Aquamation at Sossoman Funeral Home
Sossoman Funeral Home of Morganton partners with a Mooresville business to offer aquamation to its local customers.
Aquamation at Sossoman Funeral Home
Sossoman Funeral Home of Morganton partners with a Mooresville business to offer aquamation to its local customers.
Funeral Director Lindsey Hazelhurst displays a bamboo urn at Kirksey Funeral Home earlier this month.
Once an uncommon alternative to burial, cremation now represents more than half of all dispositions in the country, and the industry continues to change: Burke County families are now asking about another unfamiliar option, one that uses water and chemicals instead of flames.
Known as aquamation, the process is available through Sossoman Funeral Home, which has handled a handful of cases. Kirksey Funeral Home plans to offer the service soon.
Sossoman Funeral Director Hannah Kirksey said the process uses warm, circulating water and base chemicals to break down organic tissue.
According to the Cremation Association of North America (CANA), once the process is complete, only the bones of the deceased remain. These are then dried, reduced to a fine powder and given to the family of the deceased.
“Essentially, what you get back is basically the same thing as cremated remains,” said Kirksey. “They’re very similar.”
The process, also known as alkaline hydrolysis, has been around since 1888, when it was developed to dispose of animal carcasses for fertilizer, according to CANA. The method didn’t enter the funeral industry until 2011, when two funeral homes in Ohio and Florida adopted it as a disposition method, according to CANA.
Since then, it has grown in popularity, although Kirksey said Sossoman has only handled a handful of aquamations so far.
“We haven’t had many cases yet,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of interest and questions about it. … They’re basically asking what it is, what’s the difference between that and fire cremation.”
Meanwhile, CANA estimates that 62.8% of U.S. dispositions were cremations last year, and the rate is expected to reach nearly 70% by 2030.
Aquamation is marketed as a “green” alternative to cremation since it uses less energy and doesn’t use fossil fuels. Price-wise, it’s similar to cremation, Kirksey said.
According to Kirksey, a traditional burial can cost from $5,000 to $10,000 and up, depending on which services and products customers choose. Meanwhile, a basic cremation or aquamation start around $3,000, she said.
Kirksey Funeral Home will soon also offer aquamation, said Manager and Funeral Director Lindsey Hazelhurst.
Hazelhurst agreed that cremation seems to be more popular than traditional burial, especially for customers who want a simple return to nature.
For such customers, Kirksey Funeral Home offers “living urns” which grow a tree when buried, as well as simple biodegradable urns that can be set out to sea or buried.
This service, Hazelhurst said, echoes “green burial,” which describes minimalist disposition and interment methods that eventually result in nothing but soil.
Companies like Recompose and Earth Funeral, while based on the West Coast, offer human composting services to Western North Carolina. Human composting is not legal in North Carolina, according to Earth Funeral, but the companies offer transportation of bodies to their facilities, where they are placed in a mix of organic materials like mulch, wood chips, and wildflowers and allowed to decompose into soil over time. The soil is then returned to the family.
Earth Funeral advertises a base price around $6,000 for a simple composting package.
Other green burial options in the area include burial without a vault or casket at Carolina Memorial Sanctuary or Forest Lawn Memorial Park, both in the Asheville area. Carolina Memorial Sanctuary also advertises prices in the $5,000 range.
Hazelhurst said regulations at Burke County cemeteries do not allow vaultless burial, but local customers looking for a green burial experience can opt for natural shrouds, no embalming and wooden caskets that will disintegrate over time.
Hazelhurst said while green burials have gained some popularity in the surrounding area, cremation remains most common locally.
Meanwhile, interest in aquamation continues to grow, and Hazelhurst said she expects it to outpace cremation in the near future.
“For myself, I’m interested in aquamation for my disposition,” she said. “Once it gets out and people get more knowledgeable about it, they’re going to go for that.”
CCC&TI truck driver training graduates
Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute celebrated 11 students from the Truck Driver Training program during a completion ceremony at the J.E. Broyhill Civic Center in Lenoir on Tuesday, Oct. 6. Pictured front row (from left) are graduates Garrison Cook, Mark Lister, Zachary Ireland, Benjamin Moody, Lesley Nelson Jr., and Raheem Wardrick. Back row, left to right, are graduates Charles Carswell, Zachary Taylor, Kenneth Giordano, Brandon Maynard, and Henry Call. CCC&TI Truck Driver Training classes are offered throughout the region with daytime and evening classes to fit any schedule. Tuition assistance is available for those who qualify. To register for Truck Driver Training at CCC&TI or for information on class schedules, call 828-726-2380 or visit: https://cccti.edu/program/truck-driver/.
