Welcome to the hundred-and-fiftieth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #150, 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!
Above and beyond
You guys do incredibly kind things everyday for the families you serve, but 99% of the time you don’t get the recognition you deserve. Sometimes, though, someone shares your good works, as in this case in Kansas City, Missouri. Marcom-Harvey Funeral Home didn’t want 99-year-old Katherine Shirley to be laid to rest without any loved ones present, so they reached out to a local news station for their help to find her long-lost family members. The story went viral, and, and a miracle happened. Someone in Nevada connected the funeral home with Shirley’s sister, who had not been in contact with Shirley for more than 30 years. Thanks to these efforts, the sister will join what is sure to be a large crowd of community members at Shirley’s funeral next week. Good work, Marcom-Harvey. Very good work.
Heartbreaking and heartwarming
When a young Georgia mother died earlier this month, his family couldn’t afford her funeral expenses. To raise funds to provide a nice burial for her, this mom’s incredible 11-year-old son set up a roadside hot dog stand and held a sign that read, “Please help me bury my Mama.” His community stepped up, donating a burial plot, taking the boy shopping for a suit for the funeral, and $80,000 — a part of which will enable his aunt to take him on his first-ever back-to-school shopping trip. Bless his precious heart.
Stretcher scam
An arrest warrant was issued for a Florida man who has been stealing gurneys from mortuary services across Georgia. Why? Well, it appears he was trying to sell the $1500-value stolen gurneys to other funeral homes and transfer services for cheap. At least one of those potential buyers caught on to the scam, and he has a warning for the guy. “It’s very unusual to hear anybody breaking into a funeral home, or the vehicles, because who wants that mojo on them?” Don Ware, owner of In Their Honor Transports in Canton, Georgia, said in an interview with a TV station, as he urged the perpetrator to turn himself in. “Don’t be messing with the funeral industry anymore. We do a good job of trying to take care of people,” he said.
On the catwalk, yeah
Nine months after attending a friend’s November funeral, a New Jersey model is still getting grief for her very model-like strut down the aisle to visit his open casket, which she promptly posted to Instagram. In her defense, though, the deceased was a fashion designer, she was wearing one of his creations, and the funeral was themed as a “red-carpet viewing” event at an art museum. Apparently, the viral video offended some folks, even though the deceased had previously asked for a three-day celebration of his life and would have loved the send-off, according to the model.
15 feet under
A Ugandan businessman can rest in peace now as his family has honored his unusual final disposition instructions — being buried in a 15-foot-deep grave without a casket, but instead wrapped in 100 pieces of bark cloth (cloth made from the inner bark of trees). The family hired several young men to work around the clock digging the “exceptionally deep” grave so it would be ready in time for the “dramatic” funeral, which drew hundreds of curious onlookers.
Ashes earnings
A new UK company is offering to help deathcare professionals “earn money from your ashes, old and new.” The premise behind The Ashes Register is that funeral homes can upload information about their unclaimed remains in the hopes of reuniting them with loved ones — which is a great concept. It goes further, though, as deathcare professionals can earn commissions when families pay to create an upgraded online memorial for their loved one. One fifth-generation funeral home has entered information for 136 individuals whose remains have been unclaimed since as early as 1952.
