In The News

CANA Board Member and owner of the Cremation Society of Wisconsin, Randall Mundt, and his staff have developed a non-profit organization to offer dignified burial and cremation services to low-income families.

With the help of his employees, Mundt, who operates Stokes, Prock & Mundt Funeral Chapel & Crematory in Altoona, Wisconsin, has launched the Cremation Society of Wisconsin Foundation (CSW Foundation) to help those who “fall through the crack,” as he says. These are people who don’t meet the requirements for the Wisconsin Funeral and Cemetery Aids Program, which was put in place by the state to pay for death-related expenses of those who are eligible for public assistance. Sometimes those who are not covered under that program still have genuine financial need and have been turned away by local funeral homes because they are unable to pay.

Through the foundation, Mundt hopes to raise awareness of the problem and encourage the public to provide financial support in the form of donations to help families in need who’ve suffered a loss. Mundt’s staff will be available to help survivors navigate the process of discerning available benefits by checking to see if that person is eligible for the state program. If so, the staff will share information on how to access the benefits. If the deceased is not eligible, survivors can apply for assistance from the CSW Foundation.

If a request for CSW aid is approved, the survivors will be provided with a voucher to take to the funeral home of their choosing. There they will be able to negotiate for the services they desire. The funeral home will then return the voucher to the foundation to receive reimbursement for the amount of the voucher.

At the present time, the foundation is limited to the Eau Claire, Dunn, and Chippewa county area and there is a cap of $1500 on the amount of assistance available. However, these restrictions may be expanded as funding allows in the future.

Service provided at Trinity Cemetery for unclaimed cremains.

FALL CREEK — More than 20 years after her death, the late Adelaide Fontaine was buried Thursday in Trinity Cemetery in Fall Creek. No obituary was published, and no funeral was held. Instead, seven strangers gathered for a graveside service before her cremains — along with those of 11 others — were laid to rest in individual containers in a vault at the east end of the cemetery.

“Dear Lord, bring dignity to these remains that haven’t been claimed ...,” said the Rev. Larry Borgelt, who read off the names of the deceased — Fontaine, Gordon Paulson, Andrew Southerland, Jeanne Helland, Eugene Stephens, Sundrea Peterson, Glenn Marks Sr., Ingrid Berger, Lola Hardy, Peggy Long, Gale Birch and Ruth Solie.

“It’s a unique thing I’ve never had to do,” Borgelt said to others who gathered — Randall Mundt, owner of the Cremation Society of Wisconsin, four of his employees and Richard Ziemann, a member of the cemetery board.

Unclaimed Dead

Mundt had hoped he wouldn’t have to bury the remains, which he inherited when he purchased the former Prock Funeral Home and also acquired the Cremation Society of Wisconsin. More than a year ago, he and his staff began trying to track down the next of kin of 13 women and seven men whose remains hadn’t been claimed.

Their effort was detailed in a Nov. 10, 2013, newspaper column, which resulted in families coming forward and claiming loved ones.

Arnold Zimmerman, a preneed specialist at the Cremation Society and Stokes, Prock & Mundt Funeral Chapel & Crematory, also owned by Mundt, put in countless hours to track down the survivors of the remaining deceased, sifting through Cremation Society documents and death records in the Eau Claire County Register of Deeds office.

With the help of local genealogist Mary Fisher, Zimmerman located the families of some others, whose remains were claimed. The cremains of one woman were claimed by members of the church where she served as an organist. In another case, Zimmerman discovered a woman had a grave in Granton, so he contacted officials at the cemetery who agreed to take care of laying her to rest.

Over time, Zimmerman whittled the list from 20 people down to nine. In instances where he couldn’t track down survivors, he was able to find the deceaseds’ year of death.

During the past year, the Cremation Society ended up with the remains of three others, including a man whose cremains were sent from Arizona to a local business. “They don’t even know why they got them,” Zimmerman said.

Seeing the men and women laid to rest, he felt like a weight was lifted from his shoulders.

“I felt like we had to resolve this as much as possible before we buried anyone,” he said.

At Rest

On Thursday afternoon, a small procession, including a hearse carrying the remains of all 12 of the deceased, left the Cremation Society of Wisconsin in Altoona and headed east to Fall Creek for the graveside service.

Mundt and Trever Zillmer, lead funeral director, served as pall bearers and carried the vault containing the individual containers of cremains to the grave.

Mundt opted to bury the remains that way in case family members ever come forward and want to claim a loved one.

Once Borgelt finished the brief service, they placed the vault in the ground and watched as those left in their care were laid to rest.

Donations Key

Lifetime Memorials and Johnson Monument are donating a grave stone, which will include the names of all 12 people and be placed this spring.

