Death and dying is not a light subject,
nor is it one usually discussed at a party,
but it inevitably touches everyone's life.
In American society often we are caught
totally unprepared and find ourselves in a
vulnerable state.
Joe Starita put himself in such a vul
nerable state to see how funeral homes
treat grieving persons. Tarn Lee researched
the different stages a dying person experi
ences and reported on a program that helps
dying people and their families deal with
the experiences and emotions of death.
Paula Dittrick wrote about the reactions
of individuals who daily must work and
deal with dying patients, how to go about
donating body parts and how a group of
people openly deals with terminal illness.
Charlie Krig wrote about burial laws and
discovered just how free a person is in
planning his burial arrangements.
Casey McCabe found that Native Ameri
cans view death in a different light than
mainstream American society.
Photographer Bob Pearson chose to il
lustrate the subject of death and dying by
finding non-traditional grave markers
which are unique to the turn of the
century.
Mark Billingsley's cover photograph is
his concept which lends to the overall
mood of the subject.
Ted Kirk had the unusual experience of
photographing a terminally ill patient and
Tim Ford went for photos concerning the
stark truth about funeral homes.
The fiction contributors in this issue are
Ted Kooser, a Lincoln poet who moon
lights as an insurance underwriter, Pete
Mason, a senior journalism major from Yar
mouth, Maine, Bonnie Lutz, a sopho
more political science and sociology major
from Lincoln and Jim Williams, a senior
journalism major from Omaha.
carla engstrom
fathom editor
reaper not only one to collect from death
by joe starita
I
,t is mid -afternoon on a beautitul
spring day as 1 pull into the parking lot at
4300 O St.
Inside, 1 tell the receptionist the nature
of my visit and am asked to take a seat
around the corner.
Several religious pictures line the hall
way walls. Overhead, sunlight chips
through a stained glass window and is re
arranged in flickering blocks of color at my
feet
Except for a soft version of "Brian's
Song" flowing from a Muzak system, the
building is stone quiet.
Soon, a middle-aged man in a three
piece, grey, pin-striped suit comes padding
quietly down the gleaming hall.
I tell him my mother is a terminally ill
cancer patient and that 1 have come to
Roper and Sons Mortuary to price a casket
and vault.
Carlton Gordon says he is sorry to hear
my mother is not expected to live much
longer. He invites me to his office one floor
below.
We walk past the chapel where an old
man lies in a casket in front of the altar.
We pass Parlor Rooms A and B where
several more deceased lie in wait. The ele
vator drops us one floor below.
Inside the office. Gordon pulls out a
yellow funeral purchase record and a white
notepad.
He jots down my mother's name, her
age, birthdate, list of survivors, place of
worship and asks if she is employed.
Gordon explains that a funeral notice in
the Lincoln papers will cost S21 .40 and the
grave -opening Si 65. An organist for the
funeral is $15, memorial folders S10.
flowers $50 to $75 and clergy fees $25.
1 ask to see the caskets and vaults. Gor
don opens a side door to his office,
flicks a light switch and leads me into a
large room where 25 to 30 caskets are
displayed.
The caskets range from plain cement
ones at $175 to cathedral bronze ones for
$4,245.
In between, there is a solid, hand
rubbed mahogany one with a velvet-lined,
pale-green interior for $2,097.
"This is very nice for a woman,"
Gordon says.
There are solid copper models with
velvet lining and gasket sealers "to keep all
the moisture out," and several bronze ones
with champagne-crepe and baby blue in
teriors. Gordon points to one bronze model for
$2,898. It has a gasket seal and a peach
colored lining of natural velvet.
"That would be very feminine." Gordon
says.
He walk: up to a solid copper casket
with a brushed finish that sells for S3,388,
not including sales tax.
Gordon explains that it has an adjust
able mattress for better viewing and says,
"Your mother would be very comfortable
here."
I jot down the various models and their
prices and we move to a corner of the
room to price vaults. By law, persons in
Nebraska must be buried with a vault,
Gordon explains.
Vaults at Ropers range from a plain
cement box for $150 to a copper-lined one
for $1,190.
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ack in Gordon's office, I am asked to
make a casket and vault selection so the
purchase agreement can be signed. I
explain that my mother is in an Ohio hos
pital and I would have to clear any
purchase by phone with my father first.
Gordon says that would be fine. He says
he will put the yellow purchase sheet in
the future's file and to call as soon as my
father and I decide.
I had decided this was the only way to
find out if two of Lincoln's largest funeral
homes pressure customers into making
funeral arrangements they cannot afford.