CCC&TI truck driver training graduates
Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute celebrated 11 students from the Truck Driver Training program during a completion ceremony at the J.E. Broyhill Civic Center in Lenoir on Tuesday, Oct. 6. Pictured front row (from left) are graduates Garrison Cook, Mark Lister, Zachary Ireland, Benjamin Moody, Lesley Nelson Jr., and Raheem Wardrick. Back row, left to right, are graduates Charles Carswell, Zachary Taylor, Kenneth Giordano, Brandon Maynard, and Henry Call. CCC&TI Truck Driver Training classes are offered throughout the region with daytime and evening classes to fit any schedule. Tuition assistance is available for those who qualify. To register for Truck Driver Training at CCC&TI or for information on class schedules, call 828-726-2380 or visit: https://cccti.edu/program/truck-driver/.
FryeCare Physicians Network has added three providers in Hickory in women’s health, primary care, and cardiology.
Mensah
Dr. Oriena Mensah has joined FryeCare Women’s Services, Jennifer Kerley has joined FryeCare Family Physicians, and Alexander Patrone has joined FryeCare Cardiology.
Mensah is seeing adolescents and adults at FryeCare Women’s Services, 1781 Tate Blvd., Suite 201. Her services include preventive care, routine and high-risk pregnancy care, treatment of gynecologic conditions, contraception counseling, and minimally invasive surgery.
Mensah speaks English, French, and Akan, or Twi. She completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria, Ill.
Kerley, a certified family nurse practitioner, is seeing patients from infancy through adulthood at FryeCare Family Physicians, 915 Tate Blvd. SE, Suite 186.
Kerley
She has more than 20 years of nursing experience and provides preventive care, chronic disease management, women’s and men’s health, behavioral and mental health integration, and treatment of low-acuity urgent health concerns.
Kerley earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Lenoir-Rhyne University.
Patrone, a board-certified physician assistant, has joined FryeCare Cardiology at 2660 Tate Blvd. SE.
Patrone
He provides general cardiology care, with clinical interests including hypertension, high cholesterol, heart failure, coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation, and other heart rhythm disorders.
Before joining FryeCare, Patrone worked as a hospitalist physician assistant at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte and Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory.
For more information about FryeCare providers, visit FryeCarePhysicians.com/find-a-doctor.
— AKC
Editor
The Col. Alexander Erwin Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution will honor two Revolutionary War patriots with a grave-marking ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, at Fort Defiance in Caldwell County.
The ceremony will recognize Capt. William Lenoir and Maj. Charles Gordon Jr. and is open to the public.
Lenoir, born in 1751, joined the Patriot cause during the Revolutionary War and was given command of a ranger company in 1776. He fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, where he was wounded twice, and later rose to the rank of major general in the state militia. He also served as a justice of the peace and state legislator and was a planter, surveyor, landowner, horse breeder, and blacksmith operator. The city of Lenoir was later named in his honor.
Gordon, who married Lenoir’s daughter Mary, also fought at Kings Mountain. A historical account of the battle describes Gordon being shot in the left arm during close combat. He later became a major in the militia and died in 1799.
The families also have ties to Burke County history. Charles and Mary Gordon’s daughter, Ann Ballard Gordon, married Athan McDowell, a son of Charles and Grace McDowell of Quaker Meadows, connecting the Lenoir and McDowell families by marriage.
Both Lenoir and Gordon are buried in the family cemetery at Fort Defiance.
The house now known as Fort Defiance was built by Lenoir beginning in 1788 and completed in 1792. It took its name from an earlier frontier fort that stood nearby before the American Revolution; the original fort no longer survives. The Lenoir family lived in the house until 1961, and it reopened as a historic site in 1976.
Fort Defiance is located at 1792 Fort Defiance Drive, Lenoir. Regular April-through-October hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 1-4 p.m. Sunday. From November through March, the site is open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The last tour begins one hour before closing.
For more information, visit historicfortdefiancenc.org or call 828-758-1671.
— AKC
