The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [45]
The cemeteries are not taking it lying down. They have developed their own potent counterweapon—“pre-need” sales, for which salesmen roam the neighborhoods of metropolis and suburb like thieving schoolboys in an orchard, snatching the fruit before it has fallen from the tree. They have outflanked their adversary here by getting to the prospect not hours ahead—but probably years ahead—of the undertaker. Worse yet, they have begun to establish their own mortuaries for the “one-stop” funeral.
Robert Waltrip of SCI, Ray Loewen of the Loewen Group, and Charles Stewart of Stewart Enterprises, the head honchos of the Big Three of the corporate funeral world, have been pitted in a worldwide race to buy up cemeteries with integrated undertaking establishments. Known in the trade as combos, these have proven to be prodigious money mills.
That such combinations may be illegal in states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York, which acknowledge the traditional view that cemeteries are not meant to be for-profit enterprises, has thus far not been seen by the corporate buccaneers as a deterrent.
Louisiana-based Stewart recently negotiated an agreement with the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest (home to nearly 4 million Catholics), to build and operate mortuaries in its six biggest cemeteries. In return for this invaluable endorsement, the Church, to the anguished distress of the independent Catholic funeral directors in the diocese, will receive a percentage of the proceeds from each funeral Stewart performs at the cemeteries.
“Sinful,” Father Henry Wasielewski (whose crusade against funeral profiteers is addressed in chapter 14, “The Nosy Clergy”) calls the deal. “Most Stewart mortuaries charge thousands more than many independents for the same funeral.” It seems unlikely that Stewart, in its new role as purveyor of Catholic funerals in southern California, will share Father Henry’s view that a funeral is a sacred ritual that belongs in church. “It should be as simple as the white pall that covers a Catholic casket, signifying man’s equality and humility in death.”
Then there’s the touchy problem of who gets to sell the vault. Vaultmanship is very big these days; at least 60 percent of all Americans wind up in one of these stout rectangular metal or concrete containers, which may cost anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand dollars. Vault selling is ordinarily the prerogative of the funeral director, to whom the vault manufacturers address their message: “Think of your last ten clients. Think how many of that ten had the means and would actually have welcomed an opportunity to choose a finer vault. Makes sense, doesn’t it, to give them that opportunity? You’ll be surprised how many will choose this finer Clark Vault and be grateful to you for recommending it.”
Vault men, when they get together among themselves, can be a convivial and jolly lot, prone to their own kind of family jokes; the Wilbert Burial Vault Company, for instance, gives an annual picnic featuring barbecued chicken, ribs, and “vaultburgers.” This bonhomie does not extend to their relations with the cemetery people, whom they are constantly hauling into court. At one time, lawsuits were raging in various parts of the country, brought by vault manufacturers against the cemeteries, to enjoin the latter from going into the business of selling vaults. The theory is that the cemeteries, operating as nonprofit organizations, have no business selling things. The monument makers, too, have entered the fray with the same complaint, for the cemeteries have lately taken to banning the old-fashioned tombstones and selling their own bronze markers. They are slowly driving the monument makers out of business. In some cases, the monument makers have secured injunctions prohibiting the cemeteries from selling monuments, markers, or memorials of any