“They really went to great lengths to make sure these people were taken care of,” said Borgelt, pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Fall Creek and St. John’s Lutheran Church in rural Fall Creek.

(The Cremation Society of Wisconsin and Stocks, Prock & Mundt paid for the grave, the vault and other services.)

“I think everyone deserves a final resting place other than on a storeroom shelf,” Ziemann said.

Hoping to offer dignified burial and cremation services to low-income families, longtime funeral director Randall Mundt decided to develop a nonprofit organization to do just that.

Mundt, owner of the Altoona-based Cremation Society of Wisconsin, and his employees have launched the Cremation Society of Wisconsin Foundation, which initially will assist residents from Eau Claire, Dunn and Chippewa counties. As funding allows in the future, Mundt said the foundation will expand its reach.

Before the CSW Foundation can assist anyone, Mundt and others need to make people aware that some of their friends and neighbors struggle to honor their loved ones’ final wishes because of cost.

Foundation backers also need to raise funds through financial contributions, along with fundraisers and grants, so the nonprofit foundation can begin providing assistance.

“I don’t think people realize a need exists,” said Mundt, who has been in the funeral business for more than four decades and also operates Stokes, Prock & Mundt Funeral Chapel & Crematory.

“But there are a lot of people who fall through the cracks.” Seeing more than 600 families per year, Mundt and his staff encounter numerous situations of genuine financial need.

The state has a program in place — the Wisconsin Funeral and Cemetery Aids Program — to pay for the death-related expenses of eligible public assistance recipients whose estates cannot afford to cover the costs. But not everyone meets the eligibility requirements, said Mundt, who fears the program has a limited lifespan.

Some funeral homes turn those people away. In the past, Mundt has discounted services, “but as a business, we can’t be a charity,” he said.

“That’s why we needed to set up a charity.”

The support provided by the CSW Foundation would be geared to those who fall between the cracks, said Beth Kayhart, office manager for the Cremation Society of Wisconsin and Stokes, Prock & Mundt Funeral Chapel & Crematory.

When a loved one dies, staff will check to see if the decedent is eligible for the state program, Kayhart said. If the deceased is eligible, staff will provide survivors with information on how to utilize the program.

If the person who passed away isn’t eligible, staff will provide survivors with an application for assistance from the foundation, Kayhart said. Once the application is turned in, the foundation board will approve or deny the request.

If an application is approved, the family will be provided with a voucher they can take to a funeral home of their choice to negotiate the services they desire, Kayhart said. The servicing funeral home would submit the voucher to the foundation for direct payment of the approved amount.

The foundation board has established a cap of $1,500 for assistance, but that could be raised in the future, said Kayhart, who hopes the foundation can begin taking applications in the summer of 2015.

For more information about the Cremation Society of Wisconsin Foundation or to donate to the foundation, go to cswfoundation.org or call the Cremation Society of Wisconsin at 715-834-6411.

For more information about the Wisconsin Funeral and Cemetery Aids Program, go to https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/em/wfcap.htm

Brothers claim grandfather’s cremains after learning they had not been buried — as believed — with grandmother.

For years, Louis “Andy” Arbs thought he had been visiting the final resting place of his late grandparents Louis and Anny Arbs at Oak Grove Cemetery.

Close to two weeks ago, Arbs discovered by reading a Leader-Telegram column that the remains of his grandfather, who died in 1946, were in storage at Stokes, Prock & Mundt Funeral Chapel and Crematory in Altoona and not in the cemetery on Eau Claire’s south side where he thought they were.

And Arbs, of Eau Claire, was angry.

“Grandpa was supposed to be with Grandma,” said Arbs, whose grandmother died in 1960.

When Anny Arbs passed away, her husband’s cremains were to be tucked inside her casket, her grandson said. Randall Mundt, owner of Stokes & Mundt Funeral Chapel and Crematory, bought the former Prock Funeral Home in 2007 and renamed the business Stokes, Prock & Mundt. He also acquired the Cremation Society of Wisconsin — along with several dozen unclaimed cremains, including those of the late Louis Arbs.

Over the years, surviving family members have claimed some, but others have gone unclaimed. Hoping to put the dearly departed to rest, Mundt decided to bury the remaining cremains in his possession in donated land in Trinity Cemetery in Fall Creek.

His plans were detailed in a Nov. 10 newspaper column, which included a list of the 20 people — 13 women and seven men, including Arbs — whose remains were to be buried.

Since the column ran, Mundt and his staff have heard from the families of nine people, said Arnold Zimmerman, a pre-need specialist at the Cremation Society and Stokes, Prock & Mundt, and another woman was claimed by members of her church.

“People are stepping forward and claiming them, and they’re happy to have their loved ones back,” he said.

