Ashes to ashes: Cremation trends change over the years

• In Arizona and Maricopa County%2C cremations outpace burials by more than 2 to 1 and increase every year
• Cremation is the fastest growing part of the funeral industry as attitudes change and burial costs increase
• The Arizona cremation rate is slightly higher than 64 percent%2C and in 2012%2C 10th highest among states

A more mobile society with less of a connection to the land is contributing to the death of funeral traditions. As attitudes and lifestyles change, more people reject burial in a family plot and adopt new traditions, which increasingly involve cremation.

See below for a gallery of unique urns

New trends in cremation and funerals include:

1. More people are personalizing cremation

Nancy Keil, CEO of Messinger Mortuaries, said an evolving trend in the funeral industry is more people making funerals unique, personalizing them as they do weddings. Cremation offers almost limitless options and flexibility which allows people to create traditions, she said.

Messinger Mortuaries advertises "a beautiful personalized urn, buried in the ground, or enclosed in a columbarium niche or mausoleum, or scattered in a place that has special meaning."

It offers options that include putting the cremated remains into a living ocean reef, in lockets and other jewelry, or made into "a brilliant gemstone."

You also can buy biodegradable urns with a tree seed inside, so you can plant your loved one and have the ashes become part of a tree. Some companies sell decorative glass balls that can hold ashes for display.

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2. People are becoming more mobile, and costs are higher to ship and bury bodies

Nationally, cremation is the fastest-growing part of the industry that deals with death. Cost has helped fuel that trend, said Rudy Thomas, executive director of the State Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, which regulates the funeral industry in Arizona.

"Now, and the way the economy has been the last four or five years, you can obtain a direct cremation, with no viewing, no visitation, for $545," Thomas said. "That's (a cost) that someone says, 'I can put that on my credit card. I can handle that.' They don't have to go into savings. They don't have to borrow money, or hold a car wash."

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The mobile society also means more people face high costs to ship a body to another state for a funeral or burial. Doing that with an urn with cremains, which is what cremated remains are called, is much less expensive.

"It costs a lot more money to transfer a body back East," Thomas said. "That (shipment) can cost the total amount of money that you pay for your funeral service."

Since the 1960s, the National Funeral Directors Association has calculated the median cost of a funeral, not taking into account cemetery, monument or marker costs, flowers or obituaries.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association:

• In 1960, the national median cost of a funeral minus the vault, which is a container usually made of concrete that is used to encase the casket, was $708.
• The national median cost of a funeral in 2012 was $7,045. If a vault is included, something that is typically required by a cemetery, the median cost was $8,343.
• The 2013 median cost of cremation with no memorial services, and including a crematory fee and a basic urn, was $2,260.
• The median price for a memorial service with cremation and no viewing of the body before cremation was $3,250.
• The median price of an adult funeral with cremation casket, which is a combustible casket, viewing and cremation was $5,410. Some cremation caskets can be rented for the viewing, which is a less expensive option.

Bryan Hochstatter, an employee at Hansen Desert Hills Mortuary and Cemetery, said about a third of the cemetery is devoted to those who have been cremated.

The cemetery has a columbarium with glass niches framed in bronze and brass. The cost to be placed there can range from $4,000 to $14,000, depending on the size of the niche and its location. It is a permanent place where urns and personal items, such as mementos, jewelry or photographs, can be visited by family and friends.

There are outdoor niches with marble faces, and boulders that can hold cremated remains. The cemetery also offers customized patios, which can be designed the way the family chooses. For example, the family can place a granite monument over the cremated remains, or use a cremation niche, and include a bench where visitors may sit.

3. Cremation is rising in popularity in Arizona and nationally

In 2013, the last year complete data was available, the U.S. cremation rate was 45.3 percent. By 2018, the U.S. cremation rate is projected to reach 50.6 percent, said Barbara Kemmis, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America.

The Arizona cremation rate is slightly more than 64 percent, Kemmis said.

"The indicators, from the Baby Boomer generation and subsequent generations, is that the range of options, the ability to personalize a cremation service, all of this is extremely appealing," Kemmis said.

