His death certificate says he is buried at San Joaquin County Hospital, grave no. 1182

When the County Hospital did it's remodeling in 1983 and needed the cemetery grounds for the new county jail complex, the county disinterred all the bodies they could find from their cemetery and were cremated and reburied in Cherokee Memorial Park in Lodi California. He is not on the list for the cemetery. But I located him. Following is the info I received:


Thank you for inquiry; it was referred to us from our Community Development Department.
Our Capital Projects Division facilitated the relocation of the County Hospital Cemetery in 1989. With the copy of the death certificate that you provided, I was able to research those records.
Although we were unable to connect a name to the remains located in plot 1182, I can tell you that the remains located within plot 1182 were disinterred, cremated, placed into Urn #9964 and buried at Cherokee Memorial Cemetery in Lodi, California (www.cherokeememorial.com).
The reason we were unable to connect a name to the plot is that some of the records for this very old cemetery were destroyed in a fire and the records that we do have in many cases are not very well documented. This resulted in the processing of a number of unknown remains, as in the case of your great grandfather.

NOTE: His urn is actually 9969, per second email from Ellen Aquaro -- "Attached is a copy of the page out of the contractor's log that identifies the plot number for your grandfather. I am so glad you pursued this. The penmanship of the writer misled me to give you urn #9964. After a second look, I see that the cremation tag numbers run sequentially, which means the correct urn number for plot 1182 is #9969. I am very sorry I didn't get this right for you the first time. "

Contacted Cherokee Memorial Park, and got this email. Still working on getting him "recognized"

Dear Ms. McCulley,

I'm very gratified by your interest in your great-grandfather's interment site.

To attempt to answer your questions.

When San Joaquin County engaged us to perform the cremation, interment and
memorialization of the remains recovered from the County Hospital Cemetery site,
we were given covered boxes of remains to cremate. We placed a stainless steel
number disk in the cremation chamber; after cremation, the remains were
processed, and put into a plastic bag, along with the stainless steel disk.
These plastic urns were then placed into a concrete chamber, covered with
concrete, with turf later completing the project. After the project was
complete, a large bronze plaque was cast, with all the available names cast into
the plaque.

As we were always acting on instructions from the county, as well as with
information provided by the county, we don't feel comfortable making changes to
records, without their instructions to do so.

If we felt able to act without county instructions, which we DO NOT, we would
need to see the evidence that leads to your conclusion that the remains in Urn
#9964 are those of your great grandfather. We'd also need your permission,
notarized, to make the change in the records. As the memorialization is a very
large, very expensive bronze casting, I don't believe it would be possible to
have his name on the memorialization.

As we feel that we must have county authorization, in writing, to do anything
further, I suggest that you make contact with them. For your information, our
records indicate that Urn # 9964 is interred in Garden of Trees, Block 6403,
Space 5.

Wishing you good success.


J. Charles Irwin, President