In 1900 embalming was still the exception rather than the rule and was still generally done in the home—although Hohenschuh mentions a new trend making its appearance in California: that of taking the body to the funeral parlor after death for dressing and embalming. He proposes an ingenious approach to selling the public on embalming: “It may be suggested that bodies should be embalmed in winter as well as in summer. It may be a little difficult to have people accept this idea, but after having tried it a few times, and people realize the comfort to themselves in having the body in a warm room, this preventing them against colds, besides the sentimental feeling against having the body in a cold room, it is an easy matter to make the custom general.” However, the most profitable aspect of the modern funeral—that of preparing the body for the public gaze—seems to have escaped this astute practitioner, for he opposes the open casket at the funeral service, and remarks, “There is no doubt that people view the dead out of curiosity.”

It was still a far cry from these early, hesitant steps of the emerging funeral industry to the full-fledged burlesque it has become.

13. THE NEWEST PROFESSION

These observations are culled from an 1885 report describing the proceedings of one of the earliest National Funeral Directors Association conventions. A century later, the problems they reflect continue to occupy the attention of the undertaking trade: how to be exalted, almost sacred, and at the same time be successful businessmen in a highly competitive situation; how to continually upgrade their peculiar product; how to establish successful relations with press and public.

The special public relations problem that dogs the undertaker has existed for all time, arising out of the very nature of his occupation. It is uphill work to present it attractively, but he tries, perhaps too hard. Of late years he has compounded his built-in dilemma by veering off in his own weird direction towards a cult of the dead unsanctioned by tradition, religion, or common sense. He has painted himself into a difficult corner. His major justifications for his practices fly in the face of reality, but he persists; the fantasy he has created, and in which he by now has so much cash invested, must somehow be made desirable to the buying public. And like every other successful salesman, the funeral salesman must first and foremost believe in himself and his product.

He is in any case not just a funeral salesman. There is the creative aspect of his work, the aesthetically rewarding task of transforming the corpse into a Beautiful Memory Picture. Pride of craftsmanship, fascination with technique, and continuous striving for improvement shine through all that he writes on this subject.

The sort of passionate devotion it is possible to develop for embalming, the true Art for Art’s Sake approach, is captured in a testimonial letter published as part of an advertisement for Cosmetic Tru-Lanol Arterial Fluid. Like any other craftsman, the embalmer gets satisfaction from rising to a challenge and often hates to part with his finished product. The letter describes an unusually difficult case: “The subject… was a 69-year-old lady, 5′2″ tall with 48″ bust and 48″ hips. Death was a sudden heart attack. She lay 40 hours in a heated apartment prior to being moved.” The writer goes on to mention other inauspicious circumstances surrounding the case, such as a series of punctures made in the center of circulation by some bungler in the medical examiner’s office. However, Tru-Lanol comes to the rescue: “Surface penetration was slow and even, with excellent cosmetic results…. By the fourth day, the swelling in the features was receding in a very uniform manner, and the cosmetic was still excellent. Honestly, I don’t know of another fluid that would have done as good a job in this case, all things considered.” He adds wistfully, “I wish I could have kept her for four more days.” How poignant those last words! And in a way, how very understandable.

Every craft develops its outstanding practitioners, those who seem to live for the sake of their work. Such a one was Elizabeth “Ma” Green, born in 1884, a true zealot of funeral service. Mortuary Management, in a tribute to this unusual woman, recalls that “Ma” got her start in a lifelong career of embalming as a teenager: “It was during this early period of her life that she became interested in caring for the dead. As this interest increased, she assisted the village undertaker in the care and preparation of family friends who passed away.” “Ma” never looked back. By the early twenties she had become a licensed embalmer, and later took a job as principal of an embalming college. She stayed in this work, girl and woman, some sixty years: “It was obvious she had an almost passionate devotion to the Profession.”

Funeral people are always saying that “funerals are for the living,” yet there is occasional evidence that they have developed an eerie affection, a genuine solicitude, for the dead, in whose company they spend so much time. It is as though they really attribute feelings to these mute remains of humanity, much as a small child attributes feelings to his teddy bear; as though they are actually concerned with the comfort and well-being of the bodies entrusted to their care. A 1921 issue of The Casketdescribes a chemical which, “when sprayed into the mouth of a cadaver, prevents and stops the development of pyorrhea.” And California is one of several states where it is a penal offense to use “profane, indecent or obscene language” in the presence of a dead human body.

When the funeral practitioner puts pen to paper on his favorite subject, the results are truly dreamy flights of rhapsody. Mr. John H. Eckels says in his textbook Mortuary Sciencethat “the American method of arterial embalming… adds another laurel to the crown of inventiveness, ingenuity, and scientific research which the world universally accords to us…. In fact, there is no profession on record which has made such rapid advancement in this country as embalming…. In summing up this whole situation, the funeral profession today is one of the most vital callings in the cause of humanity. Funeral directors are the advance guards of civilization….” These vivid metaphors, these laurels, crowns and advance guards, express with peculiar appropriateness the modern undertaker’s fond conception of his work and himself. How to generate equal enthusiasm in the minds of the public for the “funeral profession” is a more difficult problem.

Mr. Edward A. Martin, author of Psychology of Funeral Service, sees undertakers in a role “similar to that of a school teacher who knows and believes in his subject but who must find attractive ways to impress it indelibly upon his pupils. Our class consists of more than 150 million Americans, and the task of educating them is one that cannot be accomplished overnight.” He adds, “Public opinion is based on the education of the public, which believes what it is told.”

There is some evidence that while this great pedagogical process has taken hold most strongly among the funeral men themselves, it has left the public either apathetic or downright hostile. In other words, the funeral men live very largely in a dreamworld of their own making about the “acceptance” of their product in the public mind. They seem to feel that saying something often and loudly enough will somehow make it true. “Sentiment alone is the foundation of our profession,” they cry. “The new funeral director is a Doctor of Grief, or expert in returning abnormal minds to normal in the shortest possible time!”