FAQS

Memorial Mortuaries and Cemeteries has a team of dedicated professionals available 24-hours a day to assist your family with questions or concerns weighing upon your heart and mind. If you are expecting the loss of a loved one or your loved one has just passed away, we understand the feelings you are experiencing may be very overwhelming. We invite your family to give us a call. Our team is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  From there our staff can immediately offer our guidance and expertise. Our goal is to ensure your family receives the greatest comfort and direction needed.

Yes. Pre-arranging your funeral and cemetery services provides your family peace of mind and locks in the price of those goods and services at today’s prices. Each cemetery and funeral home has their own unique trusting or insurance requirements and cancellation provisions that will vary. Markers may be manufactured at the time of purchase and stored until time of need, but if the purchaser changes their mind, it could be delivered to the purchaser or to another location. Open and closing cannot be delivered until the time of need and accordingly, will only be refunded at the discretion of the cemetery owner. Funeral home services can be pre-arranged and purchased at any time before death and a variety of funding mechanisms exist to financially secure those services, including insurance and trusts.

Cremations do not differ from burials when it comes to a memorial service. Whether a family chooses a traditional burial (ground interment, mausoleum interment) or a cremation, the family still has the option of having a memorial service. And a memorial service for a cremation is just as important for the healing process as a memorial service with a traditional burial.

Yes. We encourage all families to hold a viewing to provide family members, friends, and members of the community to pay their respects and spend some time with their loved one before cremation or burial. We invite all of our families choosing cremation to follow us in a procession to our facility if they desire. Each family is given the option to be present at the crematorium to witness the placement of their loved one into the facility. Additionally, Memorial’s cremation packages include traditional viewings or private family viewings that allow you to view your loved one before the cremation takes place.

We consult with you in making four essential decisions. First, we help you develop a unique way to say honor and commemorate the life of your loved one through a remembrance event. Second, we assist you in the selection of an appropriate cremation container which is used to enclose your loved one’s remains prior to the cremation. Third, we offer you a selection of urns that will protect the integrity of your loved one’s cremated remains. Fourth, we provide you with the multiple options available for the final disposition of the cremated remains of your loved one. We offer keepsakes which are smaller containers used to house a portion of the remains. Final placement in a cemetery is one of the most popular options chosen by families.

Burial and cremation are the two most common forms of disposition. Click here to learn more about service options with burial and here to learn more about service options with cremation.

The decision of whether to have a funeral service or not is a personal decision you and your family will make together. Our funeral directors will guide you through your options and review with you how funeral services help in the grieving journey. Studies and our experience with families have shown that families that choose to hold a funeral service for their loved one express higher feelings of satisfaction and improved grief outcomes.

The ability to see our deceased loved one in their final resting container helps us acknowledge the reality of death, which is the first crucial step in the grieving process. Holding a remembrance event to honor and remember the lives of our loved ones helps us reflect on the impact their lives had on us. The services also provide a socially acceptable venue to express the intense feelings associated with the loss of a loved one. Additionally, holding a funeral service provides an opportunity for those in the community to join with us in grieving the loss and offering their condolences.

Yes, Memorial provides grief counseling at no charge to anyone in the community. Amanda Nelsen is Memorial’s certified in-house grief counselor. With a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Utah, Amanda has a decade of experience in helping families and children navigate their grief in a healthy way. She provides group counseling, family counseling, and one-on-one counseling sessions, when needed. To learn more about our grief counseling services and how to sign up, click here.

Perpetual care means the preservation, improvement, embellishment, and maintenance, in perpetuity and in a proper manner of lots, plots, tombs, monuments, or enclosure, in a cemetery or of compartments in a columbarium or mausoleum.

In addition to an application license, a cemetery operates under a set of rules and regulations which should be provided to you upon the purchase of a lot, plot, or enclosure in a columbarium or mausoleum. Alternatively, they should be available for inspection at the cemetery. These rules and regulations will provide for such matters as the mandatory use of vaults; size of graves, and hours of business. Because of continuing changes in customs, practices, economic conditions and products, cemeteries usually reserve the right to change rules and regulations from time to time, but are only permitted to do so on a go forward basis.

