Shelby Charter Township, MI cremations are on the rise, as they are around the country. Until the late 20th century, many people chose burial as their funeral plan. However, as cemeteries have more limited space and ecological awareness has grown, cremation has become a more attractive funeral plan option for some people.

There was, in the past, a stigma about cremation. Some of this was based on religious dogma and some it was based on societal class mythology (only indigent people or incarcerated people were cremated). However, many famous people have been cremated throughout history.

One famous person who was cremated was Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book among many other works. Kipling, who won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in London, Engand after his death in 1936 and his cremated remains were buried in the Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Albert Einstein, the scientific genius who discovered the Theory of Relativity and blew the door open on our understanding of physics, specifically requested that he be cremated after his death and his cremated remains scattered. When he died in New Jersey in 1955, he was cremated and his cremated remains were scattered in a river near his home.

However, Einstein’s brain skipped the cremation. Pathologist Dr. Thomas Harvey removed the acclaimed scientist’s brain a short time after his death to use it for research. As is typical with neurological research, Einstein’s brain was cut into several sections and preserved. It is now kept at the University Medical Center in Princeton, NJ.

The famous psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, desired to be cremated when he died. After his death in 1939, he was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in London, England. His cremated remains were placed into a Grecian urn that Freud had received as a gift from Marie Bonaparte, the great-grandniece of Napoleon Bonaparte, which was then stored in the crematorium’s columbarium.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., son of former President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Onassis, died in a plane crash in 1999. His body was cremated at the Mayflower Cemetery crematorium in Massachusetts and his cremated remains were buried at sea off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, where the Kennedy family compound is located.

Another famous person who was cremated was actor Christopher Reeve. Known for his iconic role in the movie Superman, the accomplished actor suffered a tragic fall from a horse during the height of his career that left him a quadriplegic for the final nine years of his life. After his death at age 52 in 2004, Reeve was cremated following a private funeral service in New York. His family later privately scattered his cremation remains.

Musician and former Beatle George Harrison, who died of throat cancer in 2001, had specific instructions for his cremation and the scattering of his cremation remains. A disciple of Hare Krishna, Harrison dictated in his final wishes that his body should be cremated within nine hours of his death and his cremation remains scattered in the Ganges River in India. He was cremated in Los Angeles and his cremation remains were taken to India where they were scattered on what Indians consider to be the holiest of rivers.

For information about Shelby Charter Township, MI cremations, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lee-Ellena Funeral Home is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 46530 Romeo Plank Rd., Macomb, MI 48044, or you can call us today at (586) 412-8999.