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monday ◀
11.15.99 ◀
six.a ◀
Mortuary students part of an uncommon undertaking
Top: Professor Wiley Wright, right, uses a coffee rather than a chalkboard to instruct students such as Patty Dandas, left. Mortuary science students can choose from courses such as mortuary chemistry and restorative art, which teaches future morticians how to retrofete destroyed features.
Above: Tools of the trade: Instruments such as a bowel pump, front left corner, are used to prepare bodies for burial.
atty Dandas is prepared to die.
As a matter of fact, she keeps a list of the arrangements in the front of her Bible at home.
Every detail — from to the pallbearers who will carry her coffin to the songs that will be played at her funeral — is outlined. It is a whole plan for how her last day above the earth will proceed.
Although some would consider her plan morbid, for Dandas it's a matter of life and death.
"Death is just as much a part of life as birth," says Dandas, who studies mortuary science at Kansas City Kansas Community College: "I want to be ready for it when it happens."
Like other students in the mortuary science program, Dandas devotes an abundance of her time on earth to the study of death, a subject that carries with it a huge amount of practical as well as emotional considerations. Throughout the program, which is the only one of its kind in Kansas, students learn how to sell a casket to a grief-striken family member. They learn how to preserve a corpse. They learn that not everybody understands the fact that the world needs morticians. And perhaps most importantly, they learn how to deal with death.
Class
It's 8 o'clock on Monday morning, and Wiley Wright is ready to talk embalming.
This morning the subject is arterial fluid — a compound that slows decomposition and stiffens a body. Wright, