The American Way of Death Revisited (4 page)

First of these was a “60 Minutes” documentary dated December 20, 1980, on the subject of the Neptune Society. The video shows Colonel Denning, known as Colonel Cinders (now on his ninth wife, we are told), proclaiming on camera that in eight years he has saved the public $40 million by providing cremations for $400. Much scornful comment from the assemblage, as the rock-bottom minimum offered by Neptune has risen in fifteen years to over $1,000.

Of greater interest was the live demonstration by Dina Ousley, luscious blond president of Dinair Airbrush Systems, of her maquillage as applied to corpses. Dinair offers a range of products to actors on stage or screen, plus a “Fantasy Kit” and “Theme Park & Large Event Systems” with spray makeup in turquoise, black, and white
plus glitter. Their price list offers a large variety of stencils, including stars, whales, skeletons, skulls and crossbones.…

An appreciative audience clustered round as Ms. Ousley deftly sprayed the face of Max Carroll, owner of a Stockton funeral parlor standing in (or rather lying in) for the cadaver. Later, she told me something of her recent successes in progressing from show biz to mortuary work. “I’ve had a wonderful response on the Internet,” she said. “I’ve sold to mortuaries from Ireland to Argentina, and was at the National Funeral Directors Association annual meeting in Florida this year. Rose Hills in Whittier, California, bought three systems. They’re big business—buried a hundred in one day!”

The “Glamour Kit” consists of a compressor, airbrush hose, cleaner, holder, and makeup in a tote case. “It’s the ultimate camouflage, a technique comparable to pointillism in art,” she said. An important feature is its use after the embalmer has completed restorative work on an accident case, in which replacements are used to repair the injured face. “The airbrush can create little frown lines, wrinkles, crow’s-feet, to give a more natural look.”

Once the mortician has acquired the system, which sells for $850, the cost per customer is minimal; the makeup bottles cost $15.75, each containing up to forty applications. “We have a portable system in a little carrying case that can be taken to a church or other site of the funeral.”

Ms. Ousley thinks there would be much less demand for direct cremation if “people didn’t look so dead—if they looked more alive. People choose cremation with no viewing because the body didn’t look good before my method was in use.” She told me that a recent survey showed that 75 percent of mortuary customers are unhappy with the appearance of the deceased. “I want to help them grieve properly. I myself want to look good leaving here! I just think it helps.”

As for my part, I was the last speaker, billed in the program as having had “a profound impact on the changes experienced in postdeath-care services.” Ron Hast told the audience that “she will share her insights about funeral service,” so I shared away, much to the displeasure of some of my listeners.

First, I gave them a rundown on the origins of
The American Way of Death
—how I came to write the book, as described in the introduction
to the present revised volume. Next, I quoted from some of the reviews that appeared when the book was first published: the favorable ones from a dozen mainstream newspapers and magazines, followed by the unforgettable fulminations of the funeral trade press inveighing against “the notorious Jessica Mitford,” “the Mitford blast,” “the Mitford missile.” But the main point, and the reason I had been invited to speak, was a preview of the forthcoming revised
American Way of Death
, based on recent developments in the death industries such as huge price increases, ingenious methods of extracting the maximum from cremation customers, and monopolization of the industry.

After my talk, the first question was, “How much money did you make from
The American Way of Death
?” “Absolute tons,” I answered. “So much I can’t even count it—it made my fortune.” Audible groans from the audience.

There were a few more questions, some about the Federal Trade Commission, some about the anticipated response to the Service Corporation International (SCI) invasion of Britain. In answer to the latter, I tried to explain that I thought it unlikely that the Brits would ever fall for the American way—the idea of people gathering to gaze at a corpse in a coffin wouldn’t catch on. Nor would they embrace the notion of undertakers as grief therapists. The session ended with a short, sharp interchange in which a funeral director refused to tell the assemblage what his exact prices were because, as he explained, he did not wish to divulge this information to his competitors.