In Arizona and Maricopa County, cremations outpace burials by more than 2 to 1 and continue to increase every year while the number of burials decrease. Nationally, cremation is the fastest-growing part of the industry that deals with death..

Keil, the CEO of Messinger Mortuaries, said 70 percent of those who use Messinger choose cremation. Messinger has four mortuaries, three in the Valley and one in Payson, and two crematories.

Brad Hansen, an owner and president of Hansen Mortuaries Inc., said he has seen cremations increase since the 1960s. Hansen Mortuaries' cremation rate is about 68 percent, he said.

Hansen Mortuaries include Hansen Mortuary Chapel and Hansen Desert Hills Mortuary and Cemetery in Scottsdale.

Cremation numbers in Arizona actually are higher than the statistics indicate, because many of those who donate their bodies for research and are listed as "other" by the Arizona Department of Health Services are cremated and the cremains returned to the family. "Other" can include entombment, body donations, bodies shipped out of state or cases where it is unknown what happened to the body.

Wendy Malone's father and mother owned two burial plots, but the couple, Carl and Glenna Utter, changed their minds about burial and donated their bodies to a medical research company called Science Care. The company eventually cremated them and returned the ashes to the family in an urn.

There was no cost. So Malone, a Tonopah resident, her husband and other members of their families plan to donate their bodies as well. Malone's sister's body was donated for research after she died.

Malone said she has not been able to sell the burial plots because of the price and because so many people are choosing cremation.

4. Religious norms have changed to allow cremation

Religion also has played a role in the growth of cremation. Although cremation has happened since prehistoric times, for centuries the Catholic Church viewed it as pagan and forbade the practice. Church leaders feared it would interfere with the resurrection of the body and the body reuniting with the soul, which Catholics believe is when Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead.

In 1963, the church changed its policy, though it still prefers a full-body burial, said the Rev. Michael Diskin, assistant chancellor for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix and spiritual adviser for the diocese's Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries.

"The church does allow people to choose cremation as long as it is not a formal denial of the church's teaching of the resurrection of the body," Diskin said.

"The fundamental principle is that these (cremains) are the remains of a human person, and so they are to be treated with the same dignity as we would treat the body of a deceased person," he said.

That means no scattering the ashes or taking them home to set on the mantel. Catholics may choose to have the cremains buried in a suitable container, or placed in cemetery niches where they can be kept forever, Diskin said.

"The important thing is that there be perpetual care guaranteed for those remains," Diskin said. "Also, there is a very positive value in providing a place where the remains of the person are memorialized so that people can go there to pray and so that future generations will be able to recognize and honor the life of that person."

5. Hearses and big limos are on their way out

Over the years, cremation has changed the industry, said Keil. People don't have to buy a casket or a burial plot, have bodies embalmed or use a hearse.

"So we have big buildings," she said. "We have fleets of cars that aren't being utilized like they used to be. We've actually sold all of our limousines, and now we rent them."

But business continues because people still want to use the mortuary's services to celebrate the life of the deceased, she said.

6. Kitchens and other gathering places at mortuaries are in

Messinger Mortuaries has reception rooms with kitchens at all its facilities. The mortuaries work with caterers so people can have an open house with food. Sometimes people prefer to hold services at a park or outdoors.

"It's fascinating to watch the trends, and our main goal has been (that) we're not here to judge," Keil said. "We're just here to teach people and to guide them and give them options to help them through their grief and through that process."

Among cremation options at Hansen Desert Hills Mortuary and Cemetery in Scottsdale are customized patios. Patios can have headstones, cremation niches, benches, a table or whatever a customer wants within reason. Each patio is enclosed within a block wall that is about waist high. The area can have pavers or stepping stones and patches of grass with landscaping rocks.

Hochstatter said Hansen designs the patios the way their customers want them.

"Building that patio was just thinking outside the box. 'Let's build that patio and have a place you can have a cup of coffee in,'" Hochstatter said. "Since we built that, the Number 1 thing people have been picking is that patio."