Each year, Centre County receives unclaimed remains. Now they have a final resting place
Each year in Centre County, the coroner’s office handles unclaimed, cremated remains of community members, placing them in an unceremonious storage location in the basement of the Willowbank Building.
But now, those cremains have a dedicated home and final resting place — a new 16-door columbarium at the Union Cemetery in Bellefonte.
The columbarium was dedicated and committed by the Centre County Commissioners on Wednesday morning after being purchased in early April for $19,530 from Happy Valley Monuments. The dark-gray, stone monument now sits near the border of the cemetery with High Street.
The purchase of the columbarium was made possible through American Rescue Plan funding, and the five plots that it sits on in Union Cemetery were anonymously donated to the commissioners in memory of former chief deputy coroner Judy Pleskonko, who died in September 2023 after being involved in a vehicle accident.
An emotional Debra Smeal, the county’s deputy coroner, spoke at the ceremony about the columbarium and, through tears, dedicated the cemetery’s new addition to her former coworker and friend.
“This columbarium project is being dedicated in memory of Chief Judy Pleskonko,” Smeal said. “Judy’s life ended tragically, but I know she’s here with us today.”
Higgins joined Smeal in honoring Pleskonko’s work over her years of service to the county, saying that it was originally her idea for the county to purchase a columbarium, and that her legacy will live on through it.
“Beginning today, this community columbarium will be slowly filled over the next few decades with the cremains of deceased people from Centre County,” Higgins said. “We’ve cultivated a space for these people to rest together — essentially public resting place.”
Forty-two small, cardboard urns holding cremains have been placed in the columbarium, which can hold up to 160 total urns. According to Higgins, the Centre County government receives about two urns each year, but that number has slowly been rising.
Remains of a person can become unclaimed for a number of different reasons, including the person’s family members being estranged or the next-of-kin refusing or failing to claim the remains themselves. Whenever these things happen, the remains are turned over to the county and dubbed “unclaimed.”
Before the columbarium was built, the cremains sat in the basement of the Centre County government’s Willowbank Building, and according to Higgins, they were running out of storage.
In the months before Wednesday’s dedication, county staff members scoured the county’s 42 existing cremains for veterans, and found two.
The cremains of the veterans were then sent to the Fort Indiantown Gap Cemetery, a cemetery reserved only for former members of the United States Armed Forces.
“We thought that it would be more appropriate to send the unclaimed cremains of the veterans to a place where they can be with their other fallen brothers and sisters,” Higgins said. “This columbarium will serve as the final resting place for all other unclaimed cremains in Centre County.”
The ceremony ended with a committal of the columbarium from Pastor Spence Garvin, followed by a moment of silence.
Anyone looking to claim one of the unclaimed cremains in the columbarium should contact the coroner’s office for additional information.
This story was originally published October 2, 2024 at 1:58 PM.