A First For Dear Abby

[Tennesseer]

Thoughts? I say bury the remains and let it go.

DEAR ABBY: I need a second opinion. My grandfather sold me an old farmstead that has been in the family for 200 years. Last week, he showed me a wooded area behind the barn with a human skull. He told me that when his father died more than 50 years ago, he was curious about how long it would take a body to decompose, so he left his body in the woods to keep track of its progress. He has 50 years' worth of pictures and notes. He told the rest of the family that Great-Grandpa had been cremated, and apparently no one questioned him about the ashes.

At this point, the skull is all that's left. I checked with a lawyer, who tells me that in my state no laws were broken. That said, I don't want my great-grandfather's skull sitting in the woods behind my barn! My husband says I should quietly bury it, burn the pictures and the notes and forget about it. That just doesn't feel right to me.

It feels like I'm helping my grandfather get away with something and it feels "icky." Should I tell the rest of the family, or continue allowing them to believe that Great-Granddad was cremated? I'm resenting my grandfather for putting me in the middle of this, and any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. -- BOUGHT MORE THAN I BARGAINED FOR

DEAR BARGAINED: Your letter is a first. Why do I get the impression that your grandfather must have HATED his father to have treated his remains so disrespectfully? The farmstead and everything that goes with it is yours now to keep or dispose of.

What you need to do is decide whether to donate your great-grandfather's skull to a medical or dental school (or coven?), place it in a columbarium or bury it on your property. As to whether to tell the rest of the family, what positive thing would be accomplished by sharing this unpleasantness with them? You are a caring individual; let your conscience be your guide.

Disturbing Secret Revealed as Farmstead Changes Hands

[billisonboard]

Very much inadequate information. I would want to know ages of people. Was grandfather 20, 30, 40 when his father died - making him 70, 80, 90 now? Is great-grandmother still alive and aware (she would be very old)? Is grandfather known by the family to be agreat guy or would they react with a, "sounds like the type of asshole thing he would do"? What is the possibility of getting grandfather to tell the family instead of you? More questions than answers. 

[giramomma]

People are weird about death.

I probably would do what the husband suggested, bury the skull, burn the stuff.

I don't get the Dear Abbey Vibe that remains were treated disrespectfully. It seems like Dear Abbey could not be familiar with rural/farmlife living. 

My dad grew up on a farm. I could totally could see someone being buried on a farm somewhere.

And, my dad was sitting in a plastic box on the floor of my mom's house for a while. I don't know if that is 100% respectful, either. And, what did Dad care. He was ash...

My mom also kept 10 years of very careful notes of his care. When Dad had just passed, mom informed me she was leaving all the books of notes she took for me to read through. Thankfully, at some point she did decide to throw some of them out. 

[Tennesseer]

Apr 4, 2024 11:34:23 GMT -5 giramomma said:

People are weird about death.

I probably would do what the husband suggested, bury the skull, burn the stuff.

I don't get the Dear Abbey Vibe that remains were treated disrespectfully. It seems like Dear Abbey could not be familiar with rural/farmlife living. 

My dad grew up on a farm. I could totally could see someone being buried on a farm somewhere.

And, my dad was sitting in a plastic box on the floor of my mom's house for a while. I don't know if that is 100% respectful, either. And, what did Dad care. He was ash...

My mom also kept 10 years of very careful notes of his care. When Dad had just passed, mom informed me she was leaving all the books of notes she took for me to read through. Thankfully, at some point she did decide to throw some of them out. 

In the Abby letter, the writer doesn't state the man's body was buried. I get a very strong sense the body was layed out in the open woods and the man's son took photos of its condition as it naturally decomposed for fifty years.

The University of Tennessee has an Anthropology Research Facility (ARF). People donate their deceased bodies to the facility and the facility then lays the bodies out in the open to decompose naturally. Their skeletal remains then inventoried and studied. Kind of sounds like what the son did with his father.

[Bonny]

Apr 4, 2024 11:34:23 GMT -5 giramomma said:

People are weird about death.

I probably would do what the husband suggested, bury the skull, burn the stuff.

I don't get the Dear Abbey Vibe that remains were treated disrespectfully. It seems like Dear Abbey could not be familiar with rural/farmlife living. 

My dad grew up on a farm. I could totally could see someone being buried on a farm somewhere.

And, my dad was sitting in a plastic box on the floor of my mom's house for a while. I don't know if that is 100% respectful, either. And, what did Dad care. He was ash...

My mom also kept 10 years of very careful notes of his care. When Dad had just passed, mom informed me she was leaving all the books of notes she took for me to read through. Thankfully, at some point she did decide to throw some of them out. 