Later that day, some of us gathered round the lodge swimming pool for a chat with Tom Fisher. Karen Leonard, my researcher, asked him to elaborate on the point he had made at the meeting about outside forces. “Since you were in the business in 1963, can you talk a bit about the reaction to
The American Way of Death
?” she asked.

In his Dakota Tom mode, Mr. Fisher replied: “I said in my speech that I applaud Jessica Mitford. She did us the greatest favor this industry ever experienced. We were flaccid and a little fat around our waist, and I said we were a little smug up here. I said that cleansed us of that. It put us on a diet. The problem was that the funeral directors overreacted so badly, the diet became a starvation diet, and they never found the strength, you know, for almost twenty-five years, to
find their way out—how to do something for themselves—so I always applaud her.”

Enclosed in the seminar program was a sheet in which participants were asked to rate the speakers, with a space for comments on each. Avid to hear how I had scored, a few days later I rang up Ron Hast. Enoch Glascock came in first of the seven speakers, he said, but I was No. 2. The comments on my talk ranged from “very complimentary” to “very adverse.” He read out a few examples. Under complimentary: “A true brush with history, a wonderful perspective.” “Delightful, but she appeared to irritate many in the audience.” Adverse: “She’s still a cancer—how easily we forget all the damage she did, making a mockery of funeral service.” “Most unnecessary to provide a platform for a critic of our profession.” There had also been some phone calls, Mr. Hast told me: “One was somebody from Michigan State Funeral Directors Association, a pompous numskull, I couldn’t repeat his language!”

In a subsequent
Mortuary Management
editorial entitled “Tuning In or Out,” Ron Hast made some of the same points as Tom Fisher had in his poolside chat. He stoutly defended his decision to invite me; as to those who threatened to stop their subscriptions to
Mortuary Management
, he would “encourage them to call us at our expense to cancel their subscriptions—then go and put their heads back in the sand.”

“We may or may not agree with the beliefs or expressions of Jessica Mitford,” he wrote. “… Statistics now demonstrate throughout North America that simplicity or funeral avoidance
is
now the tradition in many regions. The American funeral-buying public has changed, and continues to change.… Ms. Mitford asked questions and listened to the answers more than thirty years ago, and produced something the public wanted to hear. Is it not time for us to do the same?…

“Can we expect to receive bouquets and laudatory cheers from Jessica Mitford in her new book? I think not. In fact, it is sensible to anticipate volatile criticism of current practices and agendas targeting death-care providers.”

Reflecting on what I had gleaned from the Tiburon experience, I have concluded that not much has changed over the years in the way undertakers see their world. They would still “vastly prefer” to be
looked on as “trained professional men with high standards of ethical conduct,” but the exigencies of their trade still force them into the role of “merchants of a rather grubby order.” Enoch Glascock’s exposition of how to manipulate a family bent on a simple cremation into buying a full-fledged funeral was for me a high point of the seminar—I agreed with the No. 1 rating accorded him by his colleagues. But how does that fit in with Ron Hast’s perception that “simplicity or funeral avoidance
is
now the tradition in many regions”? Or with the general tone of his and Tom Fisher’s remarks about the impact of
The American Way of Death
?

Possibly it was the split personality of the calling, arising out of its inherent contradictions, that led to my invitation in the first place.

O
death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative’s funeral, has ruefully concluded that the victory has been won hands down by a funeral establishment—in a disastrously unequal battle.

Much fun has been poked at some of the irrational “status symbols” set out like golden snares to trap the unwary consumer at every turn. Until recently, little has been said about the most irrational and weirdest of the lot, lying in ambush for all of us at the end of the road—the modern American funeral.

