Stinky Sewers & Raging Reviews | 4M #78

ENJOY Funeral Industry News Morticians' Monday Morning Mashup March 13, 2023
4M 78

Stinky Sewers & Raging Reviews | 4M #78

Welcome to the seventy-eighth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #78, 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!

Not sewer gas

An Illinois woman retrieving Christmas decorations from a hidden storage space in her home found more than a tote full of tinsel last December. Instead, she found the mummified body of her husband, who she had reported missing in April 2022. Autopsy results, which were only recently released, indicate that the man had died of suicide and no foul play was suspected. Questions have arisen, though, as to how the family didn’t recognize the smell of decomposition before the body dried up and became mummified. Reports indicate that they actually did call a plumber when they smelled a sewage-like odor; the plumber capped a basement pipe and the odor eventually subsided. It didn’t help that the residence was a little cluttered as well; police described it as a “hoarder home.” 

Speaking of long-forgotten bodies …

On March 1, California authorities raided a warehouse owned by an unlicensed crematorium; inside they found six bodies and 154 sets of cremains from 15 different California counties. The raid occurred after being alerted on February 28 that Oceanview Cremations was operating, albeit unsatisfactorily and with terrible Yelp reviews, despite their license being suspended in March 2018. Families of the deceased were surprised; they had either assumed the remains of their loved ones had been cremated or scattered per their requests. Others had tried to follow up with the status of their family members’ cremains but never received a response from the owner.

Decisions, decisions

A man recently researching his family history contacted a UK funeral home to find out where his grandmother was buried or where her cremains had been scattered after her 1967 death. As it turns out, neither had occurred; his granny’s cremains were still at the funeral home because the family couldn’t decide on what to do with them. Fifty-six years later, it’s apparently still a conundrum, as the funeral director reports that when he called the man and asked him if the family had decided what they’d like to do, he replied, “No not yet, we’re still thinking about it.”

Hands-on instruction

Last week, Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale, one of only six U.S. schools offering a bachelor’s degree in mortuary science and funeral services, became the only university with its own in-house crematorium. Classes using the crematorium will be “led by trained and certified crematory operator faculty.” SIU will also use the retort for the cremation of bodies designated as abandoned per local coroners, although its services will not be available to the public or local funeral homes.

Legislation in the works

Several states are on the verge of legalizing the two “newest” forms of disposition: natural organic reduction and alkaline hydrolysis:

The secret’s out

It’s more than likely there is no course on search engine optimization (SEO) in mortuary school. But that’s ok, because the cool kids at MemoryShare know all about it — and they know how to improve yours … while at the same time making streaming services super simple for your staff. Get ready for a little mortuary math here (also probably not a class):

SEO + superior streaming services + super simplicity + safety and security = 

The MemoryShare not-so-secret sauce for success

MemoryShare’s exclusive app makes streaming super easy; you can record your full service with the touch of a button. By sharing these streams with your community, you showcase your excellent service and create name recognition with the viewers. Aaaannnd that’s not all, folks. Because MemoryShare videos are embedded on your own website (and not on the site of a separate streaming provider) your site gets more views, which results in street cred with the search engines. 

Two things funeral homes need in 2022 are visibility and increased call volume. MemoryShare provides both of these things as well as a team of REAL people you can talk to if you ever run into trouble. So what are you waiting for? Learn more about  MemoryShare today!