Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked? (18 page)

DOING GOOD BY THE DECEASED

I'd like to think that my services are on the other end of the spectrum of those horror stories, and the response from my clients bears this out. An elderly gentleman passed away many years ago, and his son, a busy Disney executive and overseer of Disneyland in Anaheim, called me from Los Angeles to meet in Ohio the next day to arrange the funeral. He openly admitted to a blatant disregard for my entire industry, considering all of us ghouls and lowlifes intent on taking advantage of other people's misery. I attempted to allay his concerns, making it clear that any decisions we made that day were not carved in stone and that he was welcome to go back to his hotel and meet with me after he'd had time to think things over. He did just that, and the next morning we arranged for his father's immediate cremation, with the ashes shipped to California for scattering into the Pacific Ocean near Santa Monica.

When I informed the son that his total charges were less than $1,500, he was flabbergasted. His uncle had recently died, and the same services in California had cost him more than $5,000. I responded that obviously the standard of living was much different out there. The man later sent me a nice thank-you note with an additional check for $1,000 and a permanent gate pass for my entire family to Disneyland.

It is gratifying to receive positive feedback from a client's family during and after the performance or our duties in caring for their deceased loved one. Rarely is there a complaint; most always my family and I are showered with compliments and heartfelt thanks from the families we deal with. However, I am extremely amazed at how often one or more bereaved family members actually take the time to put pen to paper and send a card or long letter of thanks addressed to me or one of my sons. I have framed and displayed more than a hundred such messages in the lobby and lounge of the funeral home for all to see. Others can observe the confirmation of appreciation of our clientele.

There are many feel-good stories in our industry, both local and national, that do not receive any attention. I once worked for a kindhearted man who desired no publicity. Few were aware that every May he would ask the local high school's dean which students could not afford caps, gowns, or class rings. Many participated in graduation ceremonies without ever knowing who their generous benefactor was.

After a tragic accident left seven children without their mother and father, the same man instructed the children's aunt to take all seven to a store and purchase new outfits to wear to their parents' funerals, with the bill sent to him. Of course there was no charge for either of the two funerals. I learned a lot from my employer. Doing good deeds is now my hallmark. I might not be making as much money as some of my colleagues, but I bet I sleep far better.

In October 2004, I noticed a small newspaper article concerning the death of a recently identified thirty-five-year-old woman. A minister was making a plea for assistance with burial expenses. The woman was a known prostitute, and her death was the result of a brutal beating and rape, and she had been shoved out of a moving car and left on the side of the road with no identification.

On a scrap in her pants pocket was a telephone number. The police dialed it and reached a childhood friend with whom she had once lived as a teenager. It turned out that her childhood friend had long ago lost all contact with her. The minister called several area funeral homes to ask whether anyone could donate a casket or a bouquet of flowers. Amazingly, he received nothing.

I listened to his incredible tale; then my daughter and I removed the young lady's body from the coroner's office, performed the embalming, and set out to see what contributions we could gather. I was finally able to obtain a discounted casket and vault, along with a grave space. Township trustees who operated the cemetery agreed to open and close the grave without charge.

The minister reported the good deeds to local television stations, and I was soon deluged with live interview requests. The news reporters seemed shocked that I would perform such a service at my own expense. I was happy for the free promotion and surprised to think that many other directors had the opportunity to offer assistance but did not.

As I've said, I make it a point never to turn a family away because of a dire financial situation. Prices of certain services can be reduced, and less costly merchandise can be substituted to make the death-care experience affordable. I'm sure there are many other funeral directors out there—I hope so, anyway—who assess no charges for infants and offer free services for police officers, firefighters, and military personnel killed in the line of duty. That's typical of most independent family-owned and operated funeral homes, where the hometown director can become a true friend of all community members. Conglomerates are far less likely to reduce prices and outright donations are rare. They also do not wait for insurance payoffs. The corporate brain trust wants to be paid immediately; they think families should be the ones to keep checking their mailboxes.

One time, a truck driver hauling two huge steel coils pulled off the interstate onto the shoulder, perhaps to stop and adjust his cables. One of the coils rolled off the trailer and crushed him. When I arrived on the scene, a wrecker was in the process of raising the coil, precariously suspended by what I thought to be a very fragile cable. I hurriedly assisted in pulling out the unfortunate driver, wanting to spend as little time in harm's way as possible.

