The American Way of Death Revisited (19 page)

In the 1960s, the Catholic Church lifted its ban against cremation, thus making it permissible for members of most major religious faiths to use this method of disposition.

How to explain this extraordinary increase in the resort to the retort?

A common reaction of people who learn for the first time some of the facts and figures connected with the American way of death is to say, “None of that for me! I’m going to beat this racket. I just want to be cremated, and avoid all the fuss and expense.” Cremation is no doubt a simple, tidy solution to the disposal of the dead. It appeals to the nature lover and the poet, who visualize their mortal remains scattered over sunny hillside or remote strand. It is commended by environmentalists and by those who would like to see an end to all the malarkey that surrounds the usual kind of funeral. It has appeal for the economy-minded; logically one would expect the expense to be but a fraction of that incurred for earth burial. And, to continue along that seditious line of thought, why not bypass the undertaker altogether, by taking the corpse directly to a crematory, there to be consigned to the flames—the only expense incurred: a modest crematory charge?

It is true that in most countries where cremation is on the increase, the objectives of economy and simplicity are well served. In England, for example—where there were three cremations in 1885—it is today the mode of disposal for 72 percent of the dead. The average crematory charge of $280 includes amenities such as use of a chapel, not usually available in North American crematories. Specifications for the coffin to be used are the simplest, “easily combustible wood, not painted or varnished”; to facilitate the scattering of the ashes, they are “removed from the cremator, and after cooling, pulverized to a fine texture.” The ultimate disposition of 90 percent of cremated remains in England is scattering, or “strewing,” as the clergy like to call it. Sometimes the ashes are scattered over the sea or over the countryside; more often, by a crematory attendant in a Garden of Remembrance, consecrated ground specially set aside for the purpose. Most crematoria and cemeteries maintain such a garden; in some there is a nominal charge for the service.

The vogue for cremation is a very recent development in England. The cremation “movement” was initiated there in the nineteenth century. Its adherents included many distinguished physicians, scientists, intellectuals, radicals, and reformers; a few members of the aristocracy. Among the organizers of the first Cremation Society in 1874 were Sir Henry Thompson, Bart., Surgeon to the Queen; Anthony Trollope; Spencer Wells; Millais; and the Dukes of Bedford and Westminister. Naturally, that thorny old critic of the status quo George
Bernard Shaw was strongly in favor of cremation, and he sums up the argument for it with his usual pithiness: “Dead bodies can be cremated. All of them ought to be, for earth burial, a horrible practice, will some day be prohibited by law, not only because it is hideously unaesthetic, but because the dead would crowd the living off the earth if it could be carried out to its end of preserving our bodies for their resurrection on an imaginary day of judgment (in sober fact, every day is a day of judgment).”

There were at first strong objections to cremation from some of the clergy, who thought that it would interfere with the resurrection of the body; this point was neatly disposed of by Lord Shaftesbury when he asked, “What would become in such a case of the Blessed Martyrs?” In the 1870s and 1880s, cremation advocates campaigned on a number of fronts for legality and public acceptance of the practice. They published expository material urging support for their cause; they experimented with various types of furnaces; they went so far as to cremate one another in defiance of the authorities, thus subjecting themselves to public censure and even to criminal prosecution. It was not until 1884 that they won a court decision declaring cremation to be a legal procedure, but there was still much opposition from church and public; police protection was sometimes necessary when a cremation was to take place. In short, acceptance of cremation as a sensible and also respectable disposition of the human dead was only won as the result of a hard-fought, uphill struggle.

The early partisans of cremation, willing to flout the law and risk imprisonment to simplify and rationalize disposal of the dead, would whirl in their urns could they but see what has become of their cause today in America. For cremation, like every other aspect of disposal of the dead, has long since been taken over by the cemetery industry and mortuary interests, which prescribe the procedures to be followed and establish the regulations to which the customer must adhere. Therefore, he who seeks to avoid the purchase of a casket, embalming, and the full treatment will not succeed by the mere fact of choosing cremation rather than burial.

