died out of state

my mom lives in kansas, she is 91 years old. Her late husband is buried there and she has a grave plot next to his. She has paid for her plot, funeral, preacher, even the dress she wants a wear. because of her age and health I’am moving her to texas to live with me. She is concerned about getting back to kansas when she dies. My question is how would that be handled? would a funeral place move her body to a different funeral place in another state? could I transport her myself? She wants her funeral to be held in kansas.

The funeral home will arrange to transport the body to the appropriate place as directed by you.

Please know that this will cost you extra – there’s always extra expenses to something like this and there’s no way you can totally prepay for everything.

I doubt they’d let you transport her yourself – it would be between the funeral home of your choice in your home town and the funeral home in Kansas.

You can inquire of a local funeral home about transport costs. They won’t think it an unusual question. If you have limited funds or expect to when the time comes, tell them so, and that way they’ll know that if flying costs more but you are aware that ground transportation takes longer, you have your options.

Just had some personal experience in this, my better half’s stepdad died in Texas just last week and had his plot paid for here in California. If I understood her mother correctly, it ended up costing about $4000 to transport him here via airplane.

Funeral homes do this routinely. They move coffins as routinely as airlines move luggage, and in the same planes, (with the same familiar attitude, too) .

And ,yes, my family has personal experience with our “luggage” getting lost. We had to delay the funeral at the last minute because, well, grandma was a little late in arriving.

And, oh,yeah, … we had to buy a new coffin, too. Because different states have different regulations about dimensions of cemetery plots-- and grandma’s coffin was 6 inches too wide to fit into the grave she bought 40 years earlier.

Last year when my Mom died and we were making the final arrangements, when came time to pick out the coffin, the gentleman showing them to us mentioned that he also had “slightly used, 2nd hand coffins”. I asked him, what are they repo’s???
He said no, when someone died out of state and the body is shipped, it has to be in a coffin, but upon arrival, it was not uncommon for the family to want a different color or style so they would purchase a new coffin and the funeral home would buy back the first one and resell it at a discount.

A little spritz of Febreze[sup]®[/sup] and you are good to go!

When my dad died, my mum even picked out the coffin and such at the local funeral home in Chicago, and then when we buried him in Minnesota, the local funeral home arranged for the body to be moved, and for the funeral home in Minnesota to purchase what my mother had selected.

You should contact the local funeral home in Kansas and ask if they have any dealings with local funeral homes in your areas, so when your mum’s time comes it’ll be easier.

Also it’s kind of tough to think about but don’t count out the possibility she could out live you. If she’s 91 and in good health, she could live over a hundred and perhaps even out live you, should something unfortunate happen to you.

So you want to get everything as set up as possible for her.

I volunteer at a retirement home and I’ve seen children of some very old people die before their folks do

Marshall Dodge told a story about “Great Aunt Mehetabel”, who died out of state. They made arrangements to have her body shipped home. Once the coffin arrived, the family hurried to make all the funeral arrangements and gather the family from all over. Just before the funeral was about to begin, they took a look in the coffin, and were surprised to find the body of a four-star admiral, in full uniform.

“Making the best of a bad situation, we closed the coffin and buried the admiral, in the hope that Great Aunt Mehetabel would receive a twenty-one gun salute.”

(Marshall Dodge told stories in a rural Maine dialect. Do your best to read the final line in that vein.)

When my mother in law died on a trip to Texas, my wife and her sister tied themselves up in knots because she died in Texas, they wanted the funeral to be back home in Ohio, and the burial was supposed to be in California. I considered the dilemma for a moment and suggested cremation. It was a lot easier to transport a small package of ashes than a body.

Some people have hangups about cremation, but at least ask your mother if she’s considered it as an option.

The fact that I may die before she, has entered my mind. So I’am getting my children ready for that to happen also. I talked to a funeral parlor, they said I could transport the body myself by truck with the legal papers, but it must be embombed to be moved across state line. Body’s are not always transported in a casket. They can be shipped in a special container and trasported by truck, van or by air.

The funeral home should have all of the latest varieties of anti-stink spray.

If she goes with this option you can mail her to Kansas.

Ms Hook who worked for the post office for 29 years just told me you have to mail them registered and it’s priced by weight. She thougt $50 should cover it.

Registered mail is pretty safe, according to Ms Hook, everytime it changes hands someone has to sign for it. She said it’s very rare to have a problem.

Are there any laws about hauling cremains around yourself? I wouldn’t be surprised if you could do it yourself. After all you can take them home and keep them if you want.

You could put the cremated remains in a doubled plastic bag, then doing it again. Pack it all in a USPS flat rate box, up to 70 pounds, it’s a flat rate. Probably no more than $20.00, tops, with insurance.

Don’t you watch the commercials? If it fits, it ships.

the funeral home will do that for you! and yes you can do it yourself, but i dont suggest it. you have got to get permits, and a lot of other thing to do , but most of all you will find it a hard task to handel, i have done it 3 times. you have to be a strong person to do that and when its some one in your family, well you better be at peice with the whole deal. i suggest let the funeral home do!