N.J. Sen. President Codey seeks to restore grave sites for mentally ill

[Kire]

Here is a legislator doing something important:

***

N.J. Sen. President Codey seeks to restore grave sites for mentally ill
By Lawrence Ragonese/The Star-Ledger
September 19, 2009, 9:00PM

MORRISTOWN -- The small concrete cylinders are buried at Morristown’s Evergreen Cemetery, virtually impossible to see until you are almost standing on them.

Each is marked with a four-digit number etched into its flat top, like a bar code for the dead — fading markers into past lives of indigent state psychiatric patients long ago placed shoulder-to-shoulder in the ground in body bags or pine boxes.

They were people once, with names and lives and families. But as many as 6,000 former state patients rest in mostly anonymous graves in Morristown and in potter’s fields near state psychiatric hospitals in Glen Gardner and Marlboro, Winslow Township and Trenton. In some instances, with markers sunk underground or inexplicably removed, the history of these patients dating back as far as 150 years ago has been lost.

Now, that may change.

State Sen. President Richard Codey, who as a youth picked up the dead at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital for his family’s funeral business, has embarked on a crusade to find identities of these people and restore their dignity in death.

More: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/state_sen_president_cody_seeks.html

[appamado amata padam]

1. Interesting article -

nice to see a politician trying to bring dignity to forgotten lives, and assist families in a non-sensational way. Thanks.

[MNDemNY]

2. Oh , the rituals of death.

Maybe, one day soon, we will have evolved past such silliness.

[TommyO]

3. Heaven forbid we remember those who have passed before us

especially if they were in state care.

[MNDemNY]

4. How often do YOU visit their graves?

[TommyO]

5. I've been there a number of times

What's your point?

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Recursion]

9. I visit the graves of forebears I never met

Every Memorial day, in fact. Hell, the last thing our society needs is to give less respect to our ancestors...

[MNDemNY]

10. Good for you, still a silly ritual.

[Kire]

11. You're entitled to your opinion.

I'm entitled to mine:

[Kire]

12. thanks, Recursion

this MNDemNY character should be ashamed