Dale-Time

I think that over the last 20 years the funeral business has drifted away from their true purpose toward the business of grief. This move was typically justified by the altruistic reason of educating then public, but there was always an underlying financial reason for the move too. (you know what they say “follow the money”) Let me review a little history to show how this movement started.

The funeral business can be essentially divided into two parts. 1. The transportation, preparation, and final disposition of the dead body. 2. The planning, coordination, supervision and production of Events associated with the death of someone.

For the first 100 years of the funeral business in America those two parts were interconnected. That’s because our society and culture almost always had the dead body present at those events. Funeral homes focused on serving the family by doing a great job of preparing the body and then handling all the details of the events; the visitation, funeral, procession, burial, and even providing chairs and stuff for the gathering afterwards. We also sold products (caskets and vaults) necessary for those events. Grief recovery and emotional support were provided by family, friends and church.

On the financial side in the beginning we (funeral homes) charged people one price for everything we did and the products we provided. Over time people started to equate the price of the funeral with the Casket itself. Changes in laws and business practices eventually caused funeral homes to start charging for individual items of service, facilities, equipment and merchandise. But the funeral homes still heavily relied on the sale of the merchandise for income instead of adequately charging people for the true cost of providing the services and facilities for the events that we handled.

Then came along the late 1960’s and, like all of American society, the funeral business started to change. Cremation started to become more acceptable which brought about events without a body present. People started moving away from organized religion and customs. Books were written on the stages of grief and the high cost of funerals in America. The Hospice movement started to take hold.

By the 1980’s the comfortable routine (and income) of the funeral business, which really hadn’t changed in over 75 years, was rapidly going away. Merchandise sales were declining. People were having gatherings on their own or skipping them all together. Viewing the body wasn’t important to many people. This all started causing financial challenges at the funeral homes.  Many funeral directors just wanted things to go back to the way they were, instead of accepting that attitudes had changed and they needed to adapt to the new way of things.

At the same time several authors and other folks started to focus on the aspects of grief and loss. These authors and companies were very supportive of what traditional funerals provided towards, what they deemed as, healthy grief recovery. So naturally, a very symbiotic relationship formed between the grief folks and the funeral industry. Funeral Homes figured if they could only educate the public about the healthy psychological effects that funerals had on people, then the public would hopefully return to more traditional ways or at least use the funeral home that focused more on grief care (aftercare)  than the funeral homes that didn’t. Plus the grief folks were more than happy to provide seminars, printed materials and other services (for a fee) to help the funeral homes do this.

So hundreds of funeral homes around the country started Aftercare Programs, Holiday Memorial Services, Grief Support groups, newsletters and a plethora of other activities to show their care and concern for the mental well being of the communities they serve. As a whole, Funeral Homes did this because they truly are caring folks by nature, but they also hoped it would help their business to grow and continue. I know this to be true because I did all of this with the best of intentions. And so did several other area funeral homes. And then the churches did the same, and the Hospitals and the local Hospice organizations. Now people can get grief support, education and classes from a dozen different groups in my area.

With all this grief education going on you would think that the public would be choosing traditional funeral service more. But the opposite is happening. Cremation is the rule now instead of the exception. Public viewing of the body happens much less. Many people are having services and gatherings at their homes, restaurants, VFW’s and clubs without involving the funeral home staff. Minimal (low priced) Cremation businesses are cropping up all over the country.

So why didn’t this work? Why are people continuing to move away from traditional services? In my next blog I’ll give you some of my thoughts on why this happened and where I think funeral homes should go now.

I’m Dale Clock.  Thanks for listening.