Legacy Matters

Chips Not Ashes

How did this happen? Chips Found in Place of Woman's Ashes

Two daughters have sued a synagogue after they found a potato chip can in place of their mother's remains behind the locked, glass door of her niche in a mausoleum.

When the women visited Vivian Shulman Lieberman's niche in a Houston mausoleum a year ago, they found the cedar chest containing her ashes missing and a can of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips in its place.

The ashes are still missing, said Philip Hilder, an attorney for Lieberman's two daughters.
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In July 2003, Marcelle Lieberman visited the niche. Harriet Mellow visited that fall.

They said they returned to the mausoleum together on their father's birthday, June 10, 2004, and discovered the potato chip can in their mother's niche.

A locksmith opened the niche and Houston police took custody of the can, which still contained potato chips.

"To their added horror," the lawsuit states, "Harriet and Marcelle learned that the can had been visible in the niche for at least six months."