Read The American Way of Death Revisited Online
Authors: Jessica Mitford
The idea the funeral industry wants to get across is that a memorial service without the body present is a heartless, cold affair, devoid of meaning for the survivors, in which the corpse has been treated as so much garbage. Actually, the character of a memorial service depends entirely upon the wishes of the family involved. It may be a private affair in a home (or in the chapel of the funeral establishment), or a regular church service conducted according to the custom of the particular denomination. The only distinguishing feature of a memorial service is the absence of the corpse and casket.
The memorial societies might have gone on for years, their rate of growth dependent mainly on word-of-mouth advocacy in very limited circles, had it not been for Roul Tunley’s “Can You Afford to Die?” in the June 17, 1961, issue of the
Saturday Evening Post
. This article provided an unlooked-for boost for the tiny memorial associations. With its appearance, the conflict between the funeral industry and the Man of Ordinary Prudence came into the open.
Tunley told the story of the Bay Area Funeral Society, describing its activities in these words: “San Franciscans have lately become witnesses to one of the most bizarre battles in the city’s history—a struggle to undermine the funeral directors, or ‘bier barons,’ and topple the high cost of dying.” He concluded that three choices confront the
average citizen intent on making a simple, inexpensive exit from the world: “(1) You must make strict arrangements in advance for an austere funeral, a plan which may be upset by your survivors; or (2) You must join a co-operative enterprise like the Bay Area Funeral Society; or (3) You must will your body to some institution. If you do none of these things … the final journey will probably be the most expensive ride you’ve ever taken.”
Roul Tunley’s article, though milder in tone and less sharply critical of the undertakers than the one in
Collier’s
, represented—from the point of view of the industry—a far more potent threat, for it dealt with the kind of practical remedial action which people in any community could take. This put the cat among the pigeons. The “bizarre battle” was about to become positively outlandish.
Pandemonium broke loose in the industry, reflected in headlines which appeared in the trade press:
SENTIMENT AND MEMORIALIZATION ARE IN GRAVE DANGER!; MISINFORMATION SPREAD AMONG FIFTEEN MILLION AMERICANS!; LORIMER WOULD DISOWN IT, OR WE’LL ALL HANG SEPARATELY
!; and my favorite, in
Mortuary Management
,
THEY CAN AFFORD TO DIE!
There was at first a strong tendency to panic.
Casket & Sunnyside
editorialized:
There is little doubt that funeral service today, beset by powerful adversaries, will buckle under the strain unless there is united action in a common cause by all groups of funeral directors. If not, funeral service faces the danger of retrogressing to a point which we do not care to contemplate.
And the
American Funeral Director:
Although articles critical of funeral practices have been published many times before in magazines and newspapers, there are aspects to this one which are especially disturbing.… The article is a persuasive sales talk for the memorial societies which today constitute one of the greatest threats to the American ideals of memorialization.
And the President of the NFDA:
… part of an organized move to abolish the American funeral program.
From the cacophony of angry voices, a number of distinct viewpoints could be discerned; differences of opinion emerged as to the essential nature of the threat.
The editor of
Mortuary Management
wrote:
Offhand, it would appear that memorial societies have the one aim of reducing the price of funerals. As you study it, however, you begin to realize that it runs far deeper than price alone.… The leaders in these memorial society movements are not necessarily poor folk who cannot afford a standard funeral. Many of them are educated people. Many are both educated and of substantial means. Their objective is only partly to force lower funeral prices. Equally strong is the desire to change established customs. It can be focused on funerals today and on something else tomorrow. The promulgations of these outfits hint at Communism and its brother-in-arms, atheism.
The point that memorial society advocates are not only, or even perhaps primarily, interested in funeral costs was expanded by Mr. Sydney H. Heathwood, a public relations specialist in the funeral field, credited by the
National Funeral Service Journal
with having, years ago, “originated and developed the ‘Memory Picture’ concept which was adopted by the Joint Business Conference and became familiar to the whole profession.” Mr. Heathwood saw “the continuing growth of
clerical
criticism” as the fundamental problem facing the funeral men, and says that as a consequence of it, “the past few months have marked a gathering storm—more dangerous, I believe, in its potential harm to the whole profession than anything before it of the kind.”
What he found particularly devastating in the
Post
article was the words of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, Unitarian minister and one of the organizers of the Bay Area Funeral Society: “My people are in increasing rebellion against the pagan atmosphere of the modern funeral. It is not so much the cost as the morbid sentimentality of dwelling on the physical remains,” and “[The funeral societies] vowed to work
together for simpler and more dignified funerals which are not a vain and wasteful expense and do not emphasize the mortal and material remains rather than the triumph of the human spirit.” Mr. Heathwood, in an analysis of the article, concludes: “The criticism of modern funerary refinements is not—in essence—against the costs, as such. Rather, the central part of all the criticism is against the actual goods and services which comprise the modern funeral service.” He dismisses as “woolly argument” the charges that “either the critical clergymen are hungry for the funeral director’s fees or their criticism shows that they are halfway communists or fellow-travelers.”
The
National Funeral Service Journal
, too, was concerned that the memorial societies might become trendsetters in funerary matters: “Unchecked in its early stages, this movement could spread to engulf much of the population, for current funeral customs are based largely on the herd instinct—the doing of a thing because all others do it and because it is the accepted thing to do.” And again: “The only thing that will change the custom is for people to become convinced that ‘it is the thing to do.’ This is what must be guarded against; this is what must be prevented.” And again:
The “average” funeral sale is representative of the lowest point or price at which a client can make a selection without feeling cheap in the eyes of relatives or friends. The current average sale … could easily be reduced considerably by the Memorial Society Movement, clergy criticism and other types of so-called reform. If others wear silk, you feel conspicuous in anything less costly; if others wear burlap, you would feel superior in gingham.
