Cloverdale Funeral Home

Jewett Williams is going home to Maine.Members of the Idaho Patriot Guard Riders, a group that honors fallen U.S. military personnel, will escort the remains through Idaho and hand them off to another chapter in Montana.“It’s a tremendous honor for us to be asked to be part of the escort,” said Dario Bell, state captain for the Patriot Guard Riders. “That’s the ultimate respect we can provide to him.”Williams grew up in Hodgdon, Maine, a small farming town just west of the U.S. border with New Brunswick, Canada, where his parents were raised. In October 1864, at age 21, he enlisted in Company H of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The regiment took part in three battles near Petersburg, Va., in late 1864 and early 1865.It also participated in Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s April 9, 1865, surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse and later marched to Washington, D.C., where a military procession and celebration dubbed the Grand Review of the Armies took place on May 23 and 24, 1865.Monday morning in Salem, the Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs will transfer Williams’ remains to the Oregon chapter of the Patriot Guard Riders. Civil War re-enactors dressed in period 20th Maine uniforms will serve as a color guard.The Idaho riders will take possession of the remains Monday night at the Pilot Travel Center in Ontario, Ore. They will be held overnight, along with a folded American flag, at the Cloverdale Funeral Home, 1200 N. Cloverdale Road.At 7 a.m. Tuesday, a flag line to honor Williams will form outside the funeral home as the remains are loaded for the rest of the trip through Idaho. Veterans and others wishing to pay respects to Williams are invited to attend, said Bell, a veteran of the Vietnam War.Additional stops will take place in Mountain Home, Twin Falls, Pocatello and Idaho Falls. The remains will pass to a Montana group at Monida, Mont., 80 miles north of Idaho Falls, about 3 p.m. Tuesday.The remains are scheduled to arrive in Maine on Aug. 22.“It feels great to finally do jus...

And that mindset was reflected in the funeral homes he managed in California the following decade, which weighed heavily toward traditional burial. The fledgling cremation business, meanwhile, was often given to the youngest employees.“The thought was, ‘It’s just a cremation family,’” Boetticher says. “That was how we managed the process. We didn’t talk through what kind of ceremony they would want. We didn’t focus the kind of energy on it that was often associated with burial.”Boetticher now runs the Cloverdale Funeral Home, Cemetery and Crematory in Boise, Idaho, and since his time in California, the business has completely flipped. More than 60% of Cloverdale’s clients request cremation, evident in the funeral home’s two cremation gardens filled with benches and pedestals and giant granite monoliths, all designed to hold cremated remains. “You have to embrace the consumer,” Boetticher says.Read more: Cremation: The New American Way of DeathLast year, the consumer spoke quite clearly. According to industry figures obtained by TIME, cremation surpassed traditional burial rates for the first time in the U.S., a milestone in the transformation of the $3.3 billion death industry decades in the making. According to the figures TIME reviewed, the Cremation Association of North America projects that in 2015, the cremation rate was almost 49% nationwide compared to the National Funeral Directors Association burial rate estimate of 45%. And both groups expect the trend to continue.“Cremation has become the new tradition,” says Barbara Kemmis, CANA’s executive director. “It’s a seismic shift in the profession.”In 1980, the cremation rate around the U.S. was just under 10%, and the percentage has been shifting toward cremation since. Part of the reason is cost—cremation is often thousands of dollars cheaper than burial because it doesn’t require a casket, embalming, or a cemetery plot. It’s been increasingly accepted by organized religions, including the Catholic Church, which historically opposed the prac...

That’s a wondrous word — based on the Greek word for burial — that means a lover of cemeteries, or, as some might say, a “tombstone tourist.” But after years of study, Habben ranks well beyond tourist. He’s become a self-taught photographer and expert in cemetery lore, history and grave marker symbols. He’s generous with his expertise.Habben regularly leads tours of local cemeteries through Boise Parks and Recreation. He pitched the idea after going on a similar tour in another city and thinking it might be popular in Boise. Parks and Rec staff agreed. Habben, dressed undertaker-style in a dour suit and top hat, gave his first tours at Boise’s historic Morris Hill Cemetery on Halloween in 2014. They quickly filled to capacity.More recently, he has led tours for groups of seniors and students. Habben counts volunteer “park ambassador” among his titles. In that role, he keeps an eye on local cemeteries, looking out for vandalism or other trouble.He has given presentations to genealogy groups and spoken at family history conferences in Idaho and Oregon. He’s also a volunteer tour guide at the Old Pen in Boise, leading tours at the old prison most Mondays at 2:30 p.m.“Simply put, David’s the best,” said Amber Beierle, the site’s visitor services coordinator. “He not only devotes his time, but also his complete dedication to learning and growing beyond the basic information ... He has that rare quality of giving as much as he gets out of his volunteer time ... Amazing man, amazing volunteer.”Habben also teaches a class in cemetery history and symbolism through Boise Community Education four times a year.“If I could get paid for everything I do, I’d be set,” Habben said.Not enough room to say nice things about David! Amber Beierle, visitor services coordinator, Old PenHe relies on a couple of day jobs instead. Habben has been a paramedic for 38 years and is now an on-site reviewer for paramedic accreditation, a job that takes him to communities — and their cemeteries — across the U.S., Canada, Europe an...