Unlike some famous people buried at the cemetery — FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, D.C. “mayor-for-life” Marion Barry — Barnes doesn’t have his own gravestone. He is one of hundreds interred in the past three years at Congressional through what the mortuary trade calls “public disposition” after their bodies went unclaimed.
In an interview, D.C. Chief Medical Examiner Francisco J. Diaz paraphrased 19th century British politician William Gladstone: “The way a society treats its dead is a reflection on how the society treats its living.” At least in theory, according to Buerkle, a relative or loved one could come decades later to claim someone’s remains. They will be there — individually bagged and marked.
Very sad.
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