Welcome to the hundred-and-sixty-eighth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #168, 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!
That NY and its laws …
A New York state funeral home has lost its bid to retain its funeral home/crematory combo status after it relocates. Sadly, New York’s Anti-Combination Act of 1998 prohibits any entity other than cemeteries from owning crematories. The funeral home in question had been “grandfathered in,” but its planned relocation prompted a legal review of its status, which has now been formally revoked with the governor’s signing of a bill stating such last week. At least one government official argued that forcing the funeral home to shut down would create a crematory shortage in the area; in addition, officials said that law itself is unusual compared to those of neighboring states, which don’t tie crematories only to cemeteries.
“Coffin’ up” more money
With the consistent decades-long spotlight on funeral home pricing in the U.S., perhaps it may come as a welcome reprieve to learn that another country is facing criticism for its recent 74% increase (!) on casket prices over the last three (!) years. Except … that country is Russia, and the price jump was due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and a 74% price increase constitutes only another $32 (3274 rubles). Yep. That brings the current price of a coffin in Russia to a whopping $76.
Kudos to these GA FHs
Shout out to the 10 funeral homes that have stepped up to offer free services to the 18 families who were victimized by the actions of Chris Johnson of Johnson Funeral Home in Douglas, Georgia. These great folks are showing these grieving families what real deathcare is supposed to be, and we appreciate them for this. Johnson remains in jail as authorities continue working to identify the remains found in his facility in late October. Now, in addition to the original 17 felony counts of abuse of a dead body, Johnson now faces four new charges: three counts of violation of vital records registration and one count of theft by taking.
A new kind of fridge art
Yes — you guessed it — behind each of the randomly-sized photos adorning this wall is a secret pet refrigerator. Cool, huh? (pun intended). However, this idea is eliciting “gasps of horror” from employees of the Japanese commercial food-and-drink refrigerator company that has decided to venture into the mortuary cooler space. “We’re making refrigerators to store food, and you’re putting dead bodies in them?” one employee asked Hiroyuki Iwane, president of Tatumi Industrial Co. The president explained that the pandemic inspired this shift, as the company received zero refrigerator orders, while at the same time, pet ownership was growing.
Double-duty urns
Speaking of food-storage-related deathcare happenings in eastern Asia … A family in China is furious with a local funeral parlor after a loved one’s cremains were presented in a “stew pot.” According to this story, a man picked up the cremains in June, accepting the container provided by the funeral home as he never selected one himself. Weeks later, though, he “found a strong resemblance between the ‘urn’ in his home and the pots containing nutritious soup.” Now his complaint about the funeral home’s disrespect for placing the cremains in a “stew pot” “kitchen utensil” has gone viral on social media.