Yeah, it's one thing when one is in an urban area and there is some risk of disease or other weird stuff.

If I lived on a large farm and loved it I would want to be buried on my property and not waste money with even the process of cremating. Let me return to the elements.

[Tennesseer]

Apr 4, 2024 13:20:54 GMT -5 Bonny said:

Apr 4, 2024 11:34:23 GMT -5 giramomma said:

People are weird about death.

I probably would do what the husband suggested, bury the skull, burn the stuff.

I don't get the Dear Abbey Vibe that remains were treated disrespectfully. It seems like Dear Abbey could not be familiar with rural/farmlife living. 

My dad grew up on a farm. I could totally could see someone being buried on a farm somewhere.

And, my dad was sitting in a plastic box on the floor of my mom's house for a while. I don't know if that is 100% respectful, either. And, what did Dad care. He was ash...

My mom also kept 10 years of very careful notes of his care. When Dad had just passed, mom informed me she was leaving all the books of notes she took for me to read through. Thankfully, at some point she did decide to throw some of them out. 

Yeah, it's one thing when one is in an urban area and there is some risk of disease or other weird stuff.

If I lived on a large farm and loved it I would want to be buried on my property and not waste money with even the process of cremating. Let me return to the elements.

Years ago I lived and worked in New Haven, Ct. Sometimes work would take me to Providence, RI, Boston and Cape Code. I would travel east on I-95. I don't remember where exactly it was in Rhode Island, But heading east, there were plenty of heavily wooded areas. But in one small section of the woods, and right next to the highway, were about five headstones. The area around them were kept clean of growth. The area around the headstones were probably once a farm now long abandoned with a forest reclaiming the area. It was one of those things which I wanted to get off the interstate and backtrack to see if I could find the probable family graveyard. But never did.

[finnime]

Clearly this family is not one that stands on ceremony, or some relative or another would have inquired about a gravesite or a place where the cremains were scattered.

If it were me I'd find a likely spot and bury the skull with some type of marker, then let other descendants know in future years about where they can find gr-grandpa's remains. And let it go.

[TheOtherMe]

I would like to know what happened to the body of my paternal grandparents' stillborn baby.  Was he buried on the farm?  They were very poor.  Dirt poor.  

One of dad's cousins who is still alive but younger than my dad would be says that was when they bought the cemetery plot where they are now buried.  

I don't know if a younger child would know that as dad didn't know.  However, being a boy he said he never noticed grandma being pregnant and he was in the middle of 12 children.  

She may be right--or she may be totally wrong.

I think lots of people used to bury people on the farm.  There are cemeteries on both sides of my family that are located on farms.  Today they are on private property.  One is accessible without trespassing.  The other is not.

[TheOtherMe]

My cousin called to see if my mom and her siblings wanted to do something with his parents' ashes.  They decided they wanted to bury them, so he dropped them off at mom and dad's house where they sat in a bag in a closet for two years.  

It took time to get everyone on board with paying a share of a small marker and getting burial arranged.  They were able to use an unused plot at the cemetery of an uncle's inlaws.  That meant they didn't have to pay for a plot.

It's a small rural cemetery so in the dark, another uncle went and dug the hole and the siblings had a small ceremony at the graveside after the headstone was put up.  Uncle went back that night and buried the cremains.  

This is why the woman who is the Secretary-Treasurer of the cemetery insists they are not buried there despite the headstone.  She has no record of it and never will.

[Tennesseer]

Most of my parents' cremains are in a columbarium located in the Western Massachusetts Veterans cemetery.  Small vials of their remains were scattered on their favorite beach during a family gathering.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

It is what it is at this point. Are there any family who would even care? Considering no one seems to have ever inquired about a plot I'm assuming not.

While creepy I don't think I could destroy the notes. It's an interesting piece of amateur science.

Same with the skull. Guess who now resides on my mantel?

But I probably wouldn't share with the rest of the family. Like Gira said people are weird about death and bodies. No sense in kicking a potential hornets nest.

Since the LW is clearly disturbed I'd go with the husband's suggestion. If G grandma's burial site is known see if any remains can be interned with her.

I'm sure it's not the first person buried on an older family farm whose body pops up decades afterward and need to be relocated.

Who you'd call I have no idea but that would be the way to go.

Then therapy for the LW to learn to let it.go.

[tractor]

I think it's pretty cool. I wish I could specify something similar with my remains. I still want to be skeletized and used as a curious oddity in my heirs closet for many years to come.

