The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [76]
Patterson, writing in the Southern Funeral Director, describes a further conversation about the coffin, this time with Dr. Bruenn: “After he [Dr. Bruenn] consulted with William D. Hassett,… he requested that only the mahogany be brought; but on my request, in the event a change was desired, we were allowed to bring, in addition, the copper deposit.”
Mr. Patterson’s very understandable desire to acquit himself creditably and with honor in this situation comes through strongly between the lines. There he was, caught in the spotlight, before his colleagues and before the nation. He must have suffered a nasty moment before permission was granted to bring both caskets to the Little White House.
Patterson and his assistants drove to Warm Springs with two hearses, one containing the plain mahogany casket, the other the “fine bronze-colored copper model,” a National Seamless Copper Deposit No. 21200. Patterson relates how the question of which casket to use was finally resolved: “After Mrs. Roosevelt arrived at 11:25 and had seen the President’s remains, a conference was held as to funeral arrangements. Dr. Bruenn was asked what they wished to do about the casket. He consulted Admiral McIntire who came with Mrs. Roosevelt. In the conversation, the Admiral was heard to use the word ‘bronze’ and as the copper deposit had a bronze finish, of course that was the casket to be used.”
Did the presidential aides feel that one had been put over on them, albeit discreetly? We do not know.
In one important respect, Mr. Roosevelt’s instructions were observed: there was no lying in state. Mrs. Roosevelt felt sure that he would not have wished it. She said, “We have talked often, when there had been a funeral at the Capitol in which a man had lain in state and the crowds had gone by the open coffin, of how much we disliked the practice; and we had made up our minds that we would never allow it.”
Failure to carry out certain of his other instructions can only be laid to the unlucky circumstance that they were found too late. It is, however, interesting to compare President Roosevelt’s words with accounts given by participants in the funeral:
MR. ROOSEVELT: That the body be not embalmed.
MR. FRED PATTERSON: All three assistants worked incessantly five hours to give the President the proper appearance, and to be certain of proper preservation.… We had a difficult case, did our best and believe that we pleased everyone in every respect.… Saturday morning Mr. William Gawler (a Washington undertaker) phoned me stating that the tissues were firm, complexion was fine and those who saw him remarked, “He looks like his old self again and much younger.”
MR. ROOSEVELT: That the body be not … hermetically sealed.
MR. WILLIAM GAWLER: The casket was closed and the inner top bolted down at 8:30 p.m. Saturday night. The outer top was sealed with cement.
MR. ROOSEVELT: That the grave be not lined with brick, cement, or stones.
MR. JAMES ROOSEVELT: The casket was placed in a cement vault.
MR. ROOSEVELT: That a gun-carriage and not a hearse be used throughout.
MR. PATTERSON: As the caisson did not arrive at the last minute the casket was taken in our Sayers and Scoville Cadillac hearse.
In November 1963, three months after the first edition of this book was published, it became once more the unhappy task of presidential aides to supervise the obsequies of a president. Two writers give particulars of negotiations with undertakers in Dallas and Washington over arrangements for John F. Kennedy’s funeral.
In Robert Kennedy and His Times (Houghton Mifflin, 1978), Arthur Schlesinger describes RFK’s arrival at Bethesda Hospital:
There were so many details. The funeral home wanted to know how grand the coffin should be. “I was influenced by … that girl’s book on (burial) expenses … Jessica Mitford (The American Way of Death).… I remember making the decision based on Jessica Mitford’s book.… I remember thinking about it afterward, about whether I was cheap or what I was, and I remembered thinking about