Brentwood trustees outline welfare-burial process, recordkeeping practices

The Brentwood Cemetery Trustees spent a substantial portion of their Nov. 6 meeting detailing how the town handles welfare burials, transit permits and related records.

Superintendent Joyce said funeral homes or the New Hampshire Cremation Society generally handle retrieval and cremation for indigent or unclaimed decedents, and that transit permits originate with the funeral home. She said the burial permit (the record filed with the state) goes to Daphne at the town office, while transit permits and the trustee's internal "green card" and copies are kept in the trustees' filing cabinet.

"When they bring their ashes to me, I get the transit permit, but it originates from the funeral home," Joyce said, describing how the superintendent staples the transit permit to the green card and maintains a local file for each lot owner or interment.

Joyce said the trustees will facilitate welfare burials without charging families and will place a cremation marker in the plot and note it in trustee files. She described instances where funeral homes may hold unclaimed ashes and how dig crews sometimes inter unclaimed remains respectfully when no next of kin steps forward.

Trustees discussed developing a written procedure sheet so the welfare director and funeral homes know what the trustees need to facilitate an interment. Joyce said she would consult funeral homes about their needs and prepare materials for the trustees' files and will share contact names with the town welfare director.

Trustees emphasized that much of the process is handled by funeral homes and that trustee actions are limited to facilitating interment and recordkeeping; legal authorities referred to in the discussion were cited generically as "RSAs" (state statutes) without a specific RSA number given in the meeting.