(Des Moines, IA) -- The cremated remains of 170 unclaimed Iowans will be laid to rest at a Des Moines cemetery this Saturday. The ceremony will take place at Avon Cemetery, where the 170 individuals will be placed in a vault alongside nearly 90 others buried in 2019.
Among them is a woman who died 107 years ago, in 1919.
“She died before she could vote, that’s crazy that she’s just been sitting on a shelf, and now we finally get to give her her name and her story back,” said Lanae Strovers, president of The Final Salute.
Abbie Searle died in 1919, and more than a century later, she remains unclaimed.
“It’s extremely humbling to be the person who finally gets to lay her to rest 107 years later,” Strovers said.
The organization receives urns from funeral homes, storage units, abandoned houses, and even from the side of the road. Volunteers research each person to try to find family members, but if no relative claims them, or no family can be found, the organization arranges a respectful burial.
“Looking at all of these urns, I just wish I had the power to turn them all back into people,” Strovers said. “If you could visualize how many people they are, I think that’s when it really hits you. Sometimes we lose that.”
Strovers says the number of unclaimed remains continues to rise nationwide. Organizers say they expect to host another ceremony next year.
“It’s not just show up and bury the urns, it’s so much more than that,” Strovers said.
The burial will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 25. A procession will leave from Southridge Mall at 9:15 a.m.