I retrieved my mortuary cot and slid it next to the body, which had been smashed from the steel's weight. The poor man had been struck by the steel from his groin area up to his head. His internal organs had blasted out from a tear in his side and lay all around him. It was a surreal scene indeed. One life-squad attendant stared and pointed: “Look, Bob, there's his heart.” It was actually a lung.

I transported the body back to the funeral home. As I walked in the door, the telephone was ringing. The Ohio State Patrol asked me to check the driver's pockets; he'd supposedly been carrying more than $40,000 of the trucking company's money. A patrol officer had searched the truck, found nothing, and was resigned to the fact that the money would probably be discovered someday by some homeless guy searching the nearby field for used pop bottles.

I readied a large plastic garbage bag next to the preparation room table to dispose of what was left of the driver's tattered clothing. After peeling away some of his tissue-covered shirt, I happened upon a large wallet with an attached chain, the kind that motorcycle riders carry. I washed off the blood and gore, dried it, and to my surprise found it stuffed full of crisp $100 bills. Briefly, I thought, “How handy to have an extra $40,000!” But I knew the good Lord would not be pleased, so I called the state patrol to report my find.

Shortly thereafter, the trucking company's owner phoned and said he would be at the funeral home the following morning. Upon his arrival, he thanked me for being so honest and handed me a check for $1,000. My name and picture, labeled “Good Guy of the Month,” appeared at many Ohio truck stops for the rest of the year.

Another time I was summoned to a stately old farmhouse to remove a farmer's body, which had been discovered in the concrete workshop behind his home, where he'd apparently collapsed while repairing a vehicle. Two sheriffs' cruisers were in the driveway when I arrived, but no one else was in sight. The coroner had told me that the old gentleman lived alone and had two grown sons who lived out of state.

I poked my head through the workshop's door and spotted two deputies counting out cash. One was alternately placing bills in one stack in front of himself and another in front of his partner. They both looked up, sheepish and red faced. An old safe sat below the workbench, its door wide open and it was crammed full of cash.

One deputy remarked, “Well, I guess now we have to include you in the count.”

“No, thanks,” I replied, and simply removed the old farmer's body and left.

I realized years ago that the death-care industry needed to change. But unlike the electronics and automobile industries, where explosive updates tend to take place regularly, the funeral business moves with glacier-like slowness, if at all. Although more funeral homes are now modern one-floor facilities, most are still converted two- or three-story residences where business takes place downstairs and the owner and his family live upstairs. Baby boomers in particular have grown tired of those older homes with too many steps leading to the entrances, threadbare “movie theater” carpeting, tiny chapel areas, minimal parking, and staff not open to anything but solemn and predictable services. I have worked at places with no handicap accessibility and with lots so small that visitors were forced to return later when the crowd had diminished or risk parking in a dark alley. I know these things are important, because I actually receive calls in advance to inquire about such things.

MCFUNERAL HOME

A major change, however, in the death-care industry is the corporate buyout. The funeral industry was ripe for such takeovers. Undertakers once handed their businesses to their sons or daughters or transferred ownership through bank loans to trusted employees. Those days are gone. Owners and their families now realize the cash cows they are sitting on. Even grown children who don't want to follow in their parents' footsteps still want to see them get top dollar. A suitcase full of cash can be a powerful persuader.

In the late 1960s, a Texas funeral home owner decided to buy out his city's other two big-volume homes, become top dog, and stop worrying about competition. The plan in its original form was sound: pool the expensive vehicles, retain current employees for continuity's sake, and keep the original names of the two newly acquired businesses so the public wouldn't see any change. Sudden acquisitions usually work well in large cities, where people feel no loyalty and couldn't care less who the owners are. Small towns and suburbs are different. People are far more concerned about who is caring for their deceased loved ones. They want to deal with someone they know from church or Rotary Club—perhaps even a former classmate. They want to see the funeral directors themselves, or at least their kids, when making arrangements. They also want the funeral director at the visitation, and they want him or her to drive Grandma to the cemetery.

But this owner was not happy with just three funeral homes. He soon began acquiring the largest ones in several neighboring cities as well, often overpaying owners to entice them to sell. Enter the carpetbagger concept.
Carpetbagger
is the word we funeral directors use to describe opportunists who have infiltrated our territory. It has a historical relevance; during post–Civil War Reconstruction, Northerners intent on making personal gain headed South and carried their belongings in carpet-covered satchels.

