Ashes to Auction, Dust to Dust

From The (Waterville, Me.) Morning Sentinel of Oct. 18, 2005:

Auction yields human remains

By LARRY GRARD
Staff Writer

SKOWHEGAN -- A former undertaker, Annie Rooney knew exactly what she was looking at when she opened a Chinese ginger jar she had purchased a year ago, at an auction.

A plastic jar inside the ornate blue jar was filled with something, Rooney already knew, judging by its weight. But it wasn't sand, as she had assumed. No, what Rooney had purchased as part of an auction "box lot" -- a group of odds and ends that auctioneers typically sell in a box -- were human remains.

[snip]

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The second human-remains-auction story of the afternoon. Some days my job is really easy.