Iowa funeral home trying to unload unclaimed remains of 300

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Des Moines funeral home is putting out a call for families to come pick up the unclaimed remains of some 300 people.

Television station KCCI reports that Hamilton’s Funeral Home is searching for families who might have forgotten loved ones whose cremated remains have been left at the funeral home. Some of the remains have sat at the funeral home nearly a quarter-century.

Lanae Strovers with Hamilton’s says some families aren’t emotionally ready to immediately take home a loved one’s remains and leave them at the funeral home. Others simply forgot to pick them up. Still others mistakenly think another family member picked up the remains.

Strovers says she’s been working for two years to place the remains, and has had some success. But those remains that aren’t claimed in the coming weeks will be buried in a mass service on Sept. 26 at Avon Lake Cemetery.