Strangers Burying Strangers: How Unclaimed Angelenos Get A Dignified Farewell

Tucked away in a corner of Boyle Heights' Evergreen Cemetery is a single communal grave — the final resting place for Angelenos whose bodies go unclaimed after their death.

You might be asking yourself, "Are there really that many people with no one to claim them after they die?" Maybe surprisingly, the answer is yes. And in Los Angeles County, that number is increasing.

In their new book The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels, co-authors and sociologists Stefan Timmermans of UCLA and Pamela Prickett of the University of Amsterdam report that in the 1970s, nearly 1.2% of all adult deaths in Los Angeles County went unclaimed. At the turn of the century, the percentage increased twofold. Now, they predict that every year hundreds more are going unclaimed.

Timmermans and Prickett joined LAist's daily news program AirTalk recently to explain the bureaucracy, mechanics and unexpected compassion that accompany the death of an unclaimed person in L.A. County.

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Who are the unclaimed?

Historically, a potter's field was a place where the "indigent" were buried. Those who went unclaimed met a fate of eternal erasure — an unmarked grave.

"When new migrants came to the United States, one of the first things they did was pay into a burial society. That's how deeply rooted the fear of going unclaimed was," Timmermans said.

But who is going unclaimed is changing.

In December, faith leaders, L.A. County supervisors, medical examiners and community members gathered at the communal grave in Boyle Heights to honor the deaths of more than 1,900 Angelenos whose bodies went unclaimed. They were veterans, unhoused people, widows, nonagenarians, rich folks, poor folks and everyone in between.

"There's something about honoring the dead that reaffirms the living," said Prickett. And beyond that, the unclaimed bodies and their increasing numbers reveal something about the fracturing of our social fabric today, she added. Family estrangement, social isolation and rampant loneliness are just a few of the things that contribute to a growing number of unclaimed bodies. But even these elements aren't always the full story.

Prickett pointed to not just a quantitative shift in who goes unclaimed — on a national scale it's nearly 148,000 out of 2 million every year — but also a qualitative shift.

"There are unhoused people out on the street," she said, "but there are also people who have homes, families, jobs who are going unclaimed."

Claiming a body and paying for burial and funeral services is expensive. It can run upwards of $8,000, which is not something many people can afford. But even so, Prickett and Timmermans said there's an element of the unclaimed life that goes against the grain of what makes us human. That's where Los Angeles city officials, cemetery employees and everyone else comes into the picture.

What happens to unclaimed bodies?

When someone goes unclaimed here in Los Angeles, the responsibility of handling what happens to the person falls on government officials.

Timmermans said there are basically two approaches. The first: "Get rid of the body as quickly and cheaply as possible," he said. There those that believe this is the best way to handle the unclaimed.

Then there's the second approach that involves the people who work at the crematorium in Boyle Heights. They view their jobs as a public service to those who've died and want to "bring dignity to these unclaimed people," Timmermans explained.

Whichever approach is taken, there is always an effort to have the body claimed by next of kin.

"What we've been struck with during this research is how much care these county officials bring into notifying the next of kin," Timmermans said. And these days, it's not as hard to find a family member.

"If you just keep searching through the family tree, you'll find someone," said Prickett. The question, she added, is will that someone be willing to claim their relative's body — and what happens if they don't?

Midge, one of four unclaimed people Timmermans and Prickett followed in their book, had many connections in her church community when she was alive. But after she died, the church community wasn't recognized as her legal next-of-kin.

"How we live our lives isn't necessarily what's recognized at the time of our deaths in terms of who's going to be asked to claim us," Prickett said. This begs the question: Can non-family members claim someone's body?

"Indeed," said Timmermans, but he added it's not easy. "They can file an ex-parte with the court, but the barrier for doing this is quite high."

In Midge's case, if her church community wanted to claim her, according to L.A. County law, they'd have to testify in writing that they had contacted all the legal next-of-kin and make sure they are okay with them taking the body. In fact, Midge's church was willing to take these steps.

"But," as Timmermans explained, "when county officials found a biological relative, someone who Midge had not been in touch with for decades, that person's relationship got precedence."

The church backed off, he said, fearful of potential legal issues.

This is just one story of how someone goes unclaimed upon their death. But due to the city of Los Angeles getting involved, she got a funeral in December with nearly 200 people, civil servants and civilians alike, in attendance.

A dignified resting place in Boyle Heights

Why does it matter that we recognize people who go unclaimed? "First of all, we have history on our side that this is the right thing to do," Prickett said. "The word 'humanity' at its root, 'humando,' means 'to bury."

She said if there's one thing she and Timmermans learned through the decade they spent researching The Unclaimed, it's that even if no one initially shows up to claim the body, people still care about their fellow humans.

"Everybody matters. No matter what happened in your life, that somebody is going to be there to show up for you is maybe an indication that we all can matter a little bit more in each other's lives," Prickett said.

Social ills, fractured families and financial despair might all contribute to a person going unclaimed upon death. But once a year, at a small cemetery tucked away in Boyle Heights, the best of humanity turns up for the "The Ceremony of the Unclaimed Dead" to show love to those they never knew.

Listen to the conversation