Because relatives are coming forward, Mundt plans to hold off on burying the unclaimed remains until spring at the latest.

“We’ve got leads on several people we have to follow through on, and that could take some time,” Zimmerman said.

As cremation grows in popularity, it’s not uncommon to have some remains which aren’t claimed for a variety of reasons, according to area funeral officials.

Sometimes, people might not be sure what to do with the remains of their loved ones, so they don’t pick up the cremains, Mundt said earlier this month. Some might not be comfortable with cremation; others simply might not realize their mother, father or other loved one’s remains haven’t been retrieved, which seems to be the case with most of the people Zimmerman has talked to.

Regardless of the reason, “our goal is to get these people back to their families,” Zimmerman said.

Mundt — who purchased R.H. Stokes & Sons in 1987 — isn’t sure what happened in the late Louis

Arbs’ case.

Seeing his late grandfather’s name in the newspaper, Andy Arbs went to Stokes, Prock & Mundt to see why his grandfather had never been buried and why no one attempted to contact him to return the ashes.

“There’s been a Louis Arbs in the phone book (for decades),” said Arbs, including himself. (His late father’s name was Louis Arbs Jr.

Other than his name and date of death, Mundt had no other records pertaining to Louis Arbs Sr.or his surviving family members.

“I feel absolutely terrible about this,” he said.

Hoping to rectify the situation, Mundt has offered to make it right by following through with Louis and Anny Arbs’ final wishes to be together.

“I know he inherited the problem,” Andy Arbs said, “but there was a mistake made, and it needs to be

Fixed. “The bottom line is I want to know where (my grandfather) is,” he said.

Even though a funeral home offers to perform the burial, a body of a man with no available next of kin sits in limbo for eight months as a legal debate goes on over who has the authority to release the remains. 

Six strangers carried William D. Merwin to his final resting place on a cool, wet May 22.

The small, solemn graveside service led by the Rev. Rolf Nestingen at Old Orchard Cemetery on Eau Claire’s northwest side came almost eight months after the 66-year old died at Clairemont Nursing and Rehabilitation of natural causes.

“He had no one — at least no one we could find,” said Randall Mundt, owner of Stokes, Prock & Mundt Funeral Chapel and the Cremation Society of Wisconsin, both of Altoona, which arranged the service.  “But we just feel that everyone deserves a dignified burial. That’s what we do.”

That said, “This guy should have been buried a long time ago,” said Mundt, who hired an attorney in an attempt to locate the man’s next of kin and sought a court order to release his body, so it could be buried.

Eau Claire County Judge Paul Lenz issued an order Dec. 14 directing the medical examiner’s office to release the body for burial and authorizing the funeral home, which had been in possession of Merwin’s remains since his death, to perform the service.

However, the body wasn’t released until earlier this month. “This case specifically became prolonged  because some assumptions were made,” said county Medical Examiner Tom Thelen, noting it’s uncommon to have an unclaimed body in limbo for this long.

Trying ‘to do the right thing’

Just prior to his Sept. 28 death, Merwin was found to be incompetent, and a guardian was appointed for him, according to Eau Claire County probate records. Before he died, Merwin told the guardian he wanted to be cremated, Mundt said.

When he died, Clairemont staff contacted the Cremation Society of Wisconsin, Mundt said, and his staff picked up Merwin. “Usually when someone dies, it’s somebody at the institution who calls us, not the family,” Mundt said. “We acted in good faith.”

Thelen agreed. “I don’t think anyone did anything intentionally,” he said. “We live in a community where people try to do the right thing, and sometimes things come into conflict with the law and procedure.”

Searching for kin

Mundt hired Altoona attorney Mary Beth Gardner to try and find the man’s surviving relatives.

According to probate records: Gardner contacted the Eau Claire County’s corporation counsel office on Oct. 1, seeking guidance on how to proceed. She was directed to the medical examiner’s office, which directed her back to corporation counsel.

Gardner sent a letter to then-District Attorney Brian Wright on Oct. 23, explaining little was known about Merwin’s history, and she was exploring two possible avenues to locate his next of kin.

In her reading of state statutes concerning the death of a person whose body is unclaimed, Gardner said she believed she could get an order for the medical examiner to “cause the body to be decently buried or cremated” if Wright’s office determined that no inquest into Merwin’s death was necessary.

In a response issued by Wright the next day, he said he was of the opinion no inquest was necessary. Gardner included a copy of that letter in one she sent to Thelen on Oct. 26, telling him she thought state law now allows him to release Merwin’s body for burial.

Since he was on medical assistance, there were funds available to bury him, and the funeral home had identified a burial plot in Fall Creek, Gardner wrote. She went on to say she hadn’t heard from agencies she had contacted in her efforts to local Merwin’s family.