The cemeterians, watching from the sidelines, had some comments.
Concept
struck a discordant and unkind note:
While it is not necessary to be in agreement with the extremity of their protests, it seems significant that there are so many people who are protesting the costs of funeral services through these societies. Certainly there must be some reason for discontent and these people must feel that there is injustice in funeral prices. It is important that members of the cemetery industry
realize this before rushing to the defense of the allied burial industries.
Turning the screw a notch, the writer adds, “The cemetery industry has found its answer to high cost through pre-arrangement.”
But has it? Another cemetery writer patiently spelled out for his more complacent colleagues an obvious difficulty for the cemeteries, arising from the tendency of memorial societies to encourage their members to donate their earthly remains to medical science:
What most assuredly results is that the remains are disposed of in a manner other than interment. Consequently, it is axiomatic that these organizations pose a threat to the tradition of earth interment with which our profession is concerned. Memorial associations, therefore, cannot be ignored. I have found, however, that many of my fellow cemeterians are not too concerned over their growth, believing that they may affect others, but never us.
The
American Cemetery
agreed with this appraisal:
Although presently the focal point of their attack is funeral service, the philosophy of the movement is that current American funeral, burial and memorialization practices are largely pagan and wasteful; that they should be greatly simplified; and that regardless of a family’s wealth and social position, only modest expenditures should be made for such purposes. If this point of view were to generally prevail, as well it might if not effectively countered, the future of everyone in this field would most certainly be seriously jeopardized.
So did Mr. Frederick Llewellyn, executive vice president of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, whose speech to the American Cemetery Association was reported in the
American Cemetery:
In discussing this trend he mentioned funeral services with closed caskets and the “please omit flowers” movement. Although these now only directly affect funeral directors, he
said, they will ultimately affect cemeterians as well. Even now, he said, there is a trend toward purchasing fewer large burial estates, less expensive memorials and fewer family mausoleums.
He urged that cemeterians join with funeral directors, florists, and others in the allied memorial fields in educating the general public, including clergymen and newspapermen, regarding the true meaning of memorialization, especially its religious significance.
The debate on how to handle the memorial society problem, what action to take, what stance to assume, reflected some basic differences of approach within the undertaking trade.
Casket & Sunnyside
called repeatedly for united action:
We firmly believe that there is one best way to meet this threat as well as to counter the mushrooming growth of the memorial societies and the actual or threatened religious encroachments on our concept of funeral service. That is through the efforts of a highly skilled public relations firm to conduct an extensive public relations program on a national basis. Thus, purely unselfishly on our part, we have called on all funeral service and trade organizations to join in this common endeavor.
Mortuary Management
advised lying low and saying little:
We think a serious mistake has been made in parading around over the nation the figures of NFDA’s economist, Eugene F. Foran. His average adult funeral service charge has been used for the purpose of telling the public that funerals are not too high. It is fine for the funeral director to possess this information for study but it is dangerous to spread it before the public.… Don’t make the mistake of engaging in public arguments with memorial society representatives on television or radio to defend the present day American funeral program. That’s like shooting craps with the other fellow’s dice.
To the extreme annoyance of NFDA officials, the
Post
article was seized on by insurgents within the industry who had found price advertising and solicitation of prearranged funerals to be profitable.
In defiance of NFDA, some of these rushed into print with advertisements substantially agreeing with the
Post
article, offering “dignified funerals” at low costs and prearrangement programs. “Enemies from within!” cried the NFDA leadership, and a convention speaker, flourishing one of the advertisements, said, “The ad says that prearranging a funeral protects the family against sentimental overspending. Yes, there are funeral directors who go further than the most critical writers when they tell the world through their ads and brochures that the family must be protected against itself during the emotionally difficult funeral period.”
The NFDA’s line was essentially to hold fast, to refuse to have anything to do with the memorial societies, and above all to maintain price levels based on the Foran concept of “overhead per case.” There are others who saw it differently. Mr. Wilber Krieger of National Selected Morticians, while yielding to none in his opposition to the funeral societies, thought that the industry had brought this development on itself by its lack of flexibility in “serving people as they wish to be served” and by its failure to meet a growing demand for prearranged and prefinanced funerals. In an address to the selected ones, he said, “Please don’t go out and start shouting before the world, ‘My cost per funeral is XXX dollars.’ Who cares? More funeral directors do more damage in the public mind by talking all the time about this cost-per-funeral fallacy. Who cares about your costs?… I am greatly disturbed at what I am seeing across the country.…”
If the funeral industry was astir over the
Post
article, no less so were the funeral societies—and particularly the Bay Area Funeral Society. The board members had naturally been pleased that the society was to be the subject of a national magazine article, and had expected there would be some response from readers. But they were completely unprepared for what followed. The headquarters of the society, consisting of a desk and telephone in the building of the Berkeley Consumers Cooperative, was inundated with letters which poured in at the rate of a thousand a week. Volunteer crews were hastily assembled to help with the huge job of answering the letters and processing applications for membership. The editor of
The Saturday Evening Post
reported an equally astonishing flood of letters to the magazine. He commented, “The article seems to have touched a sensitive nerve.” The three members of the Bay Area Society who
were mentioned by name in the
Post
, Dr. Josiah Bartlett, Professor Griswold Morley, and I, received several hundred letters apiece within the first few weeks; more than a year later, letters were still arriving, sometimes apologetically prefaced, “I only just read ‘Can You Afford to Die?’ in an old copy of the
Post
at my barber’s.…”