Hundreds of cremated remains of unclaimed people scattered in Macon ceremony

Close to 200 people whose cremated remains went unclaimed by family or friends — sometimes for decades — were laid to rest in a Thursday ceremony in Macon.

The ceremony was simple, with about 20 participants in a small garden near the entrance to Macon’s Historic Rose Hill Cemetery. 

Around the garden there were tables crowded with small boxes filled with the cremated remains of 166 people, who, during the ceremony, Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones said no one wanted. 

Caption

Each box on this table contained the remains of a human being.

Credit: Grant Blankenship/GPB News

“Any way you look at it, these are someone — loved ones that were rejected by their family," Jones said. "And that's the saddest part of this job.”

A look at the labels on the boxes revealed some were for babies. Some boxes contained only a single limb. 

Kittie Cosper knows all their names.

Caption

A small box containing the remains of infant Marslyah Brown.

Credit: Grant Blankenship/GPB News

“Sadly, these cremains have been stored on shelves for many, many years,” Cosper told the assembly. "But today we're going to scatter them on God's ground."

Cosper began her job with the county archive years ago. 

“In the record center, you know, down in the basement,” she said. “So, that's where we kept them for kind of like storage, I guess you would say.”

It’s like a library of unclaimed people. 

“It was sad every day going by and seeing them on the shelf.” 

Caption

An engraved monument records the names of the people whose remains are scattered in the garden at the Rose Hill Cemetery entrance.

Credit: Grant Blankenship/GPB News

So over about a year, Cosper, Coroner Jones, the county attorney and others tried to connect the archived remains to their families while hammering out the legal way to scatter them, with dignity.

That scattering meant prayer and a short sermon, followed by the planned performance of "Amazing Grace."

By the time a few had improvised a version of "I'll Fly Away," the remains were around and in the garden.

Now, after the ceremony, Cosper said being with these names she’s come to know won’t be as sad. 

I’ll probably come back and visit them,” she said. “Just sit in the scatter garden.”

Meanwhile there are still 400 people on her shelves and another ceremony to arrange for next year.