The Cremation Association of North America (CANA) bears no resemblance to its English counterpart. It is in fact merely an association of persons, principally cemetery operators, who are in the cremation business. Simplicity and economy are not their goals; far
from it. The philosophical outlook of the association is expounded in its published materials:

Administered by the cemetery interests, cremation has become just another way of making a buck, principally through the sale of the niche and urn, plus “perpetual care,” for the ashes. Cemetery men are most reluctant to relinquish the ashes for any form of private disposition; one told me rather plaintively, “If everyone wanted to take the ashes away and scatter them or bury them privately, we’d soon be out of business.”
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Every state has laws prescribing the procedures for the final disposition of dead human bodies—burial, entombment, donation for medical research, and cremation being the commonly established methods, with the next of kin legally obligated to carry out any expressed wished of the decedent.

But what
is
“final disposition” where cremation has been the choice? And what of Aunt Martha’s ashes?

CANA would have us believe that “cremation is not an end in itself, but the process which prepares the human remains for inurnment in a beautiful and everlasting memorial.”

CANA’s view is flatly contradicted by law, which in just about every state defines cremation as a form of “final disposition.” Most states likewise make an explicit distinction between bodily and cremated remains. Laws, for example, which prohibit personal ownership of dead bodies do allow family members to retain the ashes, and these are customarily handed over when no other arrangement has been made for their disposition.

So much for the cemetery interests. How might the funeral directors be expected to react to the menace of cremation?

The initial reaction of industry leaders and the trade press was to counsel funeral directors to make all efforts to dissuade the funeral buyer from cremation. The idea was to make the procedure sound as disrespectful of the deceased as possible. One mortician suggested telling the family that if they only knew what went on in the crematory retort, they wouldn’t even have a dog cremated. The National Funeral Directors Association advised members to stress the concept of “immediate disposal,” implying that the Loved One’s remains would be treated as so much garbage. Furthermore, according to the association, the bereaved family should be warned of severe psychological trauma if they choose to flout tradition and forgo the solace of a full-fig funeral with open casket and viewing of the embalmed remains, a time-honored, meaningful ritual with its proven benefit of peace of mind for the survivors.

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.
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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
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such as the Batesville Casket Company manufactures, which is warranted to permit noxious gases from the slow decay of the corpse to escape, has yet to be marketed in Great Britain (unless events in that rapidly changing market have caught up with the writer).

A new development in the United States in the early 1970s was the establishment of “direct cremation” firms, commercial ventures offering simple cremation for a fixed fee of around $255, roughly linked to the Social Security death benefit. For an additional $250 survivors could arrange to have the ashes scattered at sea from a plane or boat. The funeral directors poured scorn, labeling the procedure “burn and scatter” or even “bake and shake.”

The Neptune Society, founded in Los Angeles by Dr. Charles Denning, a flamboyant character who advertised extensively on radio and TV, was first on the scene, and easily the most successful of the burn-and-scatter outfits, boasting at latest count branches in ten Northern California cities plus locations in New York State and Florida. Neptune’s extraordinary success has been due largely to its appropriation of the name “Society,” creating thereby the false public impression that it is linked to the nonprofit funeral and memorial societies that have built invaluable goodwill by their consumer protection activities. New York memorial societies, the bona fide consumer organizations, were successful in securing statewide legislation that prevents any mortuary from labeling itself a “society.” California’s Funeral Board had likewise done surveys to show that the practice is misleading to consumers. The issue was laid to rest, however, when the troublesome board itself was abolished.

Neptune has not hesitated to resort to other dubious practices as
well. For the last several years it has been embroiled in litigation on every front. Denning sued a rival burn-and-scatter concern in Northern California for using the name Neptune, which he had neglected to trademark and which had by now become a household word for consumers looking for direct cremation. In the mid-1980s, Neptune settled a class action lawsuit involving three hundred families for $22 million plus $5 million costs.… In 1988, ashes of 5,342 corpses discovered in remote mountain spot by Neptune pilot.… In 1988, out-of-court settlement against Neptune of $12.7 million.… A 1991 class action suit for mishandling and commingling thousands of corpses was recently settled for $6.8 million. And most recently, without admitting guilt, three Neptune crematories in California agreed to financial audits and to reimburse the cost of the state’s investigation.