Have You Been Invaded?

How can you tell when carpetbaggers have invaded your area? First, a marketing staff at the conglomerate's faraway home office bombards the affected community with direct-mail pieces aimed at homeowners in the demographic of age forty-five and up. Letters begin something like this: “We need your help! Please take a few moments of your time to assist us in determining what is important to you, the consumer, by answering the following questions: Do you currently own cemetery property? If so, where? How much do your funerals cost? Do you prefer cremation? Do you currently have life insurance?” At the bottom of the form is a perforated card for the addressee to return postage free. The direct-mail piece is also emblazoned with the recently purchased funeral home's address so that people assume it comes from a familiar business in town.

Responses are followed by phone calls to set up appointments with the corporate funeral home's eager staff of “grief counselors” to sell prepaid insurance policies. Whether or not people return responses, all targeted consumers receive cold calls from hard-sell telephone solicitors (usually at dinnertime), thus reducing the funeral home's credibility equal to that of telemarketers who hawk replacement windows.

Conglomerates have also trolled for potential customers by calling everyone who attends a visitation and has signed the register book. I met a woman who was responsible for deciphering sloppy handwriting, looking up names in the telephone directory, and then calling them to say, “Since you were just at a visitation at our Big Corporation Funeral Home, I'm sure you enjoyed our facility and would probably like to have your own funeral here someday. Perhaps one of our fine counselors can set an appointment time to come to your home, so you can prepay for your funeral.”

When a widow is making arrangements for her recently deceased spouse, the conglomerate “counselor” is also trained to “advise” her: “We will draw up the necessary paperwork to duplicate these services, so you'll have a prepaid funeral plan in place for yourself. That way, when your time comes, no one in your family will need to make any hasty decisions under the duress of grief. Sign right here.” Since most folks are in the dark about the funeral industry anyway, this ploy usually works, and the still-sobbing widow probably doesn't even realize what she has agreed to.

After a carpetbagger comes to town, the company usually signs a contract with a major casket supplier, such as Batesville or Aurora, and then happily offers a volume discount. Since carpetbaggers purchase far more caskets than family-owned operations, they rightfully receive the discount. However, they don't pass on the savings to consumers. Even the company that I personally feel is a scourge on society, Wal-Mart, passes on savings through their immense buying power. All corporately owned funeral homes and cemeteries in America should probably be discount houses, since they enjoy a tremendous rebate from the suppliers of their most expensive products—caskets.

OVERPRICING AND UNDERSERVING

As I discussed in chapter 11, with an increase in cremation and a decrease in traditional funerals, major casket companies are losing market share. Batesville Casket Company has always told funeral directors that we are much like car dealerships. Consumers must come to us rather than visit an assembly line, and any authorized dealer will do. So once Batesville ascertains the best distribution and storage plan, you will likely see caskets being marketed and sold through Wal-Mart, Costco, or even a stand-alone specialty store.

Right now, however, consumers are learning the hard way that certain purchases are better made from the local funeral home. Corporate-owned cemeteries have increased the price of grave spaces and opening and closing fees to the point of causing an upward spike in the already-increasing number of cremations. Cemetery operators are cutting their own throats with exorbitant fees, and so decreasing the amount of casketed burials. To make up for the loss of income, conglomerate cemeteries have stepped up their attempts to sell caskets, which for years was considered an untouchable product, the sale of which was exclusively a funeral home lock.

Cemeteries could probably pull this off were it not for the unbelievable, unmitigated greed involved. Cemeteries in my area are charging consumers three, four, and even five times the wholesale cost for an item that traditional funeral homes usually charge at most two times wholesale.

One morning a gentleman called, and his first question to me was, “How much is your cheapest steel casket?” I replied $600, and he asked if he could come in right away and see it. After he viewed the inexpensive box, he informed me that he had just left a corporate-owned cemetery and showed me the paperwork for his purchase of the exact same item for $2,650. The casket in question was the exact same casket I had just showed him, and it was from the same manufacturer, which means the cemetery and I paid the same wholesale price: $316. The gentleman was livid at being blatantly overcharged, so I offered to call the cemetery on his behalf and ask about their pricing structure.

