The American Way of Death Revisited (7 page)

The situation that generally obtains in the funeral transaction was summed up by former Surrogate Court Judge Fowler of New York in passing upon the reasonableness of a bill which had come before him: “One of the practical difficulties in such proceedings is that contracts
for funerals are ordinarily made by persons differently situated. On the one side is generally a person greatly agitated or overwhelmed by vain regrets or deep sorrow, and on the other side persons whose business it is to minister to the dead for profit. One side is, therefore, often unbusiness-like, vague and forgetful, while the other is ordinarily alert, knowing and careful.”

There are people, however, who know their own minds perfectly well and who approach the purchase of a funeral much as they would any other transaction. They are, by the nature of things, very much in the minority. Most frequently they are not in the immediate family of the deceased but are friends or representatives of the family. Their experiences are interesting because to some extent they throw into relief the irrational quality of the funeral transaction.

In 1961 Mr. Rufus Rhoades, a retired manufacturer of San Rafael, California, was charged with arranging for the cremation of a ninety-two-year-old friend who died in a rest home. He telephoned the crematorium and was quoted the price of $75 for cremation, plus $15 for shipping the ashes to Santa Monica, where his friend’s family had cemetery space. He suggested hiring an ambulance to pick up the body, but this idea was quickly vetoed by the crematorium. He was told that he would have to deal through an undertaker, that the body could not be touched by anyone but a licensed funeral director, that a “container” would have to be provided. This he was unaware of; and no wonder, for these were “regulations” of the crematorium, not requirements of California law.

Mr. Rhoades looked in the San Rafael telephone directory and found five funeral establishments listed. He picked one at random, called, and was told that under no circumstances could price be discussed over the telephone, as it was “too private a matter”; that he should come down to the funeral home. There he found that the cheapest price, including “a low-priced casket and the complete services,” was $480. Mr. Rhoades protested that he did not want the complete services, that there was to be no embalming, that he did not want to see the coffin. He merely wanted the body removed from the rest home and taken to the crematorium, some five miles away. Balking at the $480, Mr. Rhoades returned home and telephoned the other four funeral establishments. The lowest quotation he could obtain was $250.

Not unnaturally, Mr. Rhoades felt that he had paid a fee of $50 a mile to have his friend’s body moved from the rest home to the crematorium. The undertaker no doubt felt, for his part, that he had furnished a service at well below his “break-even” point, or, in his own terminology, “below the cost at which we are fully compensated.”
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The point of view of the funeral director must here be explored. In 1962 I talked with Mr. Robert MacNeur, owner of a Grant Miller Mortuary, the largest funeral establishment in the Oakland area, with a volume of one thousand funerals a year. Their cheapest offering at the time was the standard service with redwood casket, at $485. “My firm has never knowingly subjected a person to financial hardship,” Mr. MacNeur declared. “We will render a complete funeral service for nothing if the circumstances warrant it. The service is just the same at no charge as it is for a $1,000 funeral.” Mr. MacNeur produced a copy of the “Grant Miller Co-operative Plan,” in which this philosophy was spelled out.

There followed a descending price scale, culminating in “$0 for persons in Distress Circumstances.”

A recent inquiry as to the availability of the plan produced a puzzled response: “We have no such plan, never heard of it.” The redwood box, which many today would find attractive, is available now only as a “rental unit,” at $795 for one to two days’ occupancy. Today’s low-cost receptacle is a pine box, listed on the Grant Miller casket price list at $2,425, which brings the minimum cost of a Grant Miller funeral to $3,420.

Service Corporation International (see
chapter 16
, “A Global Village
of the Dead”) has a “no-walk” policy and will do “whatever is necessary” to keep the family from going to a competitor, according to one disaffected employee. But trying to find out what kind of discount is offered and who might qualify is as difficult today as it was with Grant Miller thirty years ago. The rare customer who has the wit and gumption need only stand up and head for the door until the price has dropped to an acceptable level.

The guiding rule in funeral pricing appears to be “from each according to his means,” regardless of the actual wishes of the family. A funeral director in San Francisco says, “If a person drives a Cadillac, why should he have a Pontiac funeral?” The Cadillac symbol figures prominently in the mortician’s thinking. This kind of reasoning is peculiar to the funeral industry. A person can drive up to an expensive restaurant in a Cadillac and can order, rather than the $40 dinner, a $2 cup of tea and he will be served. It is unlikely that the proprietor will point to his elegant furnishings and staff and demand that the Cadillac owner order something more commensurate with his ability to pay so as to help defray the overhead of the restaurant.

There is, however, one major difference between the restaurant transaction and the funeral transaction. It is clear that while the Cadillac owner may return to the restaurant tomorrow with a party of six and order $40 dinners all around, this will not be true of his dealings with the undertaker. In the funeral business it’s strictly one to a customer. Very likely many a funeral director has echoed with heartfelt sincerity the patriotic sentiments of Nathan Hale: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” But if the undertaker fails to move in and strike while the iron is hot, the opportunity is literally lost and gone forever. (The only exception to this is noted by the Clark Grave Vault people, who in their advertisements advance the startling thought: “
DISINTERMENTS—RARE BUT REWARDING
. It needn’t be a problem. It can lead to repeat business.…”)

The funeral industry faces a unique economic situation in that its market is fixed, or inelastic, which leads to practices such as those deplored by Emily Post, that famed arbiter of taste and custom, in the first edition of
Etiquette
, published in 1923:

Evidently, Mrs. Post got a reaction from the undertakers, for in the 1942 edition of
Etiquette
she prefaced her remarks about funerals with this statement: “Because of the criticism of a certain not admirable type of funeral director in the earlier editions of this book, it must at once be said that this was not meant to apply to any of the directors of high reputation, who are consciously considerate not only of the feelings of the family but also of their pocketbooks.” However, she then goes on not only to repeat the offending paragraph but to strengthen it: “The wrong type of director will refuse to give an itemized list of costs, but will, instead, do his best to hypnotize the family into believing that the more expensive the casket, the more elaborate the preparations, the greater the love and honor shown the deceased.” In a later edition, revised in 1955, the offending passage is, without explanation, deleted in its entirety.

