Missouri Crematory - The Cremation Apparatus and The Process of Cremation

The Cremation Apparatus and The Process of Cremation

Originally, two retorts were in use by the Missouri Crematory. Of the “Venini” pattern, they were invented by one Giuseppe Venini, who personally came from Italy to the Crematory to oversee their construction and installation.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave the following dissertation of the crematory apparatus, reporting the day Mrs. Terry’s remains were cremated:

“The furnace is a cylinder about three feet in diameter and five feet long. It has grate bars at the bottom and an under draft. Above it is a hopper into which wood is placed, a panel is withdrawn and the wood falls into the cylinder. A fire is started in this cylinder in the usual manner, and it is kept up until the furnace has attained the heat of from 1,200 to 1,400°F. The principal object is to heat the furnace, but the surplus heat is conducted into the oven or retort where the body is to be incinerated. Having gotten the furnace to the required heat the lower door is put up and hermetically sealed with fire clay. Wood is then put into the furnace through the hopper until it is quite full, when the top is also tightly closed. The heated furnace distills the wood, and the gas generated passes into the retort. The fire was started yesterday an hour and a half before the incineration was to begin. When the gas was ready it was lighted in the retort, and instantly the place was filled with a glow of orange flame. The retort was somewhat heated by the preliminary fire but when the gas began to combust, the temperature rapidly rose to the required 2,200°F.”

After the casketed body had been lowered to the crematory room, it was taken to the “Preparing” room, which stood adjacent to the “Incinerating” room. In this room, the body was removed from the casket or coffin and was wrapped in an alum-saturated sheet. The alum-treated sheet prevented the clothing and the body itself from immediately igniting when placed in the furnace. Thus, it allowed proper placement of the remains in the cremation chamber, and allowed the opening of the retort to be sealed properly for maximum combustion.

After the body was wrapped in the alum-treated sheet, it was placed in an iron cradle-like device and conveyed by hoist into the cremation vault or retort. At this time, the process of incineration was begun.

By a process of slow combustion and distillation, a gas was generated from ignited wood in another area of the apparatus (as explained by the Post-Dispatch, above), and this, with an admixture of air, was conducted into the retort in the form of a clear, bright flame at an extremely high temperature.

Again, the Post-Dispatch spoke of the scene within the cremation vault through a portal in the door of the furnace:

"There is an opening in the door of the retort about two inches in diameter, through which the process can be seen. As the decomposition advances the crumbling form is seen, and that is all. The orange flame plays all about the retort, the gases from the body burn, adding other colors to the fiery scene. Soon as the gases cease to arise from the body, the flame is extinguished, and only the Bunsen burners which had been lighted to consume the noxious gases are left burning. These burners are three. Two are set in the points in the retort where there are openings which lead into the chimney. They consist of two pipes, one within the other. The inner pipe contains wood gas, the other pipe contains atmospheric air conducted from outside the building. The flame from these burners consumes all the gases that would escape from the body during incineration, and what gases may escape into the chimney unburned are there met by another Bunsen burner which consumes them.”

The “Venini” pattern afforded the means of consuming all smoke made, as well as all gases formed during the process of incineration. Therefore, at no time could anything, by sight or by smell, be detected issuing from the chimney.

There were later designs in use by the Crematory, as stated below. In a mid-1950s brochure entitled My Heart Grew Rich That Day, which was given out by the Crematory Association, the current process of cremation was described as follows:

“In the beginning, Cremation and its procedure was unquestionably crude and lacked all the refinements of later methods. Today the body is not removed from the casket and both are placed in the crematory chamber, where super-heated chambers leave no ashes, but instead pieces of the limestone bone structure. These are the cremated remains to be placed in a Memorial Urn.”

It is unknown at present writing, how often the retorts’ methods of operation changed or the number of which were employed over time.

While there are two retorts in place at the Crematory, they are not currently utilized. All licenses are purported to be kept current, and the retorts are supposedly kept in working order and ready for use, if needed. At present, any requests for cremation received at the Missouri Crematory are fulfilled by its parent company, The Valhalla Chapel of Memories on St. Charles Rock Road, also in St. Louis.

The two retorts that are in place are fueled by gas and were placed in 1982. In the operation of these furnaces, the deceased was not removed from the casket, and none of the methods previously discussed were employed. Rather, the casketed body was placed directly in the retort, the ash from the casket pulled away by fan – and the body reduced to bone fragments by intense heat and flame – the heat and flame acquired by the ignition of natural gas.