If the Dismal Traders (as an eighteenth-century English writer calls them) have traditionally been cast in a comic role in literature, a universally recognized symbol of humor from Shakespeare to Dickens to Evelyn Waugh, they have successfully turned the tables in recent years to perpetrate a huge, macabre, and expensive practical joke on the American public. It is not consciously conceived of as a joke, of course; on the contrary, it is hedged with admirably contrived rationalizations.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, over the years the funeral men have constructed their own grotesque cloud-cuckoo-land where the trappings of Gracious Living are transformed, as in a nightmare, into
the trappings of Gracious Dying. The same familiar Madison Avenue language, with its peculiar adjectival range designed to anesthetize sales resistance to all sorts of products, has seeped into the funeral industry in a new and bizarre guise. The emphasis is on the same desirable qualities that we have been schooled to look for in our daily search for excellence: comfort, durability, beauty, craftsmanship. The attuned ear will recognize, too, the convincing quasi-scientific language, so reassuring even if unintelligible.

So that this too too solid flesh might not melt, we are offered “solid copper—a quality casket which offers superb value to the client seeking long-lasting protection,” or “the Colonial Classic beauty—18 gauge lead coated steel, seamless top, lap-jointed welded body construction.” Some are equipped with foam rubber, some with innerspring mattresses. Batesville offers “beds that lift and tilt.” Not every casket need have a silver lining, for one may choose among a rich assortment of “color-matched shades” in nonabrasive fabrics. Shrouds no longer exist. Instead, you may patronize a grave-wear couturiere who promises “handmade original fashions—styles from the best in life for the last memory-dresses, men’s suits, negligees, accessories.” For the final, perfect grooming: “Nature-Glo—the ultimate in cosmetic embalming.” And where have we heard that phrase “peace-of-mind protection” before? No matter. In funeral advertising, it is applied to the Wilbert Burial Vault, with its ⅜-inch precast asphalt inner liner plus extra-thick, reinforced concrete—all this “guaranteed by Good Housekeeping.” Here again the Cadillac, status symbol par excellence, appears in all its gleaming glory, this time transformed into a sleek funeral hearse. Although lesser vehicles are now used to collect the body and the permits, the Cad is still the conveyance of choice for the Loved One’s last excursion to the grave.

You, the potential customer for all this luxury, are unlikely to read the lyrical descriptions quoted above, for they are culled from
Mortuary Management
and other trade magazines of the industry. For you there are the ads in your daily newspaper, generally found on the obituary page, stressing dignity, refinement, high-caliber professional service, and that intangible quality, sincerity. The trade advertisements are, however, instructive, because they furnish an important clue to the frame of mind into which the funeral industry has hypnotized itself.

A new mythology, essential to the twentieth-century American
funeral rite, has grown up—or rather has been built up step-by-step—to justify the peculiar customs surrounding the disposal of our dead. And just as the witch doctor must be convinced of his own infallibility in order to maintain a hold over his clientele, so the funeral industry has had to “sell itself” on its articles of faith in the course of passing them along to the public.

The first of these is the tenet that today’s funeral procedures are founded in “American tradition.” The story comes to mind of a sign on the freshly sown lawn of a brand-new Midwestern college: “There is a tradition on this campus that students never walk on this strip of grass. This tradition goes into effect next Tuesday.” The most cursory look at American funerals of past times will establish the parallel. Simplicity to the point of starkness, the plain pine box, the laying out of the dead by friends and family who also bore the coffin to the grave—these were the hallmarks of the traditional American funeral until the end of the nineteenth century.

Secondly, there is the myth that the American public is only being given what it wants—an opportunity to keep up with the Joneses to the end. “In keeping with our high standard of living, there should be an equally high standard of dying,” says an industry leader. “The cost of a funeral varies according to individual taste and the niceties of living the family has been accustomed to.” Actually, choice doesn’t enter the picture for average individuals faced, generally for the first time, with the necessity of buying a product of which they are totally ignorant, at a moment when they are least in a position to quibble. In point of fact, the cost of a funeral almost always varies, not “according to individual taste” but according to what the traffic will bear.