The Lewis County Coroner’s Office held an interment ceremony Tuesday at the Pioneer Cemetery in Chehalis for the unclaimed remains of 12 people, including two babies.
“These were people who had been abandoned or forgotten by their families,” the coroner’s office stated in a news release.
The ceremony was attended by staff from the coroner’s office, a chaplain, John and Marie Panesko — who own Pioneer Cemetery — and members of the public.
“John spoke of the history of the Pioneer Cemetery and of the ancient Mesopotamian views of death with the remains being buried, the soul ascending to the heavens and the ‘shadow’ of the person’s life remaining here on earth,” according to the news release.
The chaplain offered a prayer and read scriptures tying them into the ceremony of remembering people who had been forgotten.
Coroner Warren McLeod read the names of the individuals and spoke of the process of cremating people who have been forgotten or abandoned and how the Pioneer Cemetery has offered to intern the remains every year.
The cremated remains were officially transferred from the care and custody of the Lewis County Coroner’s Office to the Pioneer Cemetery.
Attendees were encouraged to take the roses adorning each decedent as a way to hold their memory.
