Volunteer clergy ensure Nashville’s unclaimed dead are buried with dignity

Northwest of downtown Nashville, Hills of Calvary is one of many local cemeteries. It also happens to be the home of our indigent burials.

Since Aaron Smith is considered abandoned, Metro Social Services pays for his casket and burial. There’s no one to see him off — except for the men who crank his casket into the ground and fill the grave — and a few volunteers, like Reverend Jay Voorhees.

Rev. Voorhees says that even though Smith had no one to claim his body, “no one needs to die alone, no one needs to be alone at their funeral.”

That belief is why Rev. Voorhees is here to see Smith off. He’s part of a new program called “Call The Name.” It’s a small group that shows up at Hills of Calvary anytime someone is at risk of being buried without being acknowledged. Since November, they’ve attended more than 70 burials, including that of three infants.

Rev. Voorhees says there’s not much notice before the burials happen. Sometimes it’s less than a day.

“The burials are usually scheduled on a 15-minute basis,” he says, “and so we do one, they’ll go ahead and fill the grave, and then we’ll move to the next one.”

There can be as many as eight in one morning, Rev. Voorhees says. On this day in May, it’s four.

“We gather today to remember the life of Aaron Smith, our neighbor and resident of our city,” begins volunteer Kendra Estes. “We come today to call out his name, remembering him on behalf of all who knew and loved him. This body. We commit to the ground. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.”

Less than two minutes later, Rev. Voorhees concludes the service with a prayer: “We lift up, today, all who mourn the loss of Aaron Smith. We wish for them comfort and peace and may God’s perpetual life be found in this place. May Aaron’s name never be forgotten. Amen.”

Rev. Voorhees and Estes pay their respects to another man this morning. They join Marty Holloway’s friends and community from The Village at Glencliff — a place for unhoused people to find respite indoors after hospitalization.

Cecelie Eiler sends Holloway off with a poem called For The Discarded:

Consider the lilies behind the supermarket thrown in the dumpster.

And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

And yet, this system has discarded them.

Will it not also throw you away?

But your Heavenly Father provides for you, oh ye of little faith, and lets you find beauty in the dumpster.

Eiler says the poem feels like something Holloway would have shared with her. “He found beauty everywhere,” she says, “and we loved him for it.”

After this service, The Village Programming Coordinator Zoey Caldwell reflects about things Holloway did not get to do before he died. She says he wanted to go to a Miami Dolphins game. A friend had bought tickets, but she says, “it was so cold and wet and rainy and his immune system wasn’t where we wanted it to be.”

So, he didn’t get to go to the game, she says, “but I know that the main thing that he wanted for himself was housing. And so I’m so glad that he lived in The Village with dignity and and a roof over his head.”

This story first aired on This Is Nashville on May 26 as part of an episode about bucket lists. You can find the full episode here.