“
T
he No. 280 reflects character and station in life. It is superb in styling and provides a formal reflection of successful living.” This is quoted from the catalogue of Practical Burial Footware of Columbus, Ohio, and refers to the Fit-a-Fut Oxford, which comes in patent, calf, tan, or oxblood with lace or goring back. The same firm carries the Ko-Zee, with its “soft, cushioned soles and warm, luxurious slipper comfort, but true shoe smartness.” Just what practical use is made of this footwear is spelled out. Burial footwear demonstrates “consideration and thoughtfulness for the departed.” The closed portion of the casket is opened for the family, who on looking see that “the ensemble is complete although not showing. You will gain their complete confidence and good will.” The women’s lingerie department of Practical Burial Footwear supplies a deluxe package, in black patent box with gold-embossed inscription, of “pantee, vestee,” and nylon hose, “strikingly smart—ultimate in distinction.” Also for the ladies are custom burial gowns, bootees, stole, and bra “for post mortem form restoration,” offered by Lipari Gowns of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Florence Gowns of Cleveland, Ohio, exhibited their line of “streetwear type garments and negligees,” together with something new, a line of “hostess gowns and brunch coats,” at a convention of the National Funeral Directors Association. (However, the devotional set exhibit at the same meeting, put on by Kelco Supplies of
Minneapolis, while it included “The Last Supper,” failed to come through with a “Last Brunch.”)

Casket styles range from classic (that is, the “urn theme”) to Colonial to French provincial to futuristic—the “Transition” casket, styled for the future—surely, something here to please everybody. The patriotic theme comes through very strong, finding its most eloquent expression in the Batesville Casket Company’s “Valley Forge,” designed to reflect the rugged, strong, soldierlike qualities associated with that historic theme.… “Its charm lies in the warm beauty of the natural grain and finish of finest maple hardwoods. A casket designed indeed for a soldier—one that symbolizes the solid, dependable, courageous American ideals so bravely tested at Valley Forge.” For all its soldierlike qualities, it looks most comfortable, with its nice beige linen pillow and sheets. On the wall behind it hangs a portrait of George Washington, who is looking, as usual, rather displeased.

For the less rugged, the bon vivant who dreams of rubbing shoulders with the international smart set, the gay dog who would risk all on the turn of a card, there is the “Monaco,” a Duraseal metal unit “with Sea Mist Polished Finish, interior richly lined in 600 Aqua Supreme velvet, magnificently quilted and shirred, with matching jumbo bolster and coverlet.” Set against a romantic background depicting a brilliant Riviera sky, its allure heightened by suggestions of tropical ferns and a golden harp, this model can be had for not much more than a first-class airfare to Monte Carlo.

And for the homebody who is neither rugged nor daring, but is interested in solid comfort, medium-priced metal caskets are now equipped with the “Beautyrama Adjustable Soft-Foam Bed. Quality mattress fabric is used and height and adjustment is accomplished by patented means which eliminate cranking. Modified during a year of product development, the bed is soft and buoyant, but will hold firm without slipping.”

Well, there is a great deal more to it. The observer, confronted for the first time by the treasures and artifacts of this unfamiliar world, may well feel something akin to the astonishment of Bernal Díaz del Castillo at his first glimpse of the hitherto undiscovered court of Montezuma: “We were amazed,” he declared, “and some of the soldiers even asked whether the things we saw were not a dream.”

And not to be outdone in trendiness, Doric offers “a feminine alternative in burial vaults … products with soft rose and white exterior finishes in a range of prices to suit every family’s needs.” Top of the line is the Rose Patrician, with “all matching carapace with a formed rose emblem and nameplate.”

Then there is Brocatelle, one of the Batesville Casket Company’s decorator fabrics, “hand-loomed in the traditional European manner, custom designed, typical of the rich heavy-figured fabrics used by royalty during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These fabrics are color oriented with sculptured panels of complementary hues, an interpretation of the finest art and sculpture, usually found only in the world’s leading decorator houses.”

The burial vault is a relative newcomer in funeral wares. As late as 1915, it was used in only 5 to 10 percent of all funerals—a far cry from today’s proud slogan of a leading vault manufacturer, “A Wilbert Burial Vault Every Minute” (based, a footnote tells us, on an eight-hour workday). Since the word “vault” may connote to the uninitiated a burial chamber, a word of explanation is in order. The vault we are describing here is designed as an outer receptacle to protect the casket and its contents from the elements during their eternal sojourn in the grave. Vaults are made of a variety of materials; they may be of concrete, pre-asphalt-lined; of aluminum; of a copper, asphalt, and concrete mixture; of fiberglass. In any case, a good vault is a “symbolic expression of affection.” They are getting more beautiful by the year, may be had in a variety of colors including polished stripes, and are frequently decorated with all sorts of lovely things—foreverness symbols like trees of life or setting suns—leading one to speculate as to whether the time may not be ripe for the introduction of a sur- or super- or supra-vault, and so on and on, like those little wooden eggs-within-eggs we used to find in our Christmas stockings.