Sketchy Sextons & Family Plots | 4M #217

Welcome to the two-hundred-and-seventeenth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #217, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

The reality of death

In case you missed it, a recent episode of “The Kardashians” captured their version of the “talk of a lifetime” as the ladies discussed their wishes for final disposition. With no further ado, here’s what they chose, per People:

• Kris wants to build a family mausoleum in a cemetery near a Costco so her family can stop by after a shopping visit; she also “can’t” be cremated because her youngest daughter doesn’t want that for her.
• Khloe wants to be cremated because, “Wouldn’t you rather have me in a little jar in your house, than buried in dirt?”
• Kourtney wants to be buried.
• Kim doesn’t care either way, but will be cremated if someone “wants her ashes for something.”
• Kendall didn’t answer because, “I don’t like talking about death. I really can’t do it.”

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Embattlement and embezzlement

It’s time (unfortunately) to find out what’s on this week’s deathcare docket — the folks whose funeral businesses have made the news for all the wrong reasons.

• Houston, Texas authorities interrupted an active funeral service when they served a search warrant on November 20 on a funeral home that had been unlicensed since August 31. Police have charged the owner with forgery and are investigating allegations of identity theft of the deceased.
• Financial/fraud charges continue to pile up against a former Connecticut funeral director. In May, he was charged with first-degree larceny for defrauding with preneed customers; in September, authorities added  22 counts of selling a funeral service contract with intent to defraud, 11 counts of second-degree larceny by embezzlement and one count of second-degree forgery, plus 20 counts of larceny in the second degree and 60 counts of intent to defraud funeral service contracts. Now he can add 31 counts of unfair trade practices, three counts of first-degree larceny and 14 counts of second-degree larceny to that growing list. He’s being held on a $100,000 bond. 
• Leaders of two Memphis funeral homes owned by the same family are facing disciplinary action after complaints that one funeral home delayed sending a body out of the country for 18 months and another did not certify several death certificates over a two-year period nor did they place a headstone in a timely manner.
• A Michigan funeral director has been charged with 39 counts of felony embezzlement after allegedly using nearly $200,000 in preneed and funeral insurance funds for personal gain over the past 10 years.

A Spread for the Dead

If you’re still looking for a great Secret Santa gift for your funeral home’s Christmas party, consider A Spread for the Dead, a cookbook “that pays tribute to the food, rituals and stories that have long defined Southern goodbyes.” Caterers, chefs, and even a celebrity chef based in LaGrange, Georgia contributed recipes for the book, the sales of which will support restoration and maintenance efforts at Mulberry Street Cemetery, a beloved historic LaGrange burial ground.

One more reason to digitize

Stakeholders in a historic Montana cemetery were effectively handcuffed from selling plots or performing burials after their long-time sexton and his son disappeared with all of the cemetery’s paper records this summer. When the 92-year-old sexton decided to step away from his long-time position due to health issues, he recommended that his son succeed him; however, the cemetery’s board did not agree and did not offer the son the job. A short time later, maintenance staff found the cemetery office ransacked, and ledgers and note cards detailing burials and plot sales since 1903 — the only complete record of these transactions — were all missing. This created a huge problem for families and funeral homes alike, as plot ownership and locations could not be verified. Luckily, the sexton’s granddaughter tracked down the sexton with the help of a private investigator, located the missing documents at a relative’s home, and returned them to the cemetery. Now, the cemetery’s leaders are beginning the arduous task of not only reorganizing the documents, but digitizing them … just in case.

Perpetual Plots & Cemeteries Gone Wild | 4M #163

Welcome to the hundred-and-sixty-third edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #163, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

We bought a cemetery

Hey, if a movie about a family buying a zoo can be a hit, why can’t a story about a couple buying (and living in) a cemetery work, too? Salon recently published a memoir-like story written by a woman who moves into a renovated church in the middle of a cemetery, after watching the price of the house continue to drop for more than a year on the cult-followed Instagram account Zillow Gone Wild. 

In perpetuity … or not 

A plot owner in Montreal is suing the cemetery where he hopes to be laid to rest after his “in perpetuity” contract was changed to a 99-year lease without his knowledge. Although a 1994 provincial law allowed cemeteries to offer 99-year agreements, it did not give the cemeteries the mandate to change existing contracts, the man is arguing. The cemetery does give plot owners (well, their families) the option of renewing the agreement at year 99 …

That’s why it’s called a deadline

No one knows if it was intentional, but when one Massachusetts news outlet discovered that the annual deadline for the state’s deathcare professionals to renew their respective licenses was always October 31, they thought it was a strange — and apparently newsworthy — coincidence.

Speaking of license renewal …

DouglasNow, a publication based in the city where 18 decomposing bodies were found during a funeral home eviction late last month, has reported that the operation passed an inspection in July — despite the fact that its establishment license had lapsed. Johnson Funeral & Cremation Services owner Chris Johnson, who remains in jail after being arrested on 17 felony counts of abuse of a dead body, had also let his own director and embalmer licenses, due for renewal on June 30, 2024, lapse until September. So, in effect, the funeral home passed the July 19 inspection by the Georgia State Board of Funeral Service despite having three invalid licenses.

Prime real estate

Families picnicking or playing pickleball in one New York City park probably don’t realize that under their feet lie the remains of around 10,000 souls. A large stone monument at the entrance to James J. Walker Park in Greenwich Village explains that the land, now lush and green and full of life, was from 1834 to 1898 known as St. John’s Burial Ground, a cemetery for Trinity Parish church. The fascinating story of this transition is beautifully covered in the Smithsonian magazine, and it is definitely worth a read.