sweet auburn | 2020 volume ii
By Steve Brown Director of Cemetery Services
B elonging to an institution where everyone is unified in purpose and dedication is among the many joys of working at Mount Auburn Cemetery . And this has never been more evident — or more important – than during the past five months . At the onset of COVID-19 , the Cemetery commissioned a Pandemic Preparedness Task Force , made up of management and safety committee leadership , to draft a plan to ensure the health and safety of its workforce and to meet our most critical business functions : cremations and burials . Our chief concerns were to create a safe workspace for Mount Auburn staff and to establish protocols and procedures to guide us .
At the numerous meetings conducted between the difficult months of February and May , it ’ s been truly inspiring to see how this team listened to one another , solicited and heard concerns from staff , and collaborated on an action plan to address the crisis . Led by President Dave Barnett , the Task Force is a great example of top-down cooperation and a genuine concern for our work family .
While much of the region sheltered at home , our office staff , crematory operators , and interment team members all knew this wasn ’ t an option for them . Operational plans were designed and refined to ensure the safety of these groups while continuing to provide essential services to families and local funeral homes . Most importantly , to reduce the threat of cross-infection among these necessary groups , we put schedules in place to separate individuals from one another . As an example , we divided our burial operations into two teams working on different days — each as a self-contained unit with a supervisor , backhoe operator , and helpers — along with a series of back-ups unique to each team . Lacking sufficient dedicated staff members on our interment team to satisfy this arrangement , we relied heavily upon our Horticulture and Preservation & Facilities departments to lend us staff members . This required that several workers be reassigned to interment operations for weeks to months — a genuine example of our staff unified in purpose .
Our Crematory , in all its history , has never been busier than it was in the months of March through June of 2020 . Local funeral directors , who were themselves nearly overwhelmed at the peak of COVID mortality in the area , were delivering the dead to the Crematory every day of the week . Our Crematory Manager , Joe Bancewicz , bore the brunt of the workload , working steadily through long , intense , and emotionally charged days . Back-up crematory operators Al Parker ( Security ) and Roy Hawes ( Interment Supervisor ) worked a second shift or weekend hours for several weeks to keep up with the demand , in addition to performing their normal work duties . The Cemetery ’ s recent investment in two new cremators to replace antiquated and inefficient equipment spared us from certain overload as we pushed the state-of-the-art equipment much further than anyone had anticipated .
Now , a few months beyond the cruel spring , with an uncertain future on the horizon , it ’ s important to recognize the collective effort made by so many to meet the unknown challenges of this pandemic . The days were long and the work taxing , but in the end , this team got the job done and will continue to do so , come what may . It ’ s been nothing short of inspiring to see the selfless dedication of our staff when it comes to helping those most in need at their hour of trauma and sorrow .
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