I did not notice that until you said that, but i disagree, thats seems like a way to bend those rails. I have specific aluminum boards that go under that vault myself.

We use iron pipes to put the vault over the grave

The snow isn''t the only problem. Here in NW Wisconsin we may have a foot of frozen ground to get through too. Winter burials can be very difficult.

The usual explanation is that people are buried in a coffin, in the old days mostly made of wood, and eventually the coffin would rot out and the ground above cave in and require ongoing maintenance to fill in the ground depression left. With cremations they are not required. I think with a burial without a coffin (or casket) there would not as much of a problem. Old cemeteries are often found by the rows of depressions in the soil above. Also, some coffins are not built strong enough to hold the earth load above them and will collapse almost right after the burial. It also became a status symbol to have a fancy coffin and then put it in a sealed container so it would preserve it. And finally, embalmed bodies put in a vault do not pollute the earth around them with the embalming chemicals (says one vault seller).

Protect water supplies.

@@RiverRoadRambler Here in Finland gasget made on wood and we not made any embalming. And that is very good way to do it, not xxx year old bodies on graves.

Some areas flood.

Most cemeterys require vaults and do not allow a direct burial which is why most people do. Because say you want to be buried here and thats their rule you will follow which is 90 percent of the time the case.

The vault is completely made out of concrete including the bottom. Inside of it is a casket made from either wood or metal of some combination. The burials are the box inside the concrete vault.

The Dakota Ramblers -- a local group from the 1940s in MN and WI. Hank Holland and Albert Winterbauer. They made a few records and were on local barn dance radio shows and at county fairs and other local events. Hank paired up with a neighbor of ours from St Croix Falls, WI in the 40s - 60s and were on the local singing entertaining circuit. I did a video on them kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fc5zjaSJzriZYYk.html

@@RiverRoadRambler Ok thanks! I live in St Paul. I was wondering how heavy a vault really is?

@@franktillman295 A concrete vault weighs about a ton.

@@RiverRoadRambler Ok thanks!

I chose a recording from two local musicians from the 1940s and 1950s. They called themselves the Dakota Ramblers, from Minnesota in the Twin Cities. Albert Winterbauer (Happy Al) and Hank Holland began the group. Hank married Thelma Bergstrom and they became "Hank and Thelma" and were somewhat locally famous in the midwest as a singing duo on radio, TV and at events. Hank and Thelma are buried in this cemetery not too far from where the vault is being placed. Thelma grew up about a mile from the Wolf Creek Cemetery shown in this video. I made a short video on Hank and Thelma that you can watch at kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fc5zjaSJzriZYYk.html The songs here were sung by Happy Al and Hank. My idea was to make the music local with a tie to the cemetery. This comes from a CD - country-music-archive.com/country-cds/happy-al-featuring-al-hank-dakota-ramblers