Dead mum's world tour

Ross Anderson succeeded in sending his mother's ashes to 250 cities worldwide

A 78-year-old woman, whose health problems meant she travelled little while alive, has become a jet setter in death.

Vera Anderson has fulfilled her dying wish to tour the world after her son Ross arranged to send her ashes to more than 250 cities worldwide.

There are so many people in so many places who have put her ashes places that she'd love

Ross Anderson

It included 50 states in the United States and 191 countries.

Total strangers have taken her wishes to heart, organising burial ceremonies and simple send-offs in far-off corners of the world.

Vera's ashes have entered the stream in front of the Royal Castle in Stockholm, Sweden. They have toured Thailand, been to Malta, and dusted the snows of both the Earth's poles.

Son Ross Anderson, from Medford, Oregon, said: "There are so many people in so many places who have put her ashes places that she'd love."

Click here to see a map of Vera's world tour

The 53-year-old and his mother had often talked of touring the world before she died.

But Vera's emphysema and heart troubles had kept her dependent on an oxygen tube since her 30s.

"We'd arrange trips for her, get tickets and all kinds of things for her," Ross said. "Then it would be time to go, and she just couldn't do it."

She lived most of her life in Idaho Falls, Idaho, before living for six years in Medford during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

We have fulfilled your wish as for last will of your mother...

Vasyl G Mukhin, Ukrainian State Enterprise of Posts

She then moved to Denver to live with one of Ross's brothers, and that is where she died on 6 January.

Family members had her body cremated after loading her casket with letters of tribute, her favourite Teddy bear, pictures of her old pets and a one dollar Oregon Lottery scratch-off ticket "for good luck on the trip" Anderson said.

Half the ashes went to family members for a ceremony, and Anderson took the rest.

Guardian angel

He packaged them in sealed plastic bags, added a note asking its reader to find a nice place for the ashes, and sent them to the head postmaster in the main post offices of the capitals of all 50 states as well as capitals of every country.

Soon people began sending back pictures and letters detailing what they had done with the ashes.

The Aymara Indians held a burial ceremony for them at Lake Titicaca in the Andes. And a nun at a South American orphanage now considers Vera Anderson her guardian angel.

The ashes were sprinkled along the Choo Praya River in Thailand, on the Alabama state capitol grounds in Montgomery and within sight of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

"We have fulfilled your wish as for last will of your mother..." wrote Vasyl G Mukhin, the director general of the Ukrainian State Enterprise of Posts. "Accept our condolences concerning your bereavement."

Mr Anderson said his mother's ashes have been treated with respect and love by the strangers who received them, and he has asked his seven children to do the same for him one day.

"It is really quite a nice send-off," he said.

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