money. The police pull a wallet from someone’s pants pocket to establish identity through a driver’s license, so I suppose that makes it incredibly easy to make a “withdrawal.” Bereaved families have complained to me that they know money was stolen, but they lack any way to prove it. That’s why I always make sure that a minister or family member is in the chapel with me at a funeral’s conclusion, so that when the casket is closed, anything that is to stay with the deceased stays there—keepsakes, photographs, or money. If any item is to be handed back to a family member, it is done so immediately and in the presence of a witness.
When making funeral arrangements, the topic of jewelry is always discussed in detail beforehand to ensure that all desires are carried out. When meeting with the elderly, I have noticed that they emphatically insist that all jewelry worn by the deceased be returned. Many of them assume that the funeral director is planning to abscond with any valuables. Such atrocities must have occurred frequently years ago, because that concern seems to be paramount in their minds.
Only a generation ago funeral directors were notorious for stealing. One director friend told me that a coworker back in the 1950s earned a substantial living on the side by removing gold fillings and inlaid crowns (the real McCoy back then, not the plated material used today) from the teeth of decedents awaiting burial. He even claimed that the families gave him permission to do so!
I once delivered a deceased person to a funeral home in northern Ohio, and upon my arrival, the elderly owner offered to give me a tour of his facility. As we casually trod through the grand old mansion, he pointed out the impressive curved staircase, the stained-glass windows, and the thick carpet that had been delivered by a London manufacturer in 1949. The tour’s end found us in a dark, dingy basement that housed the preparation room and a cubicle that contained shelf after shelf of unclaimed boxes of cremated remains. On the opposite wall were several plastic bins full of bloody clothing. On each bin was a typewritten sheet giving a full description of the contents and how they came to be soiled. Why someone would keep bins full of biohazardous material on their premises was beyond me, yet this gentleman seemed proud to show off his collection. He then pointed to a large box full of old hearing aids and another full of chrome-plated heart pacemakers. He told me he planned to sell the medical devices back to the manufacturers someday and net a tidy profit. I left shortly thereafter, thinking that the guy definitely needed to seek qualified psychiatric help.
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.
