Hi everyone Some of you may get this more than once, as it's going to many lists, sorry. Stockton Record 23 January 1988 Front Page X-RAY URNS ITS SPOT Coroner can use space by Edie Lau The Stockton Record Four thousand eight hundred (4,800) urns containing the ashes of people long dead should be removed from the county morgue and buried. That's the recomendation of the San Joaquin County Grand Jury, in a report released Friday. The remains were left from the days when the building was used as a county crematorium. The jurors said the copper urns, on shelves in a locked room, are taking up valuable building space. "The Sheriff's Office is not in the cemetery business and the urns should be removed." the jury wrote. They said relocating the urns would cost about $8,400. Sheriff Coroner John Zunino and County Administrator David D. Rowlands, Jr. agreed that acting on the grand jury's suggestion won't be hard. "What they idenified makes goosd sense" Rolands said "Money is not the issue" he added "It's just a matter of treating the remains with dignity." Aside from the urn problem, the jurors had good things to say about the coroner's operation, calling it "very efficient and well managed." They said the staff was "well informed" and "compassionate." and the records "well maintained and readily available." The county morgue has been housed in a bu9lding behind San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp since 1980. For 50 years before, the building was a crematorium operated by the hospital. According to the jurors report, some of the urns have been stored there more than 50 years. In the last decade only two urns have been claimed by relatives. It's unclear why so many remains went unclaimed. The urns are under the control of the county hospital (San Joaquin General Hospital [mc]). The space taken up by the urns, about a quarter of the building, could better be used by the coroner, ther jurors said. For example, the x-ray machine is in a refrigerated room sometimes used to store bodies awaiting autopsy. The corpses have a foul odor that can make the x-ray technician's enviroment most unpleasant. The x-ray machine could be moved to where the urns are now, jurors said. The morgue also lacks space for drying bloody or contaminated clothing that must be kept as evidence. Baxter Dunn, captain of the coroner's division, said investigating officers are forced to take the wet clothing to other buildings. The practice is potentially dangerous, given the types of diseases -- such as hepatitis and AIDS, that are spread through blood. The county already faces the task of exhuming about 40 bodies from an unmarked pauper's cemetery near the county hospital. The cemetery is in the middle of the site for a new jail. "Maybe we can make this one project." Rowlands said. ****** There is a large photo showing Gordon King of SJCounty Hospital inspecting copper boxes containing cremated remains, some 50 years old. This is dated 1988, two years before we moved back here from Washington State, so I don't have any rememberance of what happened. Does anyone remember these urns being moved? Were they just disposed of? Could this be what became of State hospital inmates after the State Hospital quit burying/cremating people themselves? If you have an ancestor who died after 1920 or so... and you can't find them... this may be something to check. Marge http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mcampbel/home.htm Margie Campbell's Web Page http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mcampbel/Calif/ History of Stockton State Hospital (Stockton, CA) http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mcampbel/ICGS/ Iron county, MO Genealogy Society Page http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mcampbel/cem/Napa State Hospital Oversight Hearing & Links to organizations who need our help to save old cemeteries. Stockton State Hospital Cemetery page Host of: Iron county Missouri (MOIRON) mail list Hermes family name list Wenstrom family name list