The person I spoke to at the cemetery said he personally did not set prices—that was the responsibility of the out-of-state corporate office. He did say that the gentleman in my office would be refunded if he was unhappy with the price. Yet that is the only case in my experience thus far that concluded well for the consumer.

I dealt with a funeral recently in which the wife of a gentleman who had died on a Friday came to me to make funeral arrangements on Saturday morning. When our conversation came to caskets, she lowered her head and told me that she had probably done a “dumb thing.” When I asked what, she explained that she and her late husband had been solicited by phone by a cemetery salesperson a few months ago. The salesperson informed the couple that the call was to verify ownership of their two grave spaces. The couple was told that they needed to come to the cemetery and sign a lot-ownership card to update the cemetery records.

Worrying that something could be amiss with their side-by-side final resting places, the couple dutifully went to the cemetery and not only updated cemetery records but also allowed themselves to be talked into purchasing two overpriced burial vaults, a double bronze grave marker, and two overpriced steel caskets. The cemetery salesperson told the couple that cemetery vaults were much better than any offered by funeral homes, that the bronze marker could be purchased only from the cemetery, and that the caskets were priced lower than funeral homes could offer—all of which is untrue.

I looked over the cemetery sales contract with the bereaved wife and let her know that I could provide her with a much better price on all the items she had purchased. She seemed relieved at the notion and asked me to do just that. I called the cemetery and mentioned that the woman wished to cancel the purchase of the vaults, marker, and caskets. The cemetery salesperson transferred me to the manager and I was informed that there was no way they would refund her money.

I had the conversation on speakerphone, and the bereaved woman asked me to hang up so we could speak privately. She hung her head and told me that she had lost her husband and that she was in no mood to fight with the cemetery at this time and to just move forward with the funeral arrangements and the cemetery purchases. I agreed and realized that this is exactly what the conglomerate cemeteries know—when a death occurs most bereaved folks are in no state of mind to dispute a contract. They just call it a bad idea and a learning experience and move on.

BAIT AND SWITCH

Conglomerates used to be wiser about carrying out a proper takeover. They would pay the former owner a monthly or yearly fee to stay on, work the front door, and otherwise make an appearance when appropriate, so the unsuspecting public would assume that it was business as usual. Perhaps the locals had heard rumblings about the funeral home's having been sold—only to be reassured when they saw the former owner ensconced in the entryway. In impersonal metropolitan areas, such a takeover usually goes unnoticed. The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, undertaker to the stars in the Big Apple, is corporately owned and operated, but Mr. Campbell is nowhere to be seen. Joseph Gawler's, the premier funeral home in Washington, D.C., serving presidents and diplomats, is also corporately owned. Mr. Gawler isn't there either.

I have a problem with such name retention. It's misleading. Consolidators try to mask new ownerships so that locals will believe that the same funeral home that buried Grandpa is burying Grandma. In Ohio, a law once required that after twenty-four months, a new owner of a funeral home must incorporate his or her surname at the beginning or end of the firm title. In other words, if Joe Jones purchased the Smith Funeral Home, he had two years to change the name of the business to either Smith and Jones Funeral Home, Jones and Smith Funeral Home, or Jones Funeral Home. The law was designed to keep owners from taking advantage of a well-known person's notoriety. Otherwise you could name your business the Jack Nicklaus Funeral Home. Ohio also didn't allow funeral homes to be titled any other way except by the funeral director or owner's surname—no Chapel of Chimes Funeral Home or House of Compassion Funeral Home. Whether because of a payoff by the conglomerates or not, I do not know, but Ohio no longer requires a name change. The original can stay. The business manager must merely have his or her name on a plaque in a visible location.

Just as in most huge takeovers, the bigger it gets, the worse it becomes. A friend works at a home bought for the second time by a conglomerate. He no longer makes any funeral arrangements himself because of severe criticism from the corporate office. Early on, after having faxed a contract for goods and services for review, he would receive a scathing reprimand. He was told he should have upgraded the client family to a more expensive casket and a costlier vault, and he should have recommended the $300 Thomas Kinkade register-book package.

On-site decisions, my friend tells me, are no longer permitted. Even a leaky toilet requires a work order forwarded to the California office, where a district manager dispatches a maintenance technician to troubleshoot. Three labor estimates are required, with proper authorization for any repairs costing more than $100.