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A friend of mine worked as a Mechanical Engineer for a big casket manufacturer in the area, and I'll always remember two things he told me.

1) The throughput from the plant for metal caskets was one every 30 seconds or so, from rolls of steel to assembled, painted, trimmed and boxed, ready for the truck. Obviously each unit took a long time to put together but there were so many on the line at one time that the output was quite brisk. Gave me some perspective on how many the industry needed.

2) Undertakers love to party and can be really, *really* wild at their conventions. Suppose that makes sense too - I would need to let off some steam if I did that for a living.
 
That Funeral museum is only about a 10 minute drive from my house! I get weirded out just seeing the small discrete sign on the feeder road saying "Funeral Museum" and a right arrow on it.

Up to recently it used to cost only $2.00 for admission, now it's $10.00! I never have gone but I did watch that video you posted and I was able to get through that. I think if I visited the place I would have severe nightmares for months to come.

Why are a lot of decorations related to death in the Victorian style? We have a friend who restored one of the large mansions on Galveston Island and he and his wife decorated the place in high Victorian style. It's just like you stepped back in time to the 1860's. When we visit, I feel like I am in a funeral home. It really gives me the creeps. We've been offered to stay the night at this house and I told Karen I would probably be dead in the morning from fear of what evil lurks in that house at night!

This kind of stuff just bothers me.
 
Victorian Mourning

Long before Queen Victoria came to the throne all European countries and elsewhere had their own mourning traditions, however one event changed things at least in Great Britain,and much of the United States where at least the upper classes tended to follow customs,fashions and mores of the "UK": Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort died. That event sent the young widow into pretty much a permanent state of mouring the rest of her long life.

What followed through the Victorian and much of the Edwardian period was in some cases an almost morbid custom of mourning and or fascination with death.

Besides the strict rules about who could wear what and when, which fell mainly to the wealthy and new middle class ladies who had time for shutting themselves up and money to spend on clothing, there was all sorts of things such as broches and bracelets made from a lock of hair from the deceased.

Photography had just come on the scene during the Victorian age and the rage was for persons to have pictures taken of the deceased (sometimes with the whole family) as a momento and or to send copies to those whom could not attend the funeral. There is a *HIGHLY* collectable book of "post mortem" pictures called "Sleeping Beauties" made from a collection of such photographs.

It was during the Victorian era we started to get those grand and to some gaudy horse drawn hearses along with the masses of heavy drapery and what not that would be brought in to turn whatever room was being used in the family home to hold the wake.

Allot of this started to die down after WWII,especially in Europe. So many persons had died that governments and society wanted to "move on" and not give comfort to the enemy nor dwell on the past by exaggerated displays of grief.

Gone With The Wind was set during this period and you see Scarlett at first revolting at having to wear full widow's mourning of the period (I'll just go around scaring people in *THAT* thing),she quips tossing her veil aside in favour of a pretty hat. Later after her second husband's (Mr. Kennedy) funeral we see the remaining decorations still in the front parlor when Rhett Butler calls.

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morningpassages.com
 
The heavy "colonial" style or Victorian style of funeral homes/parlors in the US is starting to die down too and move to lighter, more uplifting designs and even contemporary buildings which don't look like the typical funeral home (which often seem like they could double as family restaurants). I think it's also to get funeral homes to be more like modern sacred spaces, elegant and light-filled.

Launderess - no New Orleans Jazz Band send off?
 
Decomp Video

Kinda interesting. Although more important things have come to mind, I've wondered on more that one occasion what my mother would look like after being in the ground 44 years.

I had to silence the "music". I hate that crap rap (or if you prefer, rap crap)! I wish someone would bury it and NEVER let it return!
 
When I was little, I remember funeral homes being more in the Victorian style. My parents used to drag me to every wake they went too. The refrigerator like coolness of the place combined with the odor of all the flowers used to give me nightmares. It seemed that in the 1950's the wakes would go on for days. I think maybe that traumatized me when I was young. Two or three days and for each day of the wake full family attendance was required. Nowadays it seems just one night or maybe the morning of the funeral service will do. Thank God.

You are right, the newer funeral homes seem to be more light and bright and instead of imposing a sense of gloom and doom on you they seem to be trying to be more uplifting. In fact a few months ago we went to a wake where a friend of ours was at and the chapel even had stained glass windows in it which let in a lot of light. I didn't feel that creeped out at that one. And for some strange reason I agree the newer funeral homes do remind me of cafeteria style restaurants.

Another thing I find weird. Back in 1973 my favorite aunt passed away from a heart attack. But after her funeral they had a big meal served at a catering hall.
For some reason I always thought this was in poor taste. But now that I am older I can see how it's really a chance for the survivors to get together one last time.

