Montgomery County Burial Allowance, Headstone Base and Flagholders

The duties are the State's, under 16 Pa.C.S. Chapter 155; see the Pennsylvania entry on county burial and grave benefits. Montgomery County carries them out through the Office of Veteran Services. The allowance. The county says it grants $100 "to defray the costs of funeral expenses and headstones or headstone foundations" for wartime veterans who served on active duty and their widows, who lived in the county at death and have been buried or interred. Reserve and National Guard members who deployed on active duty qualify; active duty for training does not count. The statutory minimum is $75 toward the funeral (section 15509) and $75 toward a spouse's (section 15510), so Montgomery pays more than it must. The headstone base is a separate duty. Section 15513 has the county provide a concrete or granite base for a free federal headstone, or the lettering on an existing family memorial, at actual cost, and the commissioners must approve the application before the work starts. The county page folds the base into the $100; a family whose base costs more should ask the office to apply under section 15513 before ordering it. How to apply. On the county's online form for a veteran or for a widow or widower, with the DD-214, the death certificate and the paid funeral bill, and the exact grave location (cemetery, section, range and plot). Forms can be mailed, emailed or dropped off. Three things the page leaves out. The application must be made within one year of the death (sections 15509 and 15510), except for a service member who died in service. The county need not wait for a paid bill: section 15511 pays the funeral director, with notice to the applicant, when the bill is unpaid. And the spouse's allowance goes to a widow or widower who had not remarried after the veteran's death; the page's "widows" is the old wording. Flagholders and flags. The office gives bronze-like flagholders, which show war or branch of service and hold the Memorial Day flag, free to a family member, friend or veterans' organization for an eligible veteran's grave, on its form with the DD-214, death certificate and grave location; call 610-213-4022 to pick one up in Norristown. For Memorial Day 2026 the commissioners bought 67,104 flags at 84.5 cents each for the grave decoration section 15522 requires. A family may keep the flag after the first working day after Veterans Day. Stealing a grave marker is a crime, and the county asks that threats to markers be reported to the Sheriff. The burial flag that drapes the casket is federal and comes from the post office, with the discharge papers and death certificate; the county asks families to go at least five days ahead and to call the office if the post office has none.