The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [57]
After Words
Tempest in New York:
Hearing Slams Cemetery Marketing Practices*
By any standard, it has not been a great public relations year for cemeterians. In California, recent headlines have widely spread the story of grim violations at numerous prominent cemeteries, including disinterment, multiple burials, non-maintenance, and fraud/embezzlement. Now comes New York, where the controversy has taken a new direction and focused not so much on cemetery maintenance, but on ownership policy and marketing practices.
Under New York law, cemeteries are not-for-profit enterprises, regulated in part to help ensure that sufficient money is set aside for perpetual care. The current debate therefore centers on the following questions: Is it proper, then, to allow funeral homes, established to make money, to acquire an interest in cemeteries? And could pressures for profit this year endanger the sanctity of care in the years to come? The State Cemetery Board held a hearing in Albany last week to address these and other issues as part of broader legislation on cemetery reform taking shape in both houses of the New York legislature.
As usual, the hearing placed on public view a distorted image for funeral service. The recent expansion of The Loewen Group and SCI into the New York cemetery market is the underlying factor which has brought the issue to a head. It is no secret that both companies have bought many funeral homes in the region in recent years—and they are increasingly buying cemeteries as well.
The New York State Funeral Directors Association, for one, has mixed feelings about this development. Wayne Baxter testified that his membership is concerned that joint ownership might expose the public to excesses by unscrupulous funeral directors. He said regulations may be needed to ensure that money from the nonprofit cemeteries is not funneled into the profit-making funeral homes—a scenario that is more conceivable with joint ownership. The National Catholic Cemetery Conference, through spokeswoman Ellen Woodbury, also charges “conglomerate ownership” with an “outrageous litany of untruths and misinformation” designed to steer mourners away from religious cemeteries. “We have a 2,000 year old tradition of caring for the dead as a matter of faith, not as a matter of profit,” she said. Finally, Rabbi Elchonon Zohn, speaking for the Jewish Community Relations Council, also considered joint ownership problematic, maintaining that there is an incentive to adopt marketing practices that could generate immediate profits (such as selling two-for-one grave sites), but weaken a cemetery’s ability to maintain care when its space is sold out.
Whether true or not, recent alleged selling tactics by a Loewen Group sales person have provided ammunition for the reform camp—and made no friends in the major Roman Catholic diocese on Long Island. A Loewen representative, offering a “free crypt” at a nearby Loewen-owned cemetery, made the mistake of approaching Ellen Woodbury, director of cemeteries for the Rockville Centre Catholic Diocese and President of the National Catholic Cemetery Association. It was not a pretty picture—and Ms. Woodbury claims to have captured it all on tape.
“Congratulations,” the voice on the phone told Ellen Woodbury, “You’ve won a free grave.” It was a telemarketer on behalf of The Loewen Group seeking an appointment. As widely reported in the New York Post, one of the first things the sales person did upon arrival was hand the promised “free grave” certificate to Woodbury and her husband. She soon made it clear, however, that the giveaway grave was less than desirable. It was in a section of the cemetery where, she said, the graves are sinking. “Wouldn’t you rather be in the