The American Way of Death Revisited (15 page)

To these innovations cemeteries now add a further refinement: the sale of nice, cozy “companion spaces” for occupancy by husband and wife. The advantage to the promoters is that the companions will repose one above the other in a single grave space, dug “double depth,” to use the trade expression. One Los Angeles “lawn-type” cemetery gives this estimate of its land use:

Another, also in Los Angeles, projects 3,177 “plantings” per acre on land used for ground burial.

It must not be thought that this sort of overcrowding is always the most profitable use of cemetery land. As in the conventional real estate transaction, it is more profitable to offer variety, something to suit every purse and give rein to every social aspiration, and cemetery land—like real estate for the living—is priced according to desirability. There are “view lots” and “garden locations” for those who aspire to be housed among the comfortably well-to-do; nice, roomy “memorial estates” for the really rich; crowded, plainer quarters for those accustomed to tract housing. Neighborhoods develop here too along lines of status and prestige, as well as along religious lines; lodges and clubs are represented by sections set aside for Masons, Lions, veterans’ organizations, and the like.

Prevailing prejudices in the land of the living were at one time mirrored in the land of the dead, and racial segregation as practiced on cemetery land paralleled that which prevailed aboveground. As court decisions forced changes aboveground, cemetery segregation fell back accordingly.

The next trend in cemetery development was upward expansion—the community mausoleum. Here indeed was a breakthrough in the space barrier. There may be limits to how deep one can conveniently dig to bury the dead, but when one is building for aboveground entombment, the sky is literally the limit, and ten thousand mausoleum spaces to an acre is a most realistic yield. Referred to disparagingly by cemeterians as “tenement mausoleums,” these are very In and are an enormously lucrative proposition. Structurally and functionally, they lend themselves ideally to the simplest form of block construction, for they consist merely of tier upon tier of cubicles made of reinforced concrete faced with a veneer of marble or
granite. Crypt is stacked upon crypt—six or seven high—two deep, on either side of a visitors’ corridor. The most advantageous size for crypts, we are told, is 32 inches wide, 25 inches high, and 90 inches long.

One large mausoleum construction firm suggests putting a whole acre into crypts, offering the most alluring figures on property potential to be realized from the crypt-filled acre: potential gross sales, $4,308,000; net potential, $2,808,000.

All of the clever planning to extract the maximum use from each acre of land would avail little if the cemetery promoter then had to sit back and wait upon the haphazard whim of the Grim Reaper. With the death rate at its present level, he might have to wait a very long time indeed to begin to realize profit on his investment. This barrier has been brilliantly surmounted by the massive “pre-need” sales campaign, employing squads of telemarketers seeking an invitation to invade the privacy of your home. One of the most successful devices in the history of merchandising, pre-need selling is the key to the runaway growth of the modern cemetery business.

As pre-need sales continue to zoom, it cannot be long before every living American will own a grave, or at least have contracted to pay for one on the installment plan. Perhaps it is this prospect of a saturated market that spurs competing promoters in the race to get there first, to range ever farther in extending their chains of cemeteries to take in even the remotest hamlet. Only this can account for the prodigious rate at which cemetery development and mausoleum construction have been piling up. No community is too small to attract the attention of the promoters:
Concept
cites the case of a town with a population of less than 750 where a successful 288-crypt mausoleum has been established. A mausoleum building firm reported construction of a 336-crypt “indoor-outdoor” mausoleum in Reserve, Louisiana, which at that time had a population of 1,126.

From the point of view of the cemetery promoter, the special attraction of pre-need selling is its self-financing feature. With little or no cash, he acquires an option on some rural acreage and has it zoned for cemetery use. He has a landscape architect supply him with sketches picturing verdant terraces, splashing fountains, tall cypresses and blooming shrubs, and broad avenues converging on an imposing central “feature” (a word used throughout the trade for
“statue”), usually in a religious motif. These can be ordered by catalogue number; popular models are
The Good Shepherd
, Model 221-Z;
Christus
;
The Sermon on the Mount
;
The Last Supper
. He gets plans and drawings of his mausoleum-to-be from one of the national organizations that specialize in this form of construction. He then contracts with a sales organization that makes a specialty of pre-need selling to handle his sales, and he is in business.