As far as traditions go the airline industry has it's own too. If you are a pilot and you die, a lot of airline people that worked for any airline or previous airline you worked for will show up at your wake and funeral wearing their uniforms. And if you die away from home the airline usually asks some of the people that knew you at the airline to go to the your house to notify your family, in uniform. And it's usually three people.

And if you are a pilot, you never die; you just "Gone West". It was written back around 1918 during WWI, but it seems to have been adopted for all aviators today.

Do not think of them--our glorious dead--
As laying tired heads upon the breast
Of a kind mother to be lulled to rest;
I do not see them in a narrow bed
Of alien earth by their own blood dyed red,
But see in their own simple phrase--Gone West--
The words of knights upon a holy quest,
Who saw the light and followed where it led.

Gone West! Scarred warrior hosts go marching by,
Their longing faces turned to greet the light
That glows and burns upon the western sky.
Leaving behind the darkness of the night,
The long day over and the battle won,
They seek for rest beyond the setting sun.
 
Post Funeral Meal

aka the Repass is very common in many cultures here in the USA, Europe and elsewhere.

Either everyone brings something to the mourner's home,and or the family cooks/caters, or a church hall/restaurant/pub, etc.. is hired out. It is as you say just away for family and friends who are together anyway because of the event to pay their respects to the family.

Long wakes are fast becoming a thing of the past here as well. With even the most simple funeral starting at $10K, who can afford three days of viewing? If there is a need to wait for family and friends to travel great distances better to schedule a bit later (if religous customs permit) than incur the costs of wakes lasting several days. Not to mention the emotional stress on family. Who wants to sit in a funeral home twice a day for three or more days.

Tell you another thing, cremation is becoming more and more common, even amoung Catholics and other religons that formerly shunned the practice. Between the funeral/graveside costs and those of perpetual care many families if not the individual themselves (via making their wishes known before their demise), are choosing to be cremeated.

unless one has purchased a plot years ago or the family has a vault/plot many are shocked just how much a grave costs. Then there is also if one can find room at a local cemetary because many are filling up fast. Land costs being what they are and the NIB group it is not always easy for a cemetary to expand. Lucky ones have lands enough to expand but many find themselves fenced in by residental development that didn't exsist when the place was planned. The alternative is to start digging up those whose care payments have long ceased.
 
All That Black Mouring Drapery and Widow's Weeds Is Just

IMHO.

Not to mention depressing and quite honestly rather scary.

Though if done properly (Jackie Kennedy at President Kennedy's funeral) it can be tasteful, but one takes the advice from an old etiquette book; life is for the living and while there is a time and place for paying one's respects to the dead things can be carried too far.

In fact think it was an old Emily Post etiquette book from the 1960's that discouraged long periods of mourning and for widows and or other female members of the family from going around in weeds for extended periods.
 
I just watched "Death and the Civil War" on PBS... it was informative, beautiful, haunting and surprisingly tranquil. Told through modern voices, period letters read aloud and incredible photographs, I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about the human toll of the Civil War and the treatment of the wounded / dying / dead both immediately and far after the fight.

There is one part in particular that was especially moving, a poem by Walt Whitman:

Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing
(As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd),
As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd,
Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom,
And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood,
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable,
And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers' depths,
And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children's blood trickling redden'd,
And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb or South or North--my young men's bodies absorb, and their precious, precious blood,
Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odour of surface and grass, centuries hence,
In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give my immortal heroes,
Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an atom be lost,
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial sweet death, years centuries hence.

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www.pbs.org
 
Watched the "Decomp" video out of curosity-was interesting-but like others muted the audio-Question--What does the "Rap" music have to do with decomping bodies???Glad I saw the video after lunch hour.Geez-someone interrupted those folks dirt naps!!
 
It's Happening More And More

Saw on the news or some such program on television that somewhere in Florida the local ME along with the DA's office are exhuming persons and children buried whose IDs were then unknown. Due to modern DNA technology advances science can now often tell who they were and return the remains to loved ones. Here in NYC just a few weeks ago the body of a teenager/young adult was exhumed from Hart's Island (NYC's Potter's Field) and ID'd as a boy reported missing decade or so ago. Turns out due to various errors at the time his body was found including physical description no one connected the dots. The mother and family of this poor soul was glad to finally bring him "home" and to rest. IIRC he had committed suicide by jumping off a building or something.

Personally having had been around just dead bodies from working in nursing, that is as close as one wants to get, and that is pushing it. You couldn't pay me enough or give me anything that would get me in the same room or within a NY city block of an exhumation and or dug up corpse.
 
Was that the little boy who went missing in the village or somewhere in the mid 70's?

I read somewhere that, I want to say Whitby, did well in the 19th Century due to mourning jewelry, made with jet, being very popular.
 
Missing Lad ="s Etan Patz

If that is to who you are referring, no it wasn't (sadly).

