(La Porte, IN) - An Indianapolis woman whose personal ministry is to give proper respect to the deceased is coming to La Porte County this week.
In 2009 Linda Znachko founded He Knows Your Name, a nonprofit that provides proper burial for unclaimed remains.
Surprisingly, perhaps, it is quite a problem.
Znachko says she has buried 50 infants over the past 15 years. Most of them are miscarried or stillborn in the hospital. But in the past two years, she has buried almost 700 adults. Most of her work has been done in Marion and Hamilton Counties, but she has helped people across the country give a proper burial to a loved one.
According to Znachko, many people assume that unclaimed remains are homeless or unidentified. But in reality, she says often family members simply don’t claim them from hospitals, coroner’s offices, or funeral homes.
Znachko says cremation is up over 60% over the last five years. Often the ashen remains are neglected. “I’m not looking for someone to blame,” she explained, “but I think funeral homes need to do a better job teaching people that when they choose cremation, that is not the final and only decision. The next decision is: who’s picking up? And then the next decision is: now how are we going to lay this person to rest?”
In Znachko’s experience, the task of laying remains to rest sometimes falls through the cracks. She said, “Coroner’s offices are government-run—they don’t have budgets for this kind of thing, generally. And funeral homes are business owners. They don’t want to get sued.”
Znachko works a lot with death, but her message is pro-life. “What I’ve realized is that as we talk about being pro-life, we have to be pro-life from birth to tomb and everything in between," she says. "Whether you die young from a tragedy or old from old age, or you die alone in your apartment, or you die at a nursing home, or with your family, or whatever, there’s a beginning and there’s and end. We celebrate the one, and we celebrate the other.”
Znachko’s ministry gained momentum after an abandoned infant was found dead in an Indianapolis park in 2014. She gave the baby a name, Amelia, and a final resting place. Thanks to legislation and advocacy, Znachko said, “We have not had a deceased baby found in the state of Indiana in nine years since her finding.” Znachko works closely with Safe Haven Baby Boxes, the newest of which was just installed in La Porte. To date, 43 babies have been safely surrendered in a baby box.
Znachko will be sharing her message in La Porte County this week. She’ll be the featured speaker at the Right to Life of Northwest Indiana Spring Gala on Thursday evening at the Heston Event Center.
