MANSFIELD — Doug Theaker looked at the folks gathered Thursday on a bright sunny, summer morning at the Mansfield Cemetery.
“With the breaking of this ground, the veterans of Richland County will be guaranteed a resting place for many years to come,” said the president of the Richland County Veterans Service Commission.
The ground to which the U.S. Navy veteran referred to was for a new $270,000 “Cremation Honors Wall Project,” which will provide local military veterans with a new internment option at the cemetery on the city’s southeast side.
Officials with the commission and Pam Bautz, administrator of the Mansfield Cemetery Association, discussed the $270,000 project July 23 with the Richland County Board of Commissioners.
The commission has sufficient funds for the project, according to Ken Estep, executive director of the local veterans commission.
(Photos from a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning for a new veterans honors cremation wall at the Mansfield Cemetery.)
Theaker said it’s the mission of the local veterans service commission to provide services for military veterans.
“This is just one example … a big example,” he said. “Since this was released in the news (media), seven people have already called in and said they want a space when it’s their turn to go.
“So that is significant and that’s important,” Theaker said.
The need for the planned columbarium walls — spaces designed especially for cremation urns — is growing across the country.
The National Funeral Directors Association in 2023 projected that 60.5 percent of Americans would choose cremation over traditional burial, a number the organization projected will rise to 80 percent by 2035.
Estep said last week local veterans officials began to notice the shift in cremation over traditional burials during a visit to the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery in Rittman.
“They just almost expanded … everything they’re doing is on the columbariums,” he said. “When I started to look at that, I thought, ‘We need to think about what we could do to make it so our (veterans) in Richland County can stay in Richland County, if they so desire.”
Estep and others on the commission credited Bautz for her work on the project, which will begin in August.
Bautz said Thursday she was excited to see the project, which has been in the works for a few years, finally underway.
“I think (we) started talking about this with the veterans commission five or six years ago after I first got here and started looking at the future of the cemetery,” Bautz said.
“It’s a great day,” she said.
Bautz said the project will expand the life of the Honor Grounds cemetery land owned by the local veterans commission. It will also provide a centralized ceremonial area at the Honor Grounds.
Purdy Construction will handle the construction of the site and setting of the columbarium units, which will be purchased from the Turner Vault Co. of Toledo, arriving as soon as November.
“We may see some of this erected before winter hits,” she said.
Under current space availability, there would be room for 104 to 108 more traditional graves in the Honor Grounds, Bautz said.
“We could bury between 1,536 to 3,072 people,” with room for two urns per niche for those who wish to be interred with their spouse, Bautz said.
“I don’t have any other land that I can work with the veterans on. I kind of just thought that this would be the smartest use of the land that (veterans) have and to still save plenty of land for ground burials through the years to come,” she said last week.
She said the “wall” would span the width of the Honors Grounds, approximately 160 feet. She said it will be created by placing cremation units together with a handicapped-approved concrete walkway between each set and also on both sides of the wall.
She said her plan is to move the Veterans Flagpole to the center of the area and place a flag from each branch of the U.S. military surrounding it. Stamps with the seal of each branch will also be placed into the concrete.
She said the center space in the area at the top of the hill overlooking the Veterans Honors Ground will provide a place for the veterans burial detail to position themselves while providing honors during military funerals.
“They can play Taps. They can stand at the top of the hill where everyone can see them. It gives them a nice, solid place to stand when offering honors. These guys come out in all weather and sometimes it’s not the best days,” Bautz said.
Scott Loy, sales and marketing manager at Turner Vault Company, came down from Toledo on Thursday for the ceremony.
“I was in contact with Pam and I thought it would be important to be here for this,” he said.
“Traditional burials are not as prevalent as they used to be, which is something the entire industry is trying to work on,” he said. “That’s part of the reason we started doing monuments.
“Columbariums are kind of the premier way to intern cremated remains,” Loy said.
