October 17, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Lanae Strovers was given the job of figuring out what to do with unclaimed urns at the funeral home she worked at, she took it personally...but that would make sense for someone who got into the mortuary business for personal reasons. Give her story a listen!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next a
story out of des Moines, Iowa, from our great affiliate
News Radio ten forty who when Renee Strovers was given
the job of figuring out what to do with unclaimed
urns at the funeral home she worked at, some of
(00:30):
which belonged to veterans, she took it personally that that
would make sense for someone who got into the mortuary
business for personal reasons. Let's get into the story. Here's lonee.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
When I was twenty one, I had a very very
good friend who died and I went to his funeral
and it was horrible. It had absolutely nothing to do
with him. It wasn't personalized at all. It wasn't a
celebration of his life, which was an amazing life. It
(01:07):
was just very bland, and I was so frustrated that
the person who was in charge of making this last
chapter of his life important didn't. I knew in that
moment that it was what I was supposed to do,
(01:28):
there was no questioning, and I went home and sat
on my couch and signed up for classes and went
back to school that monday. I was twenty five, single mom,
working two jobs, and that was terrifying. You can watch
(01:49):
as many movies or read up as much as you want,
but when you walk into that embalming suite for the
first time and there is a body laying on the table.
For me, it was very humbling because that was a person,
someone's son, and the work that I was going to
(02:09):
do is what was going to give that family their
final viewing. When I was given the project to start
reconnecting these earns that had been left behind, I started
with three months of bed rest. I wasn't able to walk,
and I am not a person that sits still very easily,
(02:31):
and I was terrified. I was worried about my mental
health for being on bed rest that long. I was
worried about my husband's health for dealing with me for
that long on bed rest, my kids, my family, and
so I had asked my employer, please please please give
(02:52):
me a project to work on. I thought it would
be like stuffing envelopes for mailings, or editing actuaries from home,
or just literally anything begged for a project. So our owner,
who is Sasha, she gave me a huge yellow envelope
saying we have a lot of urns that are still
(03:14):
in our care. They've either never been picked up or
for whatever reason, the family it just has never contacted us.
Some of these people died that had guardians and we
just weren't sure what the next step was. And she goes,
if you can start calling some of these people and
just gently remind them to come and pick up their
loved one, that would be great. I knew that we
(03:36):
had urns. We always have quite a few earns because
we're a very large funeral home, but I didn't know
to the extent how many had been there for so long.
And at this point, I've worked for the funeral home
for about eight years and had no idea. Some of
the urns that we have in our care the person
(03:57):
died in like nineteen ninety five, the early two thousands,
so people who died twenty thirty some years ago were
still literally sitting on our shelves and there wasn't many
notes or anything about it. They just were still there.
So I just started calling. And some of the times
(04:18):
I call and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
I thought my brother picked up mom, We'll be right down.
And that was a majority of the phone calls, like
just the family thought somebody else in the family had
handled it. And then I got some phone calls for
people that just they're like, I know, but I just
(04:39):
don't feel comfortable having my loved ones or not home
and I don't know what to do with them. And
so at that point with those people, we would walk
through the option of helping locate a cemetery space and
doing that, and then I started realizing we were getting
a lot of people that either there was no family left,
(05:01):
family that was left was very distant, and didn't want
those earns. At the same time that I was doing
the research for finding these earns, I was also doing
twenty three and Me and ancestry to find my biological family.
When I was born, my biological mom was a college
(05:24):
student and she had not told her parents that she
was pregnant. She had not told anyone, and so when
she went to the hospital to have me, she left
right away. She did not want to tell anybody that
she had had a baby. And for me, even though
obviously I don't remember that, there's times where I agree
(05:48):
for her where I've lost someone that I've never known.
So as I was going through all of these earns
and looking at these names, and trying to find family.
I kind of had a light bulb moment all of
a sudden, in the middle of the night, sitting in
the hospital bed in my living room, it occurred to me,
(06:11):
any one of these people could be my family. Any
one of those people could be a dad or a mom,
or a brother, or an uncle or an aunt or
a cousin. And I felt that if I was ever
able to figure out who my biological family was, and
if I found out that one of those people was
(06:33):
a family member of mine, I wanted to make sure
that I had treated them with the respect that I
would have if I knew it was a family member
of mine. And so we came up with a concept
of doing a mass burial and giving those people that
were in our care for a long time that had
no one to claim them a respectful burial with a
(06:55):
headstone and to do a service. I just felt, they
are my family, they have to be. So when I
was going through one of the questions when you're visiting
with the family member of the person who died, is
we ask was your loved one a veteran And of
this group of about ninety earns that we were going
(07:16):
to do a mass burial for three of them were veterans,
and I just felt that they should not be included
in the mass burial. If I had an uncle or
a brother or someone who had served in the military,
I would want somebody to have military honors for them.