Vaults are not required by law, but because they keep the ground from settling after burial and make mowing and maintenance easier, cemeteries may have their own policies requiring them as set out in their Rules and Regulations. The majority of cemeteries in Utah require vaults, including Memorial Mortuaries & Cemeteries.

The cemetery will bury the deceased in lots, plots or compartments including spaces for the storage of cremated remains, open and close the lot, plot or compartment, and provide vaults and markers as needed. Typically, the cemetery will also provide a tent, chairs, and sound system for the family to hold a graveside service conducted by the funeral home. Additionally, at Memorial, we offer larger white canopies that can be used for larger services or catering.

Memorial follows a thorough and rigorous cremation safety and security process to ensure peace of mind that your loved one is securely returned to you or interred in the cemetery after the cremation takes place. When we arrive to take your loved one into our care, our professionally trained staff will secure a yellow identification bracelet around the ankle of your loved one. At that point we have a family member, nurse, friend, caretaker, or security staff sign a document stating they have seen us place this identification bracelet on your loved one.

After all funeral arrangements have been made with your funeral director, we will schedule a time for you to come in for what is known as an “identification viewing” where you can spend some time with your loved one before the cremation and acknowledge their identity. At that time in the identification viewing, a green bracelet is placed around their ankle and is signed by a family representative. At the identification viewing, our staff will also attach a metal disk with a unique identifying number to your loved one’s cremation container. This metal disk, along with all our identification bracelets, will be cremated along with your loved one.

Your funeral director will review all the paperwork and submit it to their manager for approval. The manager will then review the paperwork a second time, and double check that the name on the paperwork matches the name on the yellow and green identification bracelets. Once the manager has reviewed everything, he or she will place a blue identification bracelet on your loved one’s ankle. Finally, once your loved one is at our in-house crematory, our crematory operator will review all paperwork and identification bracelets one last time. Once the cremation is complete, our staff will retrieve the cremated remains of your loved one using a state-of-the-art retrieval system. The remains are processed to a uniform size and are placed, along with the metal identification disk that was placed in the cremation container prior to cremation, into the urn selected by your family. The urn is marked and identified with the name of your loved one, the identification number and the name of our funeral home.

Scheduling a funeral service requires proper coordination with the cemetery, religious leaders and other important parties. Prior to scheduling services, we recommend your family speak with one of our funeral directors. They can help you make the best decisions, identify challenges and offer effective solutions that ensure a meaningful service can be provided in a manner that successfully honors the life and legacy of your loved one.

The loss of a loved one is already an emotionally challenging time, especially when passing away from home. Coordinating travel arrangements and services with funeral homes in two different locations can be confusing. Our team of dedicated funeral professionals can assist your family with any transportation logistics required. This includes providing resources and options that can significantly help save your family time and money. Additionally, we will take charge of making sure your loved one arrives home safely and on time for their services.

Death certificates are an important legal document necessary for managing the affairs of your loved one’s estate. During the funeral arrangement conference our funeral director will work with your family and the doctor to secure all information needed for a death certificate.

We will register the death certificate with the local health department and arrange for the death  certificates to be released to the authorized, legal next of kin.

Due to the sensitive information found on a death certificate, we go to great lengths to ensure  that your loved one’s good name is protected at all times. To make good  on our promise we can  only release death certificate information to the authorized legal next of kin.

There are many funeral home providers that offer cremation services, but do not own and operate their own crematory. Choosing a funeral home that does not own their own crematory will require your loved one to be transported to a third party; of which you did not specifically request. The third party affiliated with the funeral home provider you choose is generally a separate entity and your funeral home provider does not have full control over the way they operate their business.

Memorial Mortuaries is committed to serving our families with the highest ethical standards  possible. We have made the decision to invest in owning and operating our own crematory. This  decision allows us to provide confidence and peace of mind for your family. We are able to  properly care for your loved one through the entire cremation process. Your loved one will  never leave our care; our facility is available for inspection and we offer witness cremation  services so that your family can be involved every step of the way.