Unclaimed cremains

A sad story about unclaimed cremated remains... they're not unidentified. They're unclaimed – unwanted or forgotten.

Allouez Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum provides storage and safekeeping of the remains. Very rarely, though, does anybody come looking.

Steve Gooding, administrator at the Allouez Catholic Cemetery in Allouez, Wis., holds a bag of unclaimed cremated remains, Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 16, 2009. The remains are those of Albert Dremel who died in February 1986 of lung cancer. The unclaimed cremated remains of about 70 people are held at the cemetery.

The collection of about 70 sets of unclaimed cremains, above, will soon be moved from a utility room to one of the cemetery's crypts.

An alternate photo of Gooding with one of the bags of unclaimed cremains.