(07:36):
It was very important for me because the honors are
not only just for the veteran who served, but it's
also spouses and children served right along with the veteran.
And when that flag is given to the family, it's
given to them out of respect for you supported this veteran,
you were part of them, you were part of their service.
(07:57):
I just thought, well, we have access to a veteran
cemetery here locally, which is one of the most incredible
and beautiful cemeteries ever I think, And so I called
the cemetery Gina, who runs it. Over there. I said,
I have a crazy idea. I have three veterans that
(08:17):
have no family. I can't find any contact for them.
What do you think if we held a little service
out there for these men, and we'll just invite the
local legions, VFW, Patriot Guard, CVMA guys. Just hopefully a
few people will show up to pay respects to these guys,
and she was like, I love it. Whatever you need,
(08:39):
I'll support you. That sounds perfect, So I said okay.
And I was expecting maybe twenty to thirty people to attend.
We had three hundreds. It was just one of those
moments that very surreal pictures videos do not do it justice.
All these people were coming out of their day to
(09:01):
respect these three men that they never met ever, just
out of respect for our country. As the years progressed,
we started getting phone calls from local law enforcement if
they found an earn in different places we hadn't earned.
That was actually found in the middle of an intersection.
It had gotten thrown out of a car after house
(09:23):
was robbed. I actually just recently got a phone call
last week of a veteran who was found he had
passed away, his wife had passed away. They had had
no children, no other family, and there was a broker
basically who was charged from the lawyer to clean this
house out, get everything going, and he sat with his
flag next to him. There's no one else left. So
(09:44):
he was returned to us and said, I know what
you do, Please make sure this man gets buried with honors.
So they've kind of started coming from all over. I
hope it's something eventually we never have to do again,
because that would mean that there's nobody ever lo unclaimed.
But while that is still happening, and unfortunately, I think
(10:04):
it's going to happen more and more. It's just something
you have to go to. It's so humbling.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery. A special thanks to Simon
Conway for putting us onto this story. A terrific host
at WHO in Des Moines, and a special thanks to
Linnai's Strovers. And what a heart this lady has. And
this is the entrepreneurial part of this country in which
(10:33):
people don't start businesses, they just get stuff done, and
they do it for the right reason. The story of
Linaise Strovers and how she honors not only unclaimed earns,
but unclaimed earns of veterans. Here on our American Stories
And we returned to our American stories. Up next a
story out of des Moines, Iowa, from our great affiliate
News Radio ten forty who when Renee Strovers was given
the job of figuring out what to do with unclaimed
urns at the funeral home she worked at, some of
(00:30):
which belonged to veterans, she took it personally that that
would make sense for someone who got into the mortuary
business for personal reasons. Let's get into the story. Here's lonee.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
When I was twenty one, I had a very very
good friend who died and I went to his funeral
and it was horrible. It had absolutely nothing to do
with him. It wasn't personalized at all. It wasn't a
celebration of his life, which was an amazing life. It
(01:07):
was just very bland, and I was so frustrated that
the person who was in charge of making this last
chapter of his life important didn't. I knew in that
moment that it was what I was supposed to do,
(01:28):
there was no questioning, and I went home and sat
on my couch and signed up for classes and went
back to school that monday. I was twenty five, single mom,
working two jobs, and that was terrifying. You can watch
(01:49):
as many movies or read up as much as you want,
but when you walk into that embalming suite for the
first time and there is a body laying on the table.
For me, it was very humbling because that was a person,
someone's son, and the work that I was going to
(02:09):
do is what was going to give that family their
final viewing. When I was given the project to start
reconnecting these earns that had been left behind, I started
with three months of bed rest. I wasn't able to walk,
and I am not a person that sits still very easily,
(02:31):
and I was terrified. I was worried about my mental
health for being on bed rest that long. I was
worried about my husband's health for dealing with me for
that long on bed rest, my kids, my family, and
so I had asked my employer, please please please give
(02:52):
me a project to work on. I thought it would
be like stuffing envelopes for mailings, or editing actuaries from home,
or just literally anything begged for a project. So our owner,
who is Sasha, she gave me a huge yellow envelope
saying we have a lot of urns that are still
(03:14):
in our care. They've either never been picked up or
for whatever reason, the family it just has never contacted us.
Some of these people died that had guardians and we
just weren't sure what the next step was. And she goes,
if you can start calling some of these people and
just gently remind them to come and pick up their
loved one, that would be great. I knew that we
(03:36):
had urns. We always have quite a few earns because
we're a very large funeral home, but I didn't know
to the extent how many had been there for so long.
