05/25/2026
May 25, 1994
Final Pit Stop
After his death at age seventy-one, the ashes of World War II Veteran George Swanson are, per his request, scattered in the driver’s seat of his prized 1984 white Corvette in Hempfield County, Pennsylvania. Swanson’s widow, Caroline, transports her husband’s ashes to the cemetery on the seat of her own 1993 Corvette. The ashes are on the driver’s seat as a crane lowers George's Corvette into a seven-by-seven-by-sixteen-foot hole. Caroline says “George always said he lived a fabulous life, and he went out in a fabulous style . . . “You have a lot of people saying they want to take it with them. He took it with him.”
The former Army Sergeant has planned his automobile burial in buying twelve plots at Brush Creek Cemetery, located twenty-five miles east of Pittsburgh, in order to ensure that his beloved Corvette will fit in his grave. After his death, however, the cemetery balks, amid concerns of vandalism and worries that other clients will be offended by the nature of the burial. They relent after weeks of negotiations, but insist that the burial be private, and that the car be drained of fluids to protect the environment.
