HW #53 - Independent Research A

1)
Article Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/nyregion/in-funeral-industry-womens-presence-grows.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=embalming&st=cse
Précis:   
Lisa S. Dozier illustrates an uphill climb in the number of women entering the funeral industry. Inspired by the peaceful, albeit forbidden sight of her dead great-uncle, she began her training as a mortician and funeral director in the 1970s. 14 percent of funeral homes in the US are owned by women, which is a significant difference to the 5 percent of 1998. Dozier is not the only woman who struggles as a female funeral director because it was and still is unusual to be a female in that industry. She finds that many women are better at it than men. For example, a woman would never put red lipstick and a backwards wig on a 90-year-old woman like a male colleague of hers did. When people find out that she is a funeral director, they often react with surprise. She still gets odd looks when seen driving a hearse, but she enjoys the progress women have made in this business thus far.

Article Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/nyregion/12funerals.html?pagewanted=2
Précis:
Immigrants from Ghana, a West African Nation, party their hardest not at their weddings, birthdays or christenings, but at funerals. A Ghanaian funeral is traditionally a celebration of someone's life and hundreds of people attend; providing an opportunity for the family of the deceased to raise enough money to send the body back to Ghana and immerse themselves in a community far from their home country. Some people use the death of a distant relative with whom they are not actually acquainted to dance, socialize, and make a pretty penny. Security guards, Disc jockeys, videographers, bartenders and photographers all make a pretty penny as well, considering that these parties typically last from 10 pm to 5 am.

Analysis:
Funeral services in the US are traditionally much more business-like and serious than those of traditional Ghana. I cannot imagine a Ghanaian immigrant requesting the services of a funeral director such as Dozier. He/she would want more "fun" and personalized caskets, and Dozier would not have a list of DJ's, personal body guards, or bartenders on hand as she would a list of churches, cemeteries, grave-diggers, and hearse-drivers. Perhaps some funeral directors in the US would even be offended by the fun-loving nature of Ghanaian funerals, if not for the fact that such funerals can produce quite a profit. Funeral directors depend on the sentimentality and need for "grief therapy" in their business, because the sentimentality often results in more elaborate, expensive funerals. Ghanaian funerals clearly have no need for grief therapy; if a funeral director walked into one of their funerals wearing a suit and a long face and expressed his/her condolences, the reactions would probably be of mockery or even slight disgust. Although the increasing diversity of genders in the funeral industry is wonderful, I still am much more drawn to funerals derived from the traditions of Ghana. The one thing the two nations have in common: a habit of spending lots of money on dying.

2)
I called John Krtil Funeral Services, a funeral home on the Upper East Side, and spoke to the receptionist. I pretended to have a sick aunt and to be researching funeral options, trying to find a way to take care of her body that was both respectful and financially sensible. He said "Yeah" in a friendly tone. On the business's website, it said that viewing the body for 30 minutes without embalming, a casket, or make-up would cost $500. I asked him what all that money was paying for if not the usual services. "Well, see, that's for when just the close family wants to be with the body for half an hour before burial or cremation." I politely asked again which services were costing him $500, especially sense the close family did not even buy a casket. "Well, they put the body in a basic wooden box that would be sent for cremation." "So the 'basic wooden box' costs $500?" I asked. He conceded in the affirmative but sounded unsure.

 I asked what the process of embalming is, including whatever is done in terms of make-up and dressing the body. If I did not know what embalming was, I still would not know. He said, "It's a way to ensure that body stays preserved for a while." I asked how long embalming would keep the body preserved. "Oh, a while....For as long as you need. A long time, I've heard." I asked how their business had changed over the years, considering that it's been around since 1885. He said that New York City has changed in that customers have grown to want different things, but he said proudly that their business was prepared to cater to whatever the consumer wants - like cremation, burial, pre-arranged funerals, expensive or cheap, religious or non-religious. I remarked upon the large difference in price range between caskets ($65-$16,500). He said that their cheaper caskets were wooden, but there were also some very expensive wooden caskets (like the mahogany ones). The most expensive ones were made of steel and the higher the gage of the steel, the higher the price. My final question was about pre-arranged funerals: "I have a friend who pre-arranged his funeral and paid for everything, but by the time he died the casket he had selected was out of stock. His family had to pay the difference between the pre-selected casket and the casket they selected instead. Is there any chance of something like that happening if I pre-arranged a funeral at John Krtil?" He responded quickly: "Oh, no! Our pre-arranged funerals are guaranteed-price, which means that everything is covered when you pay. Our intention is that the family does not ever have to pay out of pocket."

I think that this man was either a bit uneducated about procedures like embalming, or he is squeamish about discussing them. I was not very surprised that he was vague about that practice, because people probably call all the time with questions about embalming without wanting to hear a detailed description of what it entails. However, if an ignorant someone asks what embalming is he should be able to communicate what it is. I was happy to hear that he did not go into detail about the romantic, idealistic names of the caskets and he did not describe how luxurious their premises were so that I (the "customer") would chose to have the funeral there instead of somewhere like a church. I wonder how the conversation would have gone if I had talked to the funeral director or embalmer, which I suspect he was not. I wondered why it was so hard to find out what the $500 was covering. Either the receptionist (if that's what he was) did not know or he was hesitant to admit that I was expected to pay that much money for a box, or he thought it was obvious. This was the only time that I suspected that I was being charged more than necessary.

For the most part I thought that this funeral business, although potentially very pricey, had more integrity than those described in "The American Way of Death Revisited". I am left wondering how much training funeral business receptionists receive, how much large boxes cost funeral businesses to buy, how funeral businesses differ between rural, suburban and urban regions, what inspires people to go into the funeral industry, how many people are allowed into the embalming room or actually go into them, and how much information about embalming is allowed to be provided to seriously inquisitive customers.