“I am suggesting that Stokes, Prock & Mundt be given permission to bury Mr. Merwin,” she wrote. “If any family is located, they can determine if that will be Mr. Merwin’s final resting place.”

Search hits dead end

Through her efforts, Gardner later was able to verify Merwin had been born in Pittsburgh and learned his parents’ names. However, she was unable to locate any surviving family members, according to probate records.

In an affidavit filed Dec. 10, Gardner said no action had been taken by the medical examiner’s office to release Merwin’s body, and the remains continued to be in the funeral home’s possession. “Since the district attorney has determined that no inquest is required into Mr. Merwin’s death and the circuit judge has not ordered an inquest ... I believe the medical examiner has the authority to cause the body of Mr. Merwin to be decently buried or cremated ...” she wrote

Gardner had a conversation with Thelen on Dec. 6, and he told her in the past, once an order had been issued by the court, he would put a burial out to bid, according to the affidavit. However, she requested Stokes, Prock & Mundt be allowed to bury Merwin because it had identified a place for burial and funds for burial, and put forth an effort to identify his family and conform with state law.

“It was kind of frustrating,” Gardner said.  “Nobody really wanted to deal with this.”

Unnecessary delays

In recent years, the medical examiner’s office sees about four unclaimed bodies each year, Thelen said. Some are estranged from their families while others have no families. Sometimes, the person can’t be identified.

In cases where a positive identification is made, but there appears to be no family, an exhaustive search is done to find the next of kin, which can take time, he said. If no one can be found, his office then seeks bids to cremate the body.

It’s important to take care of unclaimed persons, but his office has to follow the law and procedures, Thelen said.

In Merwin’s case, Gardner believes there were unnecessary delays. “It seemed like each time we’d take one step forward we’d take three steps back,” she said.

Two longtime area funeral homes — Stokes & Mundt and Prock — have become one.

Randy Mundt, owner of Stokes & Mundt Funeral Chapels & Crematory, bought the stock in Prock Funeral Home, meaning he gets the use of the name, the pre-arrangement files and two employees, Daniel Baltramonas and Brenda Prorok. He also acquired the Cremation Society of Wisconsin.

“Our industry has been doing this for years,” said Mundt, a licensed funeral director/embalmer since 1973. “The more business you can run out of one facility, the more cost efficient you’re going to be.”

Mundt renamed the business Stokes, Prock and Mundt Funeral Chapels & Crematory, which continues to be run out of the Altoona facility, listing the names in order of the age of each in the funeral business. The name change took effect Jan. 1.

Even though no members of the Prock or Stokes families are involved any longer, their names are key, Mundt said.

“It’s our connection with the past,” he said. “It shows continuity. There’s never been an interruption of service since 1904. There aren’t a lot of businesses that have that stability.”

R.H. Stokes & Sons, founded by Robert Stokes, started in 1904. His sons Vernon and Wallace joined the business and later his grandson Donald, Vernon’s son, followed in his footsteps.

Mundt was hired in 1985 to manage the funeral home, which also once operated an ambulance. He bought it in September 1987 and added his name.

He moved the chapel from Eau Claire to a new building in Altoona, which includes a crematory, in 2001, and he later closed the Stokes’ funeral home in Fall Creek.

Mundt’s step-son, Erich Roeseler, has been an intern at the funeral home for more than three years.

Martin Prock and his son, Mike, established Prock Funeral Home in Eau Claire in 1944, and Mike later sold the business to Mark and Kevin Waterston in the early 1990s after 50 years.

“The transition, I think, is going very well,” Mundt said, more than three months into the new venture. “I’d like Mike Prock ... to know that I’m taking good care of the families.”

The new business “certainly seems to be working,” Prock said. “Randy is doing good business.”

Stokes, Prock & Mundt has seen an increase in business, but Mundt isn’t sure how much can be attributed to his acquisition of Prock Funeral Home and the Cremation Society of Wisconsin.

Growing up in Milwaukee, Mundt was exposed to the funeral service by his uncle, William Van Taay, an attorney and law professor who used to take him to visitations and funerals.

Van Taay died when Mundt was about 17, and Mundt was involved in the planning of his funeral.

“That’s when I kind of decided I should think about ... either a career in the medical field or funeral service,” Mundt said.

“The funeral service is all about people, and I kind of inherited his loquaciousness,” Mundt said of his uncle. “He loved to talk to people.”

But Van Taay never really got over the loss of his mother, Mundt recalled.

“I’d say he grieved for her probably the rest of his life, and when you see how grief impacts people, it really makes a big impression on you. A lot of what we do is help people cope with their grief.”