Nothing lasts forever. Even headstones, which, for most of us, will be our lasting impression on Earth. Over time, they get discolored and work down by rain and sleet and whatever else mother nature can throw at it. Anyone who’s ever tried to visit an old grave can tell you that the wear and tear of time combined with cemetery record-keeping can leave some graves just… lost.
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Air Force veteran Jason Knapp was never a stranger to cemeteries, having grown up with a father who was both a funeral home director and a coroner. Knapp also lost more than his share of friends and fellow service members over his 22 years of service. Every Memorial Day, he could be found in cemeteries, placing flags on veteran gravesites, but grew increasingly frustrated trying to find them using old, faded, and handwritten lists.
“The stones were deteriorating year by year. I realized we needed to electronically catalogue them before they were lost forever,” Knapp said in a statement.
It was time to bring cemeteries into the digital age, and he was going to do it. He created Memor Cemetery Management, a mobile app for cemetery records. Not only would the app replace decades-old typed records annotated in pen and pencil, it would eventually add photographs or GPS coordinates for each grave.
Knapp can’t be everywhere, of course. The Memor app allows individuals, businesses, and organizations to create digital records of gravesites that include photos and GPS coordinates of the grave, but also allow loved ones to share personal stories and photos of the departed. As more cemeteries adopt Memor, family and friends can visit and add to the memories of their fallen heroes from afar, even if they can never visit in person.
One day Knapp hopes they’ll be able to send flowers to gravesite using the app.
“We want Memor to be the place that everyone uses to honor, remember, tell stories, gather to celebrate, share pictures, and talk about their friends and family who have passed while digitally preserving their final resting place for all to share,” he said.
Memor is not just for family and friends. It’s also for veterans organizations, funeral homes, cemetery associations, and local historical societies.
It’s available now on both iOS and Android.
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