Son works to fulfill burial wish

DEARY, Idaho — It seems like such a simple final request, to have your mortal remains returned to the earth with no contemporary trappings.

No funeral. No cemetery. No casket. Jim Smith, 70, and his 91-year-old mother, Eleanor Smith, had talked about the idea and agreed.

When the time came, they’d end up buried next to each other on the property where they spent their last days together.

For Eleanor, that time is near. And her son has the grave ready.

“But is society ready?” asks Jim, a retired college textbook editor and member of the Latah County Planning Commission.

A friend has already called him a ghoul. And as his mother’s death draws nearer, Smith says he’s found laying a loved one to rest in an old-fashioned way has challenged some contemporary thinking, if not laws.

“You can’t do that,” Smith says of the reaction most people have when they learn about his intentions to honor his mother’s wish for a simple burial.

Idaho has no prohibitions against such burials. Nor does Latah County.

Officials concede the disposal of human remains is pretty much left to cultural norms rather than law. And some confusion persists.

“The closest thing to regulation would be under solid waste authority,” says Paul Guenther, spokesman for the North Central District Health Department at Lewiston. “But we’ve never applied that to a dead body. As far as I know, he (Jim Smith) has the right to do that. This is Idaho.”

“I remember an inquiry about that some time ago,” says Denise Connolly, administrative assistant for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare at Lewiston. “And of course, my reaction was no, you can’t do that.”

But she says she’s apparently wrong.

Latah County Coroner Daniel J. Schmidt, a local physician, has a similar reaction.

“From my perspective, it’s fine with me,” he says of the burial. “But I think there are rules.”

Not in Latah County, says Prosecutor William Thompson Jr.

He says Idaho law grants all authority over disposal of human remains to the Health and Welfare department.

“There is no state law,” says Greg Heitman, spokesman for the Idaho Bureau of Health Policy and Vital Statistics. “We always refer people to the local cities or county.”

Eleanor Smith is under hospice care at a Moscow rest home. She suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and a series of infections that have left her weakened and mostly comatose.

“She believed that some sort of spirit remained after death,” Smith says of his mother’s take on the hereafter.

At least twice, according to Smith, the end seemed imminent. During one recent night-long vigil, his mother’s lungs filled amid yet another infection.

Smith says a “death rattle” became part of her breathing. But suddenly, she seemed to improve and he asked, “How do you feel?”

” ‘I’m scared,’ ” he remembers his mother saying. “My thought was that she’s facing death and was scared about crossing over.”

No words have been exchanged since. Smith says his mother’s lingering has given him time to continue with preparations and face head-on the reality of what’s next.

While his four grown children support the decision, others have either balked or been taken aback by the notion.

“I’m carrying a quilt and blanket in the back of my vehicle,” says Smith.

He plans when his mother dies to drive to the rest home, take her body directly back to their acreage south of Deary and wrap the remains in muslin.

“I’m going to lower her into that hole and put dirt on top of her and put some stones on top of the grave. “I’ll probably do it alone.” He says he may ask a minister and some church members who know him and his mother to say a few words later over the grave.

He’s living off a Social Security check and his mother’s pension is going toward her rest home expenses.

The only legal snag so far, says Smith, has been figuring out how to get a death certificate.

Officials say the problem is more a product of procedural unfamiliarity than standing in the way of the Smiths’ wishes. In most cases, a funeral home or coroner takes care of that.

Heitman says there should be no problem for Jim Smith. He says a form should be available through the local health district.

Smith acknowledges those opposed are “people who are very much used to what’s become the traditional way of the disposing of the bodies of our family, neighbors and friends.”

His only concern, says Smith, is that someone follows up with his own wishes and he’s eventually buried in the same manner next to his mother.