[Tennesseer]

Apr 4, 2024 20:47:34 GMT -5 tractor said:

I think it's pretty cool. I wish I could specify something similar with my remains. I still want to be skeletized and used as a curious oddity in my heirs closet for many years to come.

And if you get tired of hanging in your heir's closet, you could join a dance group!

[toomuchreality]

Apr 4, 2024 22:12:40 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Apr 4, 2024 20:47:34 GMT -5 tractor said:

I think it's pretty cool. I wish I could specify something similar with my remains. I still want to be skeletized and used as a curious oddity in my heirs closet for many years to come.

And if you get tired of hanging in your heir's closet, you could join a dance group!

This is exactly the video I expected! 😁

[toomuchreality]

Apr 4, 2024 20:47:34 GMT -5 tractor said:

I think it's pretty cool. I wish I could specify something similar with my remains. I still want to be skeletized and used as a curious oddity in my heirs closet for many years to come.

I hope your wishes come true! 😁

I used to say, I wanted my urn to be placed in the middle of my younger sister's dining room table, because it would disturb her husband (my Ex1's brother), so much! -He hasn't been kind/polite to me for the last 35 years, or so. And he doesn't allow her to have contact with me.

[Artemis Windsong]

Apr 4, 2024 20:47:34 GMT -5 tractor said:

I think it's pretty cool. I wish I could specify something similar with my remains. I still want to be skeletized and used as a curious oddity in my heirs closet for many years to come.

I was horrified as a teen when a friend took me into the basement. There was a skeleton hanging there.  His gramps was a doctor.

Have you chosen your heir to be responsible for your remains in perpetuity?

My DD has her late husband's cremains in a humidor in her bedroom.

My brother's cremains were scattered around the outside of a beloved cabin.  A neighbor in the same mountain area had the vessels of their parent buried and a shrine type thing set up.  Both had actually died on the property.

The handling of miscarriages by the hospital is medical waste.  The families usually chose a burial.  Still borns are many times given funerals for the family.  Unfortunately I have heard too much about this subject over my lifetime.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

I'm not at all confident that gramps didn't kill his father. How could he get away with this if there was a funeral home involved? there wasn't. A hopsital? no, I don't think they would discharge remains to a lay person. 

did g-granddad die at home? who present/witness? What was cause of death - ME involved? obviously not. If grandfather is still alive and his father died 50 years ago it wasn't of old age - so what was cause of death? 

my bet is patricide.

I would call the police and report human remains on the property.

oh - and - was it actually great grandpa? or is this grandpa's cover story for a skull out back?

I would make sure I wasn't an accomplice to concealing anything!

[thyme4change]

I think, by far, the most disrespectful thing we do with dead bodies is embalming. Then sealing them inside a box. So unnatural. Embalming freaks me out- so gross and incredibly invasive.

Letting the body return to the earth is very natural.

I have requested to be cremated, but if this is available when I die, I’m in.

returnhome.com/

[Tennesseer]

Apr 14, 2024 11:41:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I think, by far, the most disrespectful thing we do with dead bodies is embalming. Then sealing them inside a box. So unnatural. Embalming freaks me out- so gross and incredibly invasive.

Letting the body return to the earth is very natural.

I have requested to be cremated, but if this is available when I die, I’m in.

returnhome.com/

Have you thought about donating your body to the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center? It will accomplish what you wish to do and help forensic studies.

Forensic Anthropology Center

[countrygirl2]

My concern would be if the farm was sold and then remains were found. It might be wise to dig wh
Kind ere the skull is and see if the rest of the bones were there and remove the body and cremate or bury  him. But I'm betting the authorities would need to, be notified. If its sold without disclosure you can bet the new owner would notify the police if they were found and all kinds of investigating would take place.  

I can't imagine growing up on a place and kids not finding this. I was all over our farm and pried into everything, would not have missed that.
Kind of makes one wonder.

[thyme4change]

Apr 14, 2024 11:53:47 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Apr 14, 2024 11:41:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I think, by far, the most disrespectful thing we do with dead bodies is embalming. Then sealing them inside a box. So unnatural. Embalming freaks me out- so gross and incredibly invasive.

Letting the body return to the earth is very natural.

I have requested to be cremated, but if this is available when I die, I’m in.

returnhome.com/

Have you thought about donating your body to the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center? It will accomplish what you wish to do and help forensic studies.

Forensic Anthropology Center

No - I will donate every organ that is still working. But once I leave the hospital I don’t want any further poking, cutting or removing. Nor do I want to be pumped full of anything.