San Francisco has neglected and mistreated its indigent and unclaimed dead — a pattern that dates back to the city’s founding days.
Sunset View Cemetery in Colma, where San Francisco's indigent and unclaimed dead were buried from 1899 to 1951. Photo from Find a Grave.
From the beginning, San Francisco was forced to keep its indigent dead in mind. During the Gold Rush, many came on their own to San Francisco in search of gold or other fortunes, only to die penniless and a long way from their families. Just a month before the city was founded on April 15, 1850, it opened its first public cemetery, which included a large plot for indigent dead.
Generally, San Francisco awarded the indigent contract to the funeral home with the lowest bid. By 1902, the cost had dropped to $1.48, which theon July 16: “This is one way of translating into a dollar and some cents our boasted respect for the dead.” Earlier that month, theAs prices to bury the city’s indigent dead dropped to the floor, so did the standards of those doing the burying.
Undertaker A. Verkonteren, who held the indigent contract in 1899, was left in a quandary when City Cemetery closed to burials. He’d accumulated about two dozen bodies, but had nowhere to lay them to rest. He noticed an ad for the sale of lots in San Mateo County and bid $750 for two parcels in the Abbey Homestead division in Colma.
Back then, Pacific Internment was getting “about 30 a month from the city,” similar to today’s numbers, according to a May 1992article. “The dead fit no pattern, other than poverty. They are old, young, of all races, from all over town.” Back then, drug overdoses didn’t appear to be a significant cause of death for the unclaimed, but AIDS was, according to the article.
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