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.

With These Sketchy Solutions, No Wonder Early Americans Didn’t Embalm Their Dead

While the practice of embalming stretches back to the ancient Egyptians, Americans didn’t begin embalming their dead until the Civil War, and then it was only for the purposes of safely transporting the bodies of fallen soldiers to their homes for proper burial. But the idea of preserving dead bodies wasn’t exactly foreign to the people of the “New World.”  

In fact, early Americans were able to read all about the evolving practice of embalming in their newspapers. All across Europe and in the larger American cities, physicians, pharmacists, and scientists seemed to be fascinated by the possibility of keeping deceased people intact for various purposes, and news of their experimental techniques was often published throughout the States. 

Perhaps the key word here, though, is “experimental.” The solutions and procedures early Americans read about ranged from the ridiculous to the barbaric. So, it stands to reason that if Egyptian mummification and these early attempts were the only exposure the colonists and settlers had to embalming, no wonder it didn’t catch on until it was an absolute necessity. Just check out these stories below, featuring some of the sketchiest pre-formaldehyde embalming experiments that appeared in the U.S. papers.

Submersion in wine, 1790 and 1800, France

Leave it to the French to propose wine as a solution for preserving humans. In 1790, a Frenchman proclaimed to have witnessed insects being revived “in the rays of the sun” after being drowned and sealed in a bottle of Madeira. This led him to propose a similar option for humans. Ten years later, an article recalled that the cerebellum of French writer and philosopher Voltaire had been preserved in “spirits of wine” after his 1789 death. The French government had just agreed to purchase this artifact and include it in a monument in a library.

Pyroligenous acid and sulphate of iron, 1823 and 1826, Connecticut and France

Formaldehyde may not have been the most mainstream chemical when it was determined to be the best embalming solution, but these early concoctions of pyroligenous acid and iron sulphate do make one wonder how these became options. Especially because we now know pyroligenous acid by the more common name of “liquid smoke” (yes, the same liquid smoke that you use for backyard barbecues) and iron sulphate is used for iron deficiencies in humans as well as plants. Also interesting is the method suggested for applying the iron sulphate; the first part of the article (above) mentions months-long submersion of body parts, but later recommends “adding riverwater” and applying “with a brush over the surface of the part to be preserved.”

Sublimate of mercury and carbonization, 1835 and 1836, France and Italy

In the 1830s, these would-be embalmers took inspiration from the battlefield and the blazing desert sands of Africa. Larry, the French army surgeon in the first piece above, must have thought that if a sublimate of mercury — what we know now as the highly corrosive mercuric chloride — could prevent dry rot in timber, why not try it on bodies? Segato, an Italian mapmaker, found a substance that turned bodies to “stone.” He proceeded to practice on birds, snakes, and “various portions of the human body,” which he inlaid in a table, and proposed his invention as a “petrifective process.”

More not-so-successful embalming techniques

You get the point, right? Although there’s not enough room here to share each of these seemingly-breakthrough discoveries, here are a few more that we found in early American newspapers:

• Beeswax, 1829, Boston
• Painting with white lead, 1838, New York
• Covering with salt, 1843, France
• Coating with wax then filling the coffin with Plaster of Paris, 1848, New York

It wasn’t long after these dubious options were presented that French chemist Jean Gannal discovered arterial injection, formaldehyde was introduced, and mortician Dr. Thomas Holmes of New York combined these discoveries to become the “father of American embalming.” Holmes’ method became the most widely accepted and practiced solution.

Although new embalming techniques and materials are still being developed today, these solutions just don’t seem as outlandish as those to which our forefathers were unfortunately subjected — but be sure that Connecting Directors will be the first to bring you the news.