Paranormal Plots & Cremains Conundrums | 4M #148

Welcome to the hundred-and-forty-eighth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #148, 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!

Heartbreaking salute

No matter how stoic a person tries to be during a memorial service, some moments are so poignant that they can break the hardest of hearts — like the unforgettable image of little John F. Kennedy, Jr. saluting his father’s casket as it passed by during JFK’s funeral procession. People Magazine recently shared a tidbit that makes this gesture even more soul-shattering. What most of us don’t know is that the day of the funeral was also JFK, Jr.’s third birthday. After his family laid his father to rest, they returned to the White House for a small birthday celebration. (No, I’m not crying … you’re crying.) 

An explosive problem

The theft of a child’s 1912 gravestone is just the latest perplexing event revolving around the West Virginia resting place of three-year-old Harry Spitz. The first issue appeared in 1975, when cemetery caretakers found a hole in the site that exposed Spitz’s burial vault six feet underground. After ruling out vandalism, gas line explosions, and gasses from the body causing the decaying body causing this problem, workers unearthed the vault to learn more. They found that the vault had been broken into seven pieces, although the wooden casket inside was still in great shape — as was Spitz’s small body. Since Spitz’s reinterment, the grave has attracted paranormal enthusiasts, including, it seems, some that thought it was a good idea to steal the child’s gravestone last week.

Reality bites

The cremated remains of a deceased reality star are apparently the focus of the latest episode of reality show Mama June: Family Crisis. If you’re not familiar with this saga, here’s a quick synopsis: “Mama” June Shannon and her four daughters with distinctive nicknames — Alana (“Honey Boo Boo”), Anna (“Chickadee”), Lauryn (“Pumpkin”), and Jessica (“Jessie”) — have been the subject of several cringeworthy reality series showcasing Alana’s beauty pageants, June’s weight loss, and other interesting facets of this Georgia family’s strange lives. Sadly, Anna died in 2023 and was cremated. In the latest installment of the current Shannon family show, the family receives the cremains from the funeral home and discusses how “opening the box” will impact their mental health. Now, I’ve never watched a single episode, but if you’re up to it, this one might be worth watching to get a glimpse at how a “typical” family responds to this aspect of the cremation process.

Benz be visioning

BeVisioneers, a $174 million fellowship for “young eco-innovators” sponsored by Mercedes-Benz, recently announced its second cohort of fellows from across the globe. Only three of the 500 newest fellows were showcased in the press release, and one of those, 25-year-old Taylor Marshall from the U.S., won the fellowship to study “the environmental impact of the funeral industry, particularly CO2 emissions from traditional caskets and metal leaching into the soil. Taylor is promoting green burial sites as a sustainable solution, cultivating willow for carbon sequestration and advocating for eco-friendly casket alternatives.” As a fellow, Marshall will receive research funding, 24 hours of education per month for 12 months, media exposure, and other support.

Good work, IBMS

The Iowa Board of Mortuary Science has fined and rescinded the (expired) license of a funeral director who they determined had not only shared photos and videos of the deceased she was supposed to care for, but also shared these images with others, including minors, had a minor in the room during an embalming, and substituted her own fingerprint on a family’s memorial necklace.

Whoops.

Love her or hate her (there’s really no in-between), you have to admit that The View’s Whoopi Goldberg can have a real influence on those who follow her rhetoric. So it’s quite appalling when someone in that position admits to committing a crime, laughs about it, and then light-heartedly tells viewers not to do the same. This is exactly what she did by sharing the story of how she scattered the cremated remains of her mother all over the Disneyland theme park, pretending to sneeze to cover the tossing out of handfuls of ashes during rides and among the gardens. In addition to being forbidden by Disney, it’s also against the law in California to spread human remains without permission of the property owner. Goldberg said she told cast members afterwards, claiming, “I wanted to make sure, actually, that I hadn’t done something that was dangerous because it hadn’t occurred to me.”