The money comes rolling in, and up to this point not a spadeful of dirt has been turned at the Beautiful Memory Garden; not a cement slab has been poured at the site of the Sweet Repose Mausoleum. It is standard practice in this business not to start construction until at least one-third of all the projected burial and crypt space has been sold. Since this amount is far more than will ever be spent on development and construction, the buyers of these little burial spaces will have furnished the promoter, in advance, with all the capital he will need, and a handsome advance profit as well.

It is not as hard as one might think to extract outrageous-sounding prices from the public, because pre-need payments are customarily made in painless installments over a long period of time. The cemetery owner can, after all, afford to offer generous terms. Unlike any other commodity offered for sale on the installment plan, this one remains always in the seller’s possession, and its use may not be called for until many years after it has been paid for in full. “Sunset View’s ‘Before Need’ ownership plan offers the opportunity for purchasing family lots in monthly installments so small that they are hardly noticeable,” says a circular mailed to me by a local cemetery.

Pre-need selling is a costly proposition, and it is the customer, of course, who ultimately foots the bill. The sales organization usually works on a 50 percent commission; the individual salesman gets 20 to 40 percent of the selling price. “In most cemeteries which have pre-arrangement sales programs, four to ten times more is spent for direct selling than is spent for the total cost of planning, development, and landscaping,” complains a cemetery architect.

The major conglomerates, such as SCI, Loewen, and Stewart, are able to circumvent these high costs by advertising for salespeople, “No experience required.” The hungry hopefuls, once enticed, learn that they will be obliged to meet a sales quota set by the company—one easily met by the novices when they sign up their kith and kin,
but impossible to continue once that has been done. It’s a cruel but effective way to market a community at low cost, with no regular employees, no employee benefits.

The “space and bronze deal,” as it is called by the sales specialists, is exciting, heady work. The exuberant buoyancy, the spirit of confidence, the zeal and joie de vivre reflected in the soaring prose of the
American Cemetery
are in marked contrast to the embattled gloom, the righteous martyrdom, that stalks the pages of the undertaker’s trade magazines.

Before the advent of the commercial cemetery, the principal cemetery executive was the superintendent or head groundskeeper. Today, the unassuming fellow who kept up the cemetery grounds has been supplanted in place of first importance by a more dashing breed—a Memorial Counselor, who in this capacity must quickly acquire a few new postures. An executive of the California Interment Association sees the Memorial Counselor as walking a sort of tightrope: “Exploitation of cemetery sales achievements must assume the proper place in the delicate balance of ethical cemetery practices and the natural American drive to achieve the strongest possible business posture.”

Luckily, it takes only about a week for a person to acquire the right amount of sincerity and truth at a school for Memorial Counselors. The trainee is “schooled in the best methods of gaining access into a home. He must be in a problem-solving frame of mind, and must be one who has come to render a service and not one who has come to sell something. During the week he is reviewed constantly on trial closes and answering objections.” At the end of the week the student is presented with his certificate as “Professional Memorial Consultant.”

In a typical sales argument, the idea of inflation is the first concern to plant in the prospect’s mind:

And another:

Why do the customers buy? The aura of genteel respectability conferred by ownership of cemetery property (often the only piece of real estate the prospect will ever own), the wisdom and economy of advance planning for a contingency that must inevitably arise, are powerful arguments. It sounds good, but the “economy” is a myth and the “wisdom” a snare. The customer in the pre-need era pays far more for burial than he would have in pre-pre-need days. Years ago, while there was no pre-need selling, there was a certain amount of pre-need buying (a most important distinction), generally by those solid citizens—staid families of substantial means—who were accustomed, in this as in other matters, to planning in advance. Acquisition of a “family plot” was not a costly transaction; if a family paid $100 for a four-grave plot, it was paying a lot. Single graves ran from $1 to $20. Even today, people who live in communities that have not yet been invaded by the commercial pre-needers can buy from municipal, denominational, or other noncommercial cemeteries burial space either in advance or when death occurs at a fraction of what they would have to pay a commercial solicitor.