And at this point, I've worked for the funeral home
for about eight years and had no idea. Some of
the urns that we have in our care the person
(03:57):
died in like nineteen ninety five, the early two thousands,
so people who died twenty thirty some years ago were
still literally sitting on our shelves and there wasn't many
notes or anything about it. They just were still there.
So I just started calling. And some of the times
(04:18):
I call and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
I thought my brother picked up mom, We'll be right down.
And that was a majority of the phone calls, like
just the family thought somebody else in the family had
handled it. And then I got some phone calls for
people that just they're like, I know, but I just
(04:39):
don't feel comfortable having my loved ones or not home
and I don't know what to do with them. And
so at that point with those people, we would walk
through the option of helping locate a cemetery space and
doing that, and then I started realizing we were getting
a lot of people that either there was no family left,
(05:01):
family that was left was very distant, and didn't want
those earns. At the same time that I was doing
the research for finding these earns, I was also doing
twenty three and Me and ancestry to find my biological family.
When I was born, my biological mom was a college
(05:24):
student and she had not told her parents that she
was pregnant. She had not told anyone, and so when
she went to the hospital to have me, she left
right away. She did not want to tell anybody that
she had had a baby. And for me, even though
obviously I don't remember that, there's times where I agree
(05:48):
for her where I've lost someone that I've never known.
So as I was going through all of these earns
and looking at these names, and trying to find family.
I kind of had a light bulb moment all of
a sudden, in the middle of the night, sitting in
the hospital bed in my living room, it occurred to me,
(06:11):
any one of these people could be my family. Any
one of those people could be a dad or a mom,
or a brother, or an uncle or an aunt or
a cousin. And I felt that if I was ever
able to figure out who my biological family was, and
if I found out that one of those people was
(06:33):
a family member of mine, I wanted to make sure
that I had treated them with the respect that I
would have if I knew it was a family member
of mine. And so we came up with a concept
of doing a mass burial and giving those people that
were in our care for a long time that had
no one to claim them a respectful burial with a
(06:55):
headstone and to do a service. I just felt, they
are my family, they have to be. So when I
was going through one of the questions when you're visiting
with the family member of the person who died, is
we ask was your loved one a veteran And of
this group of about ninety earns that we were going
(07:16):
to do a mass burial for three of them were veterans,
and I just felt that they should not be included
in the mass burial. If I had an uncle or
a brother or someone who had served in the military,
I would want somebody to have military honors for them.
(07:36):
It was very important for me because the honors are
not only just for the veteran who served, but it's
also spouses and children served right along with the veteran.
And when that flag is given to the family, it's
given to them out of respect for you supported this veteran,
you were part of them, you were part of their service.
(07:57):
I just thought, well, we have access to a veteran
cemetery here locally, which is one of the most incredible
and beautiful cemeteries ever I think, And so I called
the cemetery Gina, who runs it. Over there. I said,
I have a crazy idea. I have three veterans that
(08:17):
have no family. I can't find any contact for them.
What do you think if we held a little service
out there for these men, and we'll just invite the
local legions, VFW, Patriot Guard, CVMA guys. Just hopefully a
few people will show up to pay respects to these guys,
and she was like, I love it. Whatever you need,
(08:39):
I'll support you. That sounds perfect, So I said okay.
And I was expecting maybe twenty to thirty people to attend.
We had three hundreds. It was just one of those
moments that very surreal pictures videos do not do it justice.
All these people were coming out of their day to
(09:01):
respect these three men that they never met ever, just
out of respect for our country. As the years progressed,
we started getting phone calls from local law enforcement if
they found an earn in different places we hadn't earned.
That was actually found in the middle of an intersection.
It had gotten thrown out of a car after house
(09:23):
was robbed. I actually just recently got a phone call
last week of a veteran who was found he had
passed away, his wife had passed away. They had had
no children, no other family, and there was a broker
basically who was charged from the lawyer to clean this
house out, get everything going, and he sat with his
flag next to him. There's no one else left. So
(09:44):
he was returned to us and said, I know what
you do, Please make sure this man gets buried with honors.
So they've kind of started coming from all over. I
hope it's something eventually we never have to do again,
because that would mean that there's nobody ever lo unclaimed.
But while that is still happening, and unfortunately, I think
(10:04):
it's going to happen more and more. It's just something
you have to go to. It's so humbling.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery. A special thanks to Simon
Conway for putting us onto this story. A terrific host
at WHO in Des Moines, and a special thanks to
Linnai's Strovers. And what a heart this lady has. And
this is the entrepreneurial part of this country in which
(10:33):
people don't start businesses, they just get stuff done, and
they do it for the right reason. The story of
Linaise Strovers and how she honors not only unclaimed earns,
but unclaimed earns of veterans. Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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