
'"It was a place of sanctuary, of refuge," Reid said of the place her parents are buried. "It gave me a lot of peace. It was a place where I would go and reflect.
"Now I just have a sour taste in my mouth."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
