St. Clair Memorial Gardens serves as county’s only dedicated veteran burial ground
Story by Jackie Romine Walburn
Photos by Graham Hadley
Submitted Photos
When folks at St. Clair Memorial Gardens and Usrey Funeral Home decided to dedicate a section of the cemetery to U.S Armed Forces veterans, owner Steve Perry first consulted with local veterans.
“I actively got together with a group of veterans in town,” Perry says. “We wanted their input, to know what’s important to them.”
The veterans’ group with members who served in Korea, Vietnam and the first Gulf War supported the idea and helped Perry work up rules and regulations for the veterans’ section in Pell City, which opened in 2012.
The rules they decided on are pretty much the same as those used by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ official U.S. veterans cemeteries. The section is for veterans and spouses and dependent children. Official honorable discharge papers – known as DD214 – are required to qualify.
Alabama’s only official U.S. National Cemetery is the Alabama National Cemetery at Montevallo and is one of 148 national veteran cemeteries, 33 soldier lots and monument sites in 42 states, according to the VA.
The idea behind the Pell City veterans’ section was not to take away from Montevallo but to expand on it and to offer a nearby choice for St. Clair-area veterans.
“The vets were all behind the idea and wanted to see it happen,” Perry said. “They liked the idea of the burial ground being closer to home and wanted to make sure things were done right, and we didn’t just throw up a veterans’ section. That’s why we follow the strict rules and regulations.
“We take comfort in knowing that vets had a part in putting this together,” said Perry, whose family has been the funeral home business since 1927, with Usrey’s Funeral Home in Talladega, which is now operated by Perry’s brother Mike. The Pell City location – funeral home and cemetery – were purchased one after the other in 2003 and 2004.
St. Clair Memorial Garden’s veterans’ section is set off from the rest of the 14- acre cemetery by a U.S. flag and large granite markers for each division of the U.S. Armed Forces – the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard. The first burial in the veterans’ section was in 2012 – the wife of one of the veterans Perry consulted early on.
The veterans’ section is laid out in lots of 16 grave spaces for a total of 352 spaces, which are filled in order – not by selection, the same way official veteran cemeteries are filled.
Spaces can be pre-purchased, but purchasers cannot pick the space location. This tradition of going in order, not pre-selected location, is the way the national cemeteries operate, Perry says. Burial spaces for a veteran and a spouse can be together with companion markers.
All honorably discharged veterans of active service are entitled to a free marker, a burial flag and military funeral honors, regardless of where they are buried. Usrey and cemetery officials help veterans apply for these benefits, including the bronze markers used at St. Clair Memorial Cemetery. No large family markers are used in the veterans’ section.
National VA cemeteries provide the burial space and opening and closing at no cost to the veteran’s family, according to www.va.gov. Families are still responsible for funeral home, cremation or other burial costs.
Because the St. Clair cemetery is not associated directly with the VA, spaces in the veterans’ section are purchased, in advance in a pre-purchase or at the time of burial planning.
However, Perry and staff handle the paperwork for veteran families, applying for the free grave marker, which are bronze as all markers are at the St. Clair cemetery. They also help arrange for military funeral honors at the family’s request.
Military funeral honors provided by the VA for qualifying veterans buried at veterans’ cemeteries or elsewhere include a presentation of a U.S. burial flag, folded and presented to the family and the playing of taps, according to www.va.gov. Federal law defines a military funeral honors detail as two or more uniformed military persons, with at least one being a member of the veteran’s parent service of the armed service.
Word is still spreading about Usrey’s services for veterans and the Pell City location’s veterans’ section, Perry says, noting that some veterans and families don’t know about the section just for veterans and others have family burial plots already purchased or family traditions of church cemetery burials.
“We just want veterans and their families to know this is here. We’ve always supported veterans, and this is a tribute to them,” Perry says.
The support takes on a personal meaning to the Perrys, too. Both of their grandfathers were World War II veterans, with the paternal grandfather serving as a paratrooper and the maternal grandfather serving as a medic in World War II, Perry says.
“This is a tribute to their service, too.”