That same afternoon, I visited Hodg-man-Splain-Roberts
Mortuary, 4040 A St.,
again posing as a bereaved son who never
thought he would have to decide what to
bury his mother in.
Although vault and casket prices are
comparable at both places, Steve O'Brien
at Hodgman-Splain-Roberts seems to take
a lower-keyed business approach than Gor
don does at Roper and Sons.
He says people select caskets and vaults
for many different reasons.
"Some think of it as a last gift you
would want to give a departed loved one.
Others may buy one beyond their means
because they don't want to subconsciously
feel guilty later."
Several days later, I called both Gordon
and O'Brien and explain to them that my
mother was not really dying, that I am a re
porter working on an assignment.
Do funeral homes take advantage of a
customer's often numbed emotional state
to sell a more expensive casket, or vault?
"We can take advantage of peoples'
emotions in this business," said Gordon, a
licensed embalmer and funeral director.
"We can say to people, "This is the last
thing you can do for the deceased.' But
this firm definitely does not do that. We
run it in a very business-like manner."
Roper and Sons, Gordon said, tries to
act as an agent for the family, a liaison be
tween the family and clergy. Serving the
family and helping them through the grief
process if Roper and Sons' chief priority,
Gordon added.
The funeral home business, he said, is
not any different than any other business.
A customer contracts for services, he
added, like they would for a car, prescrip
tions or legal aid.
"We have what the public demands,"
he explained. "Our charges are in line and
fair for the services we provide. Family de
cisions guide what we do. They're buying
our time."
The cost at that time at Roper and
Sons, not including a casket and vault,
costs $1 .025 per adult funeral, said Charles
Roper, secretary-treasurer of Roper and
Sons.
Roper said 65 percent of that total is
tied up in labor costs (embalming, death
calls, drawing up legal papers, working with
the department of vital statistics, and
family visitation rights), 25 percent for
heat, lights and building insurance and 10
percent for limousine, station and funeral
wagon service.
About 75 to 80 man-hours go into each
adult funeral, he said.
A 1976 study based on 118,000 adult
funerals revealed the national average
funeral cost is about $2,000. he said.
t
hat average included $225 in cash ad
vances (newspaper charges, grave openings,
flowers and honorariums for a preacher
and organist), $338 for clothing and a vault
and $1,400 for the service and casket, he
said.
Roper said he is opposed to funeral ad
vertising, adding that word-of-mouth is
best.
"We have been here since 1903," he
said, "and most people who come here are
repeat customers. They are from families
who have done business with us before.
'They come in and know what they
want. They spend what they want, not
what we want."
What Steve O'Brien does not want, he
said, is the impression that he is at Hodgman-Splain-Roberts
"just to sell caskets."
O'Brien also questioned the ethics of re
searching this story. He said he felt he had
been misled and perhaps the journalism
business needs to be investigated instead of
funeral homes.
O'Brien, a licensed embalmer and
Photo by Tim Ford
funeral director, said he is more concerned
with emotions, "but at the same time we
are a profit-making concern.
"The business-end of the funeral
business has to be profitable," said
O'Brien.
The service charge for each adult fun
eral at Hodgman-Splain-Roberts is about
$900, he said, adding that a casket
averaged about $500 to $600.
Funeral homes need to make a profit to
provide a professional service that the
public demands, he said.
"The service we provide," said O'Brien.
'is a setting and an opportunity for the
family to come to grips with the situation.
"Most individuals are unable to cope
with grief, and that grief needs to be direc
ted into healthy channels."
O'Brien said funeral prices reflect prices
in all of the economy and are a part of the
free-enterprise system.
"I think gas, dental and doctors' prices
are too high," he said, "but 1 can't change
them though. Our prices are in response
to what the public, as consumers, wants."
Those prices can be reduced, he said, by
cutting down limousine services, buying
cheaper caskets and willing bodies to the
Anatomical Board in Omaha for medical
schools.
Another way to reduce funeral costs,
noted O'Brien, is by calling your local
funeral director if a death occurs awa
from home.
He said a funeral director in a neighbor
ing state recently sold a family member an
expensive casket under the assumption
that credit would be extended by tne local
funeral home.
No credit was extended, he said, but the
situation could have been avoided had the
local funeral director been notified and
asked for advice.
Editor's Note: Fathom adheres to the
usual practice of having a reporter identify
himself as a Daily Nebraskan reporter in
the course of news gathering, but in this
instance Joe Starita was asked to assume a
pretense since few have the opportunity to
experience pre-burial arrangements. Starita
then called back the people he talked with
and identified himself as a reporter.
page 2
fathom
friday,april 14, 1978
