Two Mysteries & Climate Grief | 4M #204

Welcome to the two-hundred-and-fourth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #204, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

Mystery in the desert

Why would someone dump an estimated 70 to sets of cremated human remains in the Nevada desert? That’s what the Bureau of Land Management is trying to figure out. An anonymous person stumbled upon the piles of ashes in the community of Searchlight, just outside of Las Vegas. Although it’s not illegal for someone to scatter cremains on public lands, it is against the law for a commercial entity to do so. Given the large volume of ashes, the BLM is actively investigating their origins.

A different mystery solved

On a cold December day in 1958, the Martins, a family of five from Portland, Oregon, loaded up their 1954 Ford station wagon and set out on an afternoon drive across the Columbia River Gorge. They were never seen again. A few months later, the bodies of two of the three Martin daughters surfaced on the Columbia River, leading authorities to believe the family’s car plunged into the water near the Cascade Locks. Over the past 66 years, divers have attempted to find evidence of the Martins in the depths of the locks, and earlier this year, their efforts paid off when the remains of what most believed was the Martins’ vehicle were located. Last month, however, the discovery of some of the Martins’ personal items, including shoes and a camera case embossed with Mr. Martin’s name, ended all speculation about how the family met their fate.

Mourning the climate

One of the most popular sessions at last month’s annual Hawaii Conservation Conference wasn’t led by a scientist or environmental expert. It was led by a death doula, who explored attendees’ feelings of grief and loss … over climate change. “I grieve for earth’s species that are slipping through our fingers like water,” wrote one guest when asked by the doula to write down their grief about conservation on a slip of paper.