By Matt Kroschel

MONTROSE, Colo. (CBS4) – Unclaimed cremated remains have been discovered in the basement of a historic funeral home on the Western Slope. The remains were found in containers ranging from pickle jars to expensive urns.

Now the new owners of the business are trying to find relatives to claim the remains.

“It’s a black eye to the industry. Nine out of 10 funeral homes do everything by the book, are professional and trustworthy and really care about their clients,” said Rose Memorial Parlour owner Matt Boyle.

The owners of the Rose Memorial Parlour, who are leasing a historic funeral home property, are trying to locate relatives of more than 100 cremated remains.

The containers were found in the basement of their building on South Second Street in Montrose as the new owners prepared for a building remodel.

“Some of them were in pickle jars. Some were in nice urns,” said Boyle. “This is an urn and it has cremated remains in it. Somebody bought this scattering urn and probably instructed the funeral home to scatter them and they just never did. That’s the sad part.”

Boyle told CBS4 some of the cremated remains date back as far as 1947.

He said several different funeral homes operated here over the years, and no one before him bothered to deal with all the remains.

Since listing more than 100 of the names they found records for in the local paper about 40 families have showed up to claim remains.

“I would assume that at the point when you close your business down and say, ‘Okay, we’re out of business,’ one of the things associated with that would be either scattering the cremated remains, burying them, or finding the rightful survivor, the next of kin that could receive them. That was never done obviously,” said Boyle.

Any of the remains that are not claimed, will be buried in a public ceremony at the cemetery later this month.

As for criminal wrongdoing, authorities told CBS4 it would be nearly impossible to find out who was responsible for all of it since there were so many different owners over decades.

Matt Kroschel covers news throughout Colorado working from the CBS4 Mountain Newsroom. Send story ideas to mrkroschel@cbs.com and connect with him on Twitter @Matt_Kroschel.