Pictured above is an example of a freestanding columbarium, similar to what city officials are planning to install at Oakdale Cemetery in Marysville. A columbarium holds cremated remains.
(Photo submitted)
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Oakdale Cemetery is getting a dedicated site for those wanting to be cremated.
The City of Marysville is moving forward with plans to install a columbarium at Oakdale Cemetery. A columbarium is a monument or building dedicated to housing cremated remains.
Mike Andrako, public service director, said the city and cemetery committee has been discussing the idea of a columbarium for several years. He said councilmember Debra Groat has been a strong advocate for the idea.
Andrako said the decision to move forward serves several purposes. First, he said cremation is becoming an increasingly popular burial option.
“This (a columbarium) is something we can do and offer at the cemetery and maybe it helps a family that really wants this type of option,” Andrako said.
Second, he said the cemetery is running out of land. By interring cremated remains in a columbarium, the cemetery can make the available land last longer.
“We only have so much space and once the traditional grave sites are sold, we are out of land and we will have to look at more land.” Andrako said.
Daryl Ingram, a funeral director who sits on the city’s cemetery committee, called it “a good, common sense move.”
“The cemetery is land locked. They are trying to make the best use of the land they have,” Ingram said. “We need to be able to preserve the land we have now until we can begin thinking about additional land.”
Andrako said the cemetery has enough land for 20 to 25 more years of burials. The columbarium could stretch that possibly by as many as five years, “depending on how many cremations we have.”
Officials said the idea is not in lieu of buying new land in the future, it will be an added benefit to the cemetery.
Ingram said it is “very common” for cemeteries to have a columbarium or several of them. He said cremation is more popular in some areas than others. He said the acceptability of cremation varies from community to community and, “honestly sometimes from neighborhood to neighborhood.”
“The cremation rates have risen over the years,” Ingram said. “We are not in an area where we see the same impact that they see in other areas like Columbus or others, but the numbers are increasing and we might get there.”
A columbarium can be a building with burial niches and an open area inside. It could can also be a freestanding monument with space around the outside.
“It is going to be more simple in appearance,” Ingram said.
Andrako said the city’s freestanding monument will have 60 niches. He said each niche could hold two or three remains if the family would want that.
Andrako said that depending on the interest, the city is actually planning a total of five of the cremation structures, possibly surrounding a pavilion where memorial services and reflection can take place.
He said each of the columbarium structures could cost $40,000 to $50,000.
“We know we are going to move forward on that, we just need to decide some things,” Andrako said, specifically mentioning the price to buy a niche.
He said officials would like to have the columbarium in place “sometime during the summer.”
He said he is glad the city is thinking in this direction.
“When you’ve lost someone, do you have to go to where they are to remember them? No,” Ingram said. “But when you do go, it just feels different. A columbarium gives you a place to go, to stop and remember, to memorialize someone you’ve lost.”