The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [67]
Slowly, over the years the cruel realization dawned that cremation was not only here to stay but was increasingly the choice of the well-to-do and well-educated—precisely that segment of the population that could easily afford the finest offerings of the mortician. At this point the industry made a U-turn. The emphasis now is on making the best of a bad job.
Essentially, the goal is to sell a “traditional” funeral with all the trimmings as an adjunct to cremation. The Revised Version, as revealed in a spectrum of articles in the trade press, is to “teach the consumer the concept of cremation with service.” Some sample headlines: the American Cemetery, November 1994, FIGHTING DIRECT CREMATION: Teaching Cremation Customers the Value of Ritual and Memorialization; the Southern Funeral Director, September 1993, WHAT IS THE REAL CHALLENGE IN OVERCOMING MINIMAL CREMATION?
According to Ron Hast, editor of Mortuary Management (September 1993), “Cremated remains can be a focal point of memorialization. To the far-sighted funeral director, the potential for expanded services and increased profit is unlimited.” He cited a case in which several siblings each bought individual urns to hold a portion of Mom’s ashes: “There was something of a power struggle to see who would purchase the nicest urn.”
A recent book sums it up: Cremation and the Funeral Director: Successfully Meeting the Challenge, by Michael W. Kubasak. Described by the author as a “straight-from-the-hip handbook,” this 156-page volume instructs the conventional funeral director in the potential profitability of cremation. “The market for cremation urns is usually limited,” writes Kubasak. “In my experience the more urns displayed, the more urns sold; the more urns sold, the fewer the scatterings.… It is recommended the urn display be as inviting and open as possible.” It should surprise no one that Mr. Kubasak when last heard from was an official spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association.*
Crematoria outside North America are almost universally publicly owned, or, if privately owned, maintained on a not-for-profit basis. Golders Green, Great Britain’s oldest crematorium, is located in a London suburb. It is privately owned, but surplus earnings are used for maintenance of the burial grounds, improvement of facilities, and public education. Sixty cremations a week are performed in its four cremators. Three chapels, the largest seating 220, are available for the accommodation of family and invited guests. The cost, $360, which is competitive with crematoria generally in the London area, includes “use of chapel, waiting rooms and all attendances; floral decoration; music (recorded or organ); medical referee’s fee ($94); scattering/strewing of ashes.”
Children under five years are cremated without charge, those aged six to ten for $90. Choral service is available at a cost of $80 and upward for a soloist, $120 for a quartet. The clergy fee, $90, for reading the service is an extra. A rose tree, care and maintenance for five years included, may be purchased for $450.
It is apparent from the foregoing that the role of the undertaker in respect to the 72 percent of the British dead who are cremated is minimal. With the rites of final disposition centered in the crematorium rather than in the funeral parlor, there can be little concern for the elegance and durability of the burial container or for public viewing of the embalmed corpse. A “burping” casket* such as the Batesville