Cremations are among the cremation services offered in Clinton Township, MI. As more Americans are choosing to be cremated rather than buried underground, it’s important to understand cremations and to put old ideas about what happens to rest.

Cremations are increasingly popular in the United States for very practical reasons. One reason is that are more options for what to do with cremation remains, which gives people an opportunity to really personalize what happens after their final disposition.

Another reason is because Americans have become more mobile over the last 60 years, and often people die in places far away from where they were born. At the end of their lives, however, many people want to go home to be close to family members who have already died.

Cremation remains are much easier to transport from place to place than uncremated remains (although this can be done as well) and cremation remains can either be buried in a cemetery near family or they can be scattered on family property.

Finally, a reason for the increase in American cremations is that cemetery space, especially in areas with very large populations, is running out. Since cremation remains can be stored upward in mausoleums or columbariums, people can be inurned without using ground space.

So, what do you need to know about cremation?

First of all, cremations are very popular in the western part of the United States and states in the eastern part that are small. These include the states of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire in the east and Hawaii, Washington, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.

The states where cremations are least popular include South Dakota, Utah, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

The practice of cremation is not new. The Cremation Society of North America estimates that the practice of cremation dates back to 3000 BC. We certainly know that it was a traditional form of final disposition in ancient Greece and Rome, since it is discussed in literary classics from both civilizations from that period.

The practice of cremation fell out of favor in the Western world with the establishment of Christianity as the true religion. It wasn’t until the personal physician to Queen Victoria of Great British discussed the public health benefits of cremation over burial in the middle of the 19th century that cremation came back on the scene.

Although the first crematorium in the United States was built in 1876, cremation as a general means of final disposition did not take hold with most Americans for another century. As environment concerns came to the forefront in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, so did the philosopy that cremations were more environmentally-friendly than underground burials.

As the environment has become an increasingly-urgent matter to attend to for the entire world, the philosophy of cremations having less of an impact on the stability and health of the environment has grown, so that now more than half of Americans decide to be cremated when they die.

A final word about cremations. Cremations are done one at a time. Cremation chambers, which are inside the crematory, are only big enough for one human body. Each cremation is done with dignity and honor, and painstaking steps are followed to ensure that cremation remains belong to the right person and they are given to the correct family.

For more information about cremation services in Clinton Township, MI, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lee-Ellena Funeral 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.