SCARCE LAND SCARES CEMETERY PLANNERS
BY PETER A. SUTTERS JR. INDEPENDENT WRITER
The last person to be buried on Nantucket in a town-owned grave was in 2003 in a discreet plot in the back of the Old North Cemetery.

The New Town Cemetery next to the high school, meanwhile, last accepted a burial in 1999. It has an unknown number of spaces left, and because some graves are not marked with a headstone, no one is sure where someone's final resting place may be - Nantucket's lone undertaker is not going to take a chance digging a new grave and discovering an old one.

There are still plenty of plots available in the privately owned cemeteries - Prospect Hill and St. Mary's - but under Massachusetts's general law, the town is required to "provide one or more suitable places for the interment of persons dying within its limits."

"Right now, I feel like the families in Nantucket are in a mess," said Georgen Charnes, Nantucket Historical Association research librarian and member of the town's Cemetery Commission Work Group. "If they have an unexpected death of a loved one, they are really going to get put through the wringer."

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

The Cemetery Commission Work Group is charged by the Board of Selectmen to make recommendations about how to rectify the problem of dwindling burial space on Nantucket. Charnes has spent hours in the cemeteries of Nantucket and working on an online database at the NHA of names and locations of those who have chosen to make the island their final resting place.

"We are in the basic, first stage of the process," said Charnes. "We would eventually like at least 25 acres down the line, which is required if we want to put in a crematorium."

The process of establishing a crematorium is not a simple matter, even if the town owns the land. In addition to 25 acres, the cemetery needs to accept various permits and must be in a position to accept five years of projected burials. Charnes said the work group is looking for a location that will be easily accessible and, when complete, a destination where families can visit their loved ones.

One of the hurdles, according to Charnes, is the same as any other development on Nantucket: location, location, location.

"There are a whole lot of myths out there about crematoriums," said Charnes. "Not only do we have to find the 25 acres of land, but we have to try and educate the public about crematoriums not being harmful."

Charnes admitted there is a stigma attached to a place that is built to burn bodies, but said there is no danger posed. With new technologies, she said, it is a safe way to dispose of the dead. "People don't want to live near a crematorium," said Charnes. "They think their house will be covered in ashes, but it's not true. I understand people's concern. That is why we are looking hard at all available sites."

Charnes said the group has some properties in mind, but did not wish to get into detail until it is ready to make a recommendation to the Board of Selectmen.

Presently, if a person is cremated, the body must be embalmed, put on the ferry, picked up by a Cape Cod-based funeral director and driven to Boston, according to Richard Lewis, Nantucket's only Funeral Director and undertaker. Lewis declined to be interviewed at length for this article, but did say he felt there was plenty of room on Nantucket to bury the dead.

Prospect Hill Cemetery superintendent Jeff Morash concurred, and said with the recent expansion across Somerset Road, the Prospect Hill Cemetery will not run out of plots in his lifetime. "We opened up some new areas across the street, and still have some space left in the more prestigious, older part of the cemetery," he said.

Prospect Hill Cemetery is a nonprofit organization run by its own board of directors. Morash said there are, on average, two burials a month at Prospect Hill Cemetery, where charges are between $2,200 and $5,000 for a plot, depending on its location and size. The initial payments will reserve a space for future burial or, if the death is unexpected, secures a space immediately for burial. The money is put into a fund that collects interest and is used for the day-to-day running of the cemetery. There is also the additional cost of opening and closing the grave, as well as unassociated costs that include funeral services, embalming, transportation, caskets and vaults.

The availability of private burial space on Nantucket makes the need for public space a little less pressing, but the need to provide a final resting space on Nantucket - regardless of someone's ability to pay - is needed and something Charnes says the town must do.

"The town is not fulfilling a legal obligation," she said.