Ashes to ashes - to keep, to scatter, to bury.

Byline: Jeff Wright The Register-Guard

Jean Snicale of Eugene had it all planned out. When her time came, she wanted to be cremated, not buried. But she also wanted a place where other family members could come and sit and mourn and remember.

She got her wish: Near the top of the hill at the historic Eugene Masonic Cemetery, a scatter garden nestles among the trees and flowering plants. On a small, low wall opposite a bench, a memorial plaque celebrates Snicale's life.

Son Jim Snicale, a retired Eugene police officer, says he's grateful for his mother's forward thinking.

"I do like seeing something here," he says. "It's a way of saying this person's not forgotten."

Next to his mother's plaque are two other plaques commemorating the lives of his father, John, and his brother, Jason, who were also cremated.

More and more, Lane County families are making similar choices when deciding how they want to memorialize loved ones and dispose of their bodies.

Statewide, nearly 60 percent of all Oregonians opt for cremation over burial - more than double the national average. The cremation rate at several Lane County memorial parks and funeral homes reaches or exceeds 75 percent, funeral directors report.

In dealing with death, Oregonians may be ahead of the curve - and not only when it comes to doctor-assisted suicide. Funeral directors and others say they also see it in the move toward cremation as the option of choice for handling a relative's body.

Among the trends:

A growing number of cremation gardens - sometimes called urn gardens or scatter gardens - are found at cemeteries, churches and elsewhere.

West Lawn Memorial Park has a cremation garden - with waterfall, fish pond, gazebo, bridges and more. Families have several choices of how to memorialize a relative - attaching a nameplate to a traditional niche in a columbarium or on a large basalt column of rock, for example.

A columbarium is a vault for urns containing ashes. Cremated remains are really bone fragments, not "ashes" exactly. Cremation typically takes two to three hours, and the remains weigh between 4 and 10 pounds.

The Eugene Masonic Cemetery's scatter garden was designed by a University of Oregon graduate student in landscape architecture. Sometimes, a family will keep a loved one's remains for a year or two before approaching the cemetery about scattering, administrator Mary Ellen Rodgers says.

That doesn't surprise Jack Springer, director of the Cremation Association of North America, a Chicago-based industry group. Springer says roughly one-third of families initially opt to take a relative's ashes home, rather than immediately scatter or bury them.

Many families that scatter ashes in a favorite stream or forest later regret having no place to go to remember the deceased - hence the growth in cremation gardens. Springer urges families to scatter a portion of ashes, but to also keep some in an urn at home.

Sales of necklaces and other keepsakes designed to contain a small portion of ashes have increased.

At Andreason's Cremation & Burial Service, owner Kent Franklin says about 40 percent of families buy something more than just a single urn for a relative's cremated remains. The usual choices include smaller "token urns" or such items as key chains, wind chimes, bracelets and necklaces with room for ashes.

"Our society is so mobile, you can bury a parent but may not have time to go visit them," Franklin adds. "But if you have something tangible with you at all times, you don't have to go anywhere. It boils down to convenience."

More families are asking to be present when a relative's body is placed in the cremation chamber. At Poole-Larsen Funeral Home, one family recently carried a relative's casket directly into the crematorium as part of the memorial service - in keeping with their Hindu tradition, says funeral director Terry Moore.

Cremation is also traditional among Buddhists and Sikhs - but is generally prohibited in the Jewish and Muslim faiths, as well as the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. The Roman Catholic Church officially lifted its ban on cremation in 1963.

In earlier days of Christianity, cremation was seen as a pagan ritual, and later as a threat to those who believe a person's actual body is required to ascend to heaven.

As recently as 1960, fewer than 4 percent of deceased Americans were cremated. Cremation initially grew in popularity because of its cheaper cost and general dissatisfaction with traditional burial services, says Mark Musgrove, a local funeral home owner and president of the National Funeral Directors Association.

Oregonians are particularly partial to cremation because they're less traditional, less religious and more mobile than other Americans, say Musgrove and others. Another factor may be Oregonians' environmental bent, which translates into concerns about using more and more land for burial plots.

"People who live among mountains and streams, it appeals more to their personality type," says Springer, the Chicago-based industry spokesman. "People in the West are more liberal about everything, and more attuned to what appeals to them personally. Cremation gives them many more options."

Cremation, too, is almost always chosen ahead of time by the deceased - and who wants to argue with a parent's or spouse's wishes?

That holds true for Muriel Robinson of Eugene, whose husband Bertram's ashes are buried next to a dogwood tree at Eugene Masonic Cemetery. Robinson, 81, says she and her husband agreed in advance that they both wanted to have their cremated remains left near the cemetery's Scatter Garden.

"We talked that over for years, and just decided that was the thing to do," she says. "For one thing, we're running out of cemetery space and this seemed much cleaner than being buried and rotting in the ground. Also, a garden seems more preferable - I enjoy flowers."

While she attends church, Robinson says she's not among those who believe God "expects us to come back to him with all our parts. I think God will accept me no matter what shape I'm in at the time."

CREMATION RATES

Percent of all deaths:

1. Nevada - 65 percent

2. Hawaii - 64

3. Washington - 61

4. Oregon - 60

47. Kentucky - 9

48. Mississippi - 7

49. Tennessee - 5

50. Alabama - 4

National average - 28

- 2002 figures, Cremation Association of North America, www.cremationassociation.org

WHERE DO THE ASHES GO?

Taken home: 36 percent

Buried: 23 percent

Scattered over water or land: 18 percent

Placed in columbarium: 10 percent

Scattered at cemetery: 6 percent

Not picked up: 6 percent

Into a common grave: 1 percent

- Cremation Association of North America

CAPTION(S):

The ashes of Jim Snicale's mother, father and brother were scattered over the Willamette River, but his loved ones have memorial plaques at the Eugene Masonic Cemetery scatter garden.