Frequently people do not know of the existence in their community of a publicly owned cemetery; and few take the trouble to go there to make advance arrangements. Those who do so are prosaically just buying a grave, whereas the stay-at-homes, who wait for the Memorial Counselor to call, get so much
more
for their money: “Ideally a couple in their early years of married life will benefit by making arrangements at that time, affording them protection and economic benefits when they need it most and often creating a psychological bond that may enrich their marital relationship,” says the Interment Association of America.

The advent of the mausoleum boom added a new dimension to the pre-need sales rhetoric. “Talk Mausoleum!” urged
Concept
; and evaluating the results of a recent direct-mail campaign, it reported, “It was agreed that prestige and horror of ground burial motivated the bulk of replies.”

Mausoleum advertising reaches back into history for its theme—Abraham’s cave, the Pyramids, the tomb of King Mausolus, the Taj Mahal (usually referred to as “the $15,000,000 Taj Mahal”), the “$3,000,000 Lincoln Memorial,” Grant’s Tomb.
Concept
quotes Tressie Johnson of Texas (“she is a volume producer in mausoleum sales; sincerity plays a great part in her success”) on how to make the most of the historical theme. She suggests mentioning the Taj Mahal, Napoleon, Lincoln, Grant, and Lenin: “But what means even more to the family, tell them Jesus was supposed to have been placed in a rock tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea.”

In real life, the brand-new mausoleums mushrooming in communities across the country do not look very much like the Taj Mahal. They look a good deal more like giant egg crates, and the little receptacles have a certain sameness about them—which is not surprising, since they are identical. However, since purchasing power varies from customer to customer, and since those able to pay more should be given every opportunity to do so, distinction and desirability have been conferred on some of the receptacles by the magic of the sales talk.

Like uncounted millions of other Americans, I was visited by a cemetery “Memorial Counselor.” He spread out for my delectation page after page of shiny color representations of rolling lawns, limpid pools, statues of the Good Shepherd, of sundry Apostles; “And here
are some of our special Babyland features,” he announced proudly, producing a folder of statues of toddlers and lambs. On each picture was printed in small letters “Artist’s Conception.”

“Can I go out and see it?” I asked.

“Well, there won’t be anything much to see for a while yet; most of it is still in the planning stage. Here’s how the mausoleum is going to look.” He pulled out a folder showing “Preconstruction Corridor” in pink and gray marble, and “Sunshine Garden—An Innovation in Out-of-doors Memorial Construction” in cream and blue. It was gratifying to note that the brochure advertised “Mausoleum staff to serve you every day of the year from sunrise to sunset,” and particularly comforting (in view of the purpose of the property I was being offered) to learn that one’s crypt would be “Judgement Proof.” From the counselor and his brochures I began to get an inkling of how the pricing is established; how liabilities can be transformed into assets, and economies—convenient for the cemetery promoters—made attractive. The crypts facing the corridor are called “mausoleum crypts.” The ones facing outside, and forming in fact the outside wall of the structure, once less salable and therefore lower in price, are now called “garden crypts”—a stroke of creative genius—and often command even higher prices than the stuffy old indoor ones. “It’s all part of the trend towards outdoor living,” explained the counselor. The pavement of the corridors does not go to waste, either. A crypt below floor level has none of the associations of the bargain basement if it is labeled “Westminster Crypt”—on the contrary, it conjures up flattering thoughts of reposing eternally cheek by jowl with the great and famous. Likewise, the cost of a dividing wall between two crypts can be eliminated if they are advertised as a “True Companion Crypt—permits husband and wife to be entombed in a single chamber without any dividing wall to separate them. Here, husband and wife may truly be ‘Together Forever.’ ”