Permanent Residence

Of the variety found on the many "We Came, We Looked, We Forgot to Leave" headstones in the local graveyards, such as that of Kenneth P. (1923 - 1995) and Susan M (1925 - ) Bower, Niagara Falls ON.

Arrangements

Whether burial or cremation, you need to get a funeral director involved with the disposal of your body.

Packages with lots of variations run from a minimum $1,000 Canadian for an immediate disposition service (cremation and trip to the cemetery or columbarium) on up to $3,500 and beyond for a full service funeral (preparation and embalming of remains, two-day visitation room, chapel, organist, lead car, funeral coach, flower car, pallbearers and family members' vehicle).

Extras that you may want to think about:

  • a burial casket, from $795 pressed wood/cloth covered and on up to $9,500 mahogany/plush velvet interior. You can rest in bronze or copper from $8,500 to as low as $4,450. Sixteen-gauge steel, $3,650. Attractive solid cherry, $3,370. In solid oak, like a single-blend scotch, $3,295. Solid Carolina poplar, very popular $2,795. Twenty-gauge steel, $1,795. Solid quaking aspen/crepe interior, $1,375.

  • or cremation casket, from $250 for a sturdy pine box with no interior to $4,000 for solid mahogany, specially designed to combust at 1000°C (1600°F) over natural-gas retort.

  • urns, optional, run from $98 for oak laminate/pressed wood to $895 for cast bronze/book design. Cultured marble ern $195.

    If you're embarrassed to leave yourself to someone in an ugly urn, potters Don Zver, RR#1, Troy ON, (519) 647-2117, or Ann Sneath, 14 Oak Street, Dundas ON, (905) 628-6177, will toss a tasteful, artistic urn for about $200.

    Please allow 6-7 hours for the burning of the body, sweeping out the oven into a gathering chamber where the mechanical crushers reduce the bones to dust. Ashes can be picked up or mailed.

  • grave liners, only $65 each

  • audio taping of service $35 in stereo $60

  • appropriately solemn, register book $19.50

  • acknowledgment, memorial cards, from $9.35 to $27.50, all kinds

  • laminated press notices that won't smear from tears or if someone spills a drink using them as a coaster at the wake, each $3.

  • horse-drawn hearse, $150 first hour, $50/hour after that, call David Brown at (905) 871-2172. David has solemn livery and likes to appear in it with a page seated next to him, similarly suited.

  • an Italian tenor voice is Bob Armstrong's specialty, (905) 684-2654. About $150 for him to sing a selection of solos throughout the service.

  • Dixieland band, phone Frank Phelan, (905) 688-2078, or James Hodkin, (905) 354-8770. $350 on up.

  • for a 65-piece orchestra, playing Haydn's 'Farewell' at the grave, contact Niagara Symphony, (905) 687-4993. About $20,000.

  • fireworks display, figure $1,000 per minute, seven minutes for a descent show, by Canadian Fireworks, (800) 563-3473, or if that is busy, pay for it at (516) 323-1421.

  • sky-writers, we're unable to locate but are working on this now. Cost is about $150 per letter which accounts for the shortness of many messages in the sky. For example "Bye Ted", just six letters $1,000.

  • wakes range from $11.95 to $21 for the meal with an open-consumption bar, which means the caterers keep track of who's drinking booze.

    If you drop dead on holiday, commit suicide, fall into the Falls accidentally as many do, and nobody knows who you are or if your next of kin doesn't want to pay to get you back, Niagara Falls ON Social Services, (905) 984-6900, extension #807, has a great pauper's package called 'Indigent Burial.'

    Read about how great an 'Indigent Burial' is:

    1. After discovery, your body travels free by ambulance to hospital, where a certified Canadian MD pronounces you dead.
    2. Then the hospital telephones the next mortician who comes up on the rotation list, to pick you up and to clean you up.
    3. You will be buried in a casket for sure, because Niagara Falls ON funeral directors do not want to cremate somebody and have relatives show up years down the road, suing them for burning the body, as has happened.
    4. The funeral service is nice, a preacher reading prayers and your remains joining everybody else's in the regular cemetery, no pauper slots in Canada. In excess of 100 people annually depart this way.

About Fido, Felix & Flipper:

If you can pay for your funeral, you may opt to be buried with your pet(s). We know of one old lady who has arranged with her vet to have the cat put to sleep upon her death and placed in the casket with her, on her face where the cat always likes to sleep.

A stroll through any of the graveyards in the area will reveal a wild variety of animals resting with their beloved owners, even a horse.

If you want to be buried with something or in a favorite car, discretion is recommended. Check with the funeral director. If he's balky, make a deal with the monument makers or the grave diggers. You may also wish to pre-sign and file an order to be exhumed so that it will not be necessary to put your pets down when you croak.




Cemeteries:

Fairview Cemetery, 4501 Stanley Street, Niagara Falls ON, (905) 354-4721. Nice plots still available in Section # 12 30X20ft., $500 range. Monuments costing max $2,500 allowed in this section officially.

Lundy's Lane, fine plots available now right alongside Montrose Road. Singles start at $500. Tasteful Jewish section there for those won't be traveling to the 100% Jewish cemetery in St. Catharines ON.

Drummond Hill Cemetery, behind the Presbyterian Church, 6136 Lundy's Lane, Niagara Falls ON. Spectacular 19th-century-style view of the Plains of Tonawanda. Final resting place ofLaura Secord, Canada's Paul Revere. The city, which recently took over this historic cemetery from the parks Commissions, will tell you it's full.

The after-market in cemetery plots in Niagara works this way:

You may not advertise to purchase a plot already owned by somebody else. Unless related, you may not officially be buried in a plot that already has occupants. But you can advertise in the weekly Niagara Shopping News, 4949 Victoria Avenue, Niagara Falls ON, (905) 357-2440, saying that you are looking to obtain space in so-and-so cemetery and then reach a private arrangement. Remember: after striking a deal, you must file with the cemetery clerk a copy of the original deed, a letter of assignment from the previous owner and a transfer agreement. It costs $17.60 to process this paperwork. If you don't file and your body shows up even with a string of cars with the lights on lined up behind the hearse in the rain, you won't get in.

Stones:

Prices run from $375 for your basic flat marker to small/large pillows, from $975-$1,090, the more expensive, larger, 24X12" pillows, suitable for two names. Or maybe just a simple upright stone, from $1,475. At the next price level, $1,780 includes a 4' concrete anchor and 4" double base.

Although cemeteries usually have sumptuary regulations regarding monuments, your mortuary dealer knows the ins-and-outs, and can sneak anything anywhere by fooling with the measurements and the bill of sale, or at least that's their come-on. All headstones in Niagara Falls ON must be made from granite.