Puzzled by a sentence in an obituary
I read a sentence as below in an obituary in a newspaper:

”Memorial fund in lieu of flowers is at Wells Fargo Bank, Panagiotis Haritoudis Memorial Fund to have his wishes filled to have his body shipped to his Native country to be buried in Labara, Greece."

I guess it is asking people to donate money other than flowers, but does it mean the donated money will be used to cover the cost of shipping his body to Greece? Is this person rich or poor? If he is rich, why he had to ask others to donate to cover the cost of the transportation? If he is poor, how could he have money to put this obituary on the newspaper?

Question

Puzzled by a sentence in an obituary
I read a sentence as below in an obituary in a newspaper:

”Memorial fund in lieu of flowers is at Wells Fargo Bank, Panagiotis Haritoudis Memorial Fund to have his wishes filled to have his body shipped to his Native country to be buried in Labara, Greece."

I guess it is asking people to donate money other than flowers, but does it mean the donated money will be used to cover the cost of shipping his body to Greece? Is this person rich or poor? If he is rich, why he had to ask others to donate to cover the cost of the transportation? If he is poor, how could he have money to put this obituary on the newspaper?

Answer

Yes, Victor, it sounds like the money will be used to help cover the costs of shipping his body. You can't tell from the obituary if he is rich or poor. It's just customary to ask people not to spend money for flowers when the money can be put to better use to support a favorite charity or to help out with funeral costs.

Putting an obituary in the newspaper has traditionally been free, though this practice seems to be changing.

Answer

The money will be used to ship his body to Labara for burial.

We have no idea from this article if he is rich or poor.

He did not put the obituary in the newspaper, relatives or friends did
The cost of an obituary is minimal and a regular feature of newspapers.

Answer

I do think the money is being spent to send his body to Greece like he wanted.

It does not cost a lot to print an obituary.
Shipping a body, on the other hand, is probably extremely expensive. 
So he could be poor or middle class. Either way, I doubt his family has the money to ship his body to Greece.