RITTMAN, OHIO — Here's some closure on a story News 5 has been following since 2019. In August of that year, a North Olmsted funeral home was shut down, leading to the discovery of 40 boxes of human cremains in a storage closet.
We don’t just report the initial story—we follow through to its conclusion. Read and watch our previous reporting on this story below and see more stories that we've followed through on here.
News 5 told you about some of those cremains being identified as veterans last November. Thursday, three of those veterans were finally laid to rest.
Two WWII veterans and one who served in the Korean War were interred at the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery. Once that funeral home was shut down, the cremains were moved to North Olmsted City Hall.
Mayor Nicole Dailey Jones discovered they were still there when she took office last year. The city got to work identifying the remains and finding any next of kin they could. They were left with five sets of cremains and were able to identify three of the unclaimed veterans.
The city is still working to identify the last two. As for the three who were identified, with no one left to lay them to rest, the mayor's office took on the role.
"We would like to thank these service members for their dedication to our country," Dailey Jones said at Thursday's ceremony.
With no one left to claim these veterans, their final farewell was attended by city staffers and representatives from VFW Post 7647.
Barbara Svajhart explained her family's history of military service brought her to the cemetery.
"It means tremendous to us that we make sure that these men or women are properly taken care of," she told News 5.
Though they'd never met these soldiers in life, this group showed up to honor them in death. And after three ceremonies, three renditions of taps, and three flags folded; these veterans can finally rest in peace.
