Requiem for the unclaimed dead

On a grassy hillside just east of downtown Los Angeles, a few dozen mourners gathered last week to pay respects to 1,865 people whose names they did not know — men, women and children whose ashes recently joined the remains of 100,000 others laid to rest here since 1896. People attend Thursday’s ceremony at the Los Angeles County Cemetery. “Because somebody died at that moment without money doesn’t mean that the years preceding that were ones in which they didn’t have money,” Prickett said. “It might just be that the nursing home costs zapped their savings.” If the person died penniless but the notified next of kin does not pick up the body, the county arranges for cremation. “Sometimes, even when there’s quite close living relatives, they just won’t accept the responsibility of being next of kin because they can’t afford it,” Smolenyak said.