On any given day there are probably more than a few "John,Jane or Baby Does" in various NYC morgues. Has always been so an probably always will. If they remain unclaimed after a period of time they are usually buried in Potter's Field. Say "usually" because there are one or two civic groups (made up of IIRC NYPD and or NYC Sanitation Department members) that often will arrange a funeral and burial for unknown deceased infants found say in the rubbish or some sort.

Here in most of NY it is legal for almost anyone to arrange the funeral and or burial of a body if the family cannot or does not step up. The only time things get "legal" is when a cremation is requested. Because it causes the destruction of a body if legal next of kin cannot be located to sign release papers, the corpse must be buried. One assumes this is because a body can always be exhumed and the remains of an unknown later identified (as is what is happening today), however once destroyed by cremation the body is "toast", if you will excuse the pun.

As for the missing lad Etan Patz, sadly it is likely his remains will never be found. If as the man in police custody states is true, that the body was placed with the rubbish it has long gone to any number of landfills. By now there would be decades of layers over that time and or the place may have been sealed off and closed. No one knows if records go back that far as to what NYSD trucks picked up what rubbish and where it went.
 
I was talking to that friend of ours whose brother passed away a few months ago. The family option for cremation because that's what the guy wanted. She said it wasn't easy. They wanted:

A copy of the will indicating he wanted cremation
A copy of his sisters and her husbands birth certificate
A copy of the deceased's parents death certificates

They wouldn't do a thing until all of the above was provided. For reasons Laundress pointed out.
 
Cremation Has To Be One Of The Most Complicated Things Death

So one urges those considering it to investigate and or make their wished known.

NYS has some the most strict laws on cremation and there are only two crematories in the NYC area (Woodlawn cemetary in Brooklyn and Greenwood in the Bronx), so most often the body travels to another state (New Jersey) for cremation. For instance know most Staten Island funeral homes use NJ as it's closer and probaly easier to get to than driving all way into Brooklyn.

What is interesting is that universally most all local laws require all "foreign" matter be removed from a body before it can be cremated. This includes but not limited to pacemakers, breast implants, fake eyes and so forth. A signed legal form attesting to this fact must accompany the paperwork for the service. Also the chamber must be quite cleaned out between bodies to prevent intermingling of differnent bodies ashes.

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www.dos.ny.gov
 
We want to be cremated and have investigated it already.

For families whose religion requires it, creamtoriums have viewing rooms so you can view the cremation. They even have the "start" button in the viewing room. Some religions require that the father or the oldest brother in the family be the one to start the process.

Here in Houston there are crematoriums everywhere. Next door to apartment complexes, in one level strip centers, etc. Because of all the filtering that is done with the exhaust there is no odor outside the building at all.

There is this really nice guy who was a vet at Texas A&M that gave up his vet practice to become a pet mortuary outside Houston in the country near Anderson, TX.
He also became a grief counselor. You'd never meet a more friendly person. I went to his place to pick up Kurt after Texas A&M was done with him.
This guy gave me a tour of his facility. I was very impressed with the dignity he gave each animal. He has a huge walk in cooler and each pet is on a shelf with a nice little blanket over it until it's time to be cremated. He waits until he has enough to cover the costs of crematory pre-heat. Which ends up being three times a week. He also has a pet cemetery on site and if you like you can choose a casket for your beloved pet. He even has a chapel where you can have a wake for you pet.

He mentioned having to clean the "fire box" out between uses when he has some single pet cremations. His firm offers two different kinds, single pet and multiple pet. The later is much cheaper. In this case they cremate your pet with others and then each owner is given some of the ashes in the end. In single pet all you get are the ashes of your pet only, guaranteed.

To tell you the truth, I never knew such places existed. Anyway, when I got the box containing Kurt's urn in it when I opened it there was Kurt's urn, a packet of sage and a handwritten personalized note from the guy who owns the business and a prayer card for Kurt. We were more than impressed. The next time we have a pet go we will have in home euthanasia done. It's not expensive and from what I have heard is a lot easier on the pet than being taken to the vet's office one last time.
 
when I did look up "cremation equipment" on the web out of curosity-most suppliers indeed could provide remote start buttons for the cremation process-a family member activating the cremation furnace.Otherwise the equipment suppliers mention allowing the family member to activate the furnace with the button on the unit.And some states allow keepsakes to be cremated with the deceased-like a favorite jacket or military uniform.And "ID" tags that can withstand the cremation process or placed in the furnace along with the body-another ID device.And only one body can be creamated at a time-and the cremation furnace cleaned out between bodies.Pacemakers,indeed have to be removed since the batteries inside them are radioactive or can explode during the heating process dam aging the furnace or injuring the operator.Plastic items have to be removed-plastic can damage the furnace lining.the cremation furnace has an "afterburner"that burns the smoke and other gases.There is a company in Largo,Florida that builds cremation machines-and related equipment.
 

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