Tag Archives: funeral

Final Interment

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Carrying the Coffin

My Uncle Delon’s interment took place this afternoon at the Cleveland, Idaho cemetery (interestingly, if you do a search on Google for Cleveland Idaho my writeup about the cemetery is the top link returned). It was a cold, breezy day but the weather had definitely cooperated. The family gathered at Uncle Ross’s home in Cleveland starting around noon for a lovely lunch prepared by Aunt Leone and her daughters Marianne and Kathy (I sure hope these names are spelled right!). More than thirty people were there and it was good to renew and make acquaintances. A little before three we all arrived at the cemetery to find everything in order and ready. The snow had been pushed away to provide plenty of space for parking and to clear the area around the grave. Delon was buried close to his parents and next to the plot where my mother and dad will be buried (their headstone is already in place). A goodly group were in attendance for the dedication of the grave (I was asked to perform that Priesthood Ordinance by the family) after which we dispersed for home. All ceremony associated with the death and burial of a loved one is now complete for Uncle Delon. It’s difficult for me to wrap my brain around the fact that in this lifetime we will not do anything more together.

The burial was handled by Webb Funeral Home in Preston, definitely one of the more professional funeral homes in this part of the world. After the grave dedication, the funeral director told Uncle Ross and me that they really had a set of work to make the burial possible on time. When Delon’s body was delivered to the funeral home late yesterday (Friday) afternoon, they discovered that the casket was an oversized casket, which the funeral home in Las Cruces hadn’t told them. That meant that the hole in the cemetery was too small and the vault that had been delivered and set up at the gravesite was also too small. They finally located a properly sized vault in Idaho Falls which was delivered to the cemetery about noon today. The backhoe had to come back to the cemetery to enlarge the hole … and move more snow out of the way because of the new arrangement. The vaults have the deceased person’s name and birth and death dates on the top of the vault. The new lettering arrived about 1:30 p.m. to be bolted onto the top of the vault. Finally everything was in order for a 3 p.m. burial. When we arrived at the cemetery, there was no indication of what the Webb Mortuary went through to make this interment problem free. That’s what professionals do and I certainly give kudos to them. My thoughts and prayers are with Nelma as she now begins a new (and completely unexpected) chapter in her life.

Home Sweet Home!

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The Big Funeral Trip … all 2,312 miles … is complete. We arrived at the Flying J in McCammon at 3:30 this afternoon. Mother and dad then headed the 35 miles east to Soda Springs and Nina (who met us there) and I drove the 20 miles northwest to Pocatello. I started working through some of the pictures last night and hopefully will complete them tomorrow to put up in the picture album. At the time I felt like I had taken a lot of pictures … but now looking at them I probably should have taken many, many more. On problem with my little Sony point-and-shoot digital camera is that the image shown on the small LCD screen might look OK, but the real picture is just a little fuzzy. I think I’ve gotten a good image but then when I look at it on the computer, it isn’t usable.

I’m still pleasantly surprised at how uneventful the entire trip was. The drive down and back were completely problem free. We had about sixty miles of wet roads the entire trip. Dad’s car gets about 34 miles to the gallon so the fuel bills were less than I had expected they would be. For instance, we drove from Cortez, Colorado to Pleasant View, Utah on just over twelve gallons of gas for 410 miles.

The Moab area is just beautiful, particularly with a light dusting of snow. The drive through there this morning was very nice “eye candy” with the red-rocked cliffs dusted with snow. I think we need to go there to spend some vacation time Real Soon Now. Even the drive up Route 6 from I-70 through Price was made much more pleasant by the snow which took away most of the dull grey that otherwise characterizes that landscape.

I’m quite happy to be home, though. My comfy bed is calling … maybe even the hot tub!??! We’ll see what the evening brings. No more driving until tomorrow….

Delon’s burial will be at the Cleveland, Idaho cemetery tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. Nina and I will drive over to Soda Springs to collect mother and dad and take them with us to the cemetery. I think I’ll let Nina do the driving!

Making A Sad Funeral Trip

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After some discussion, mother and dad and I will drive down to Las Cruces, NM for Delon’s funeral. It is very strange to me that of all dad’s siblings, the youngest was the first to die. All the rest of the siblings are in poor health as well and this may well be the last time for dad to see his sister. So, we’ll make the drive down.

Mapquest says it’s a thousand miles and fifteen hours by way of Salt Lake, Price, Moab, Monticello, Cortez, Gallup, and Albuquerque. We’ll do the trip down in two days and take two days to make the trip back. We’ll leave on Monday morning, February 11th and get back home on Friday, February 15th.

The plan is to drive on Monday to Gallup, New Mexico where we’ll stay in the Hampton Inn there (505-726-0900). We’ll arrive in Las Cruces sometime on Tuesday afternoon. We’ll be staying at the Hampton Inn in Las Cruces (755 Avenida De Mesilla 505-526-8311) on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. We’ll leave on Thursday morning and plan to drive to Monticello, Utah where we’ll stay Thursday night at the Best Western in Monticello (435-587-2261).

Delon’s funeral is at 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The current plan is that he’ll be buried at the Cleveland Cemetery in Cleveland, Idaho but according to Delon’s daughter Cheryl, those arrangements haven’t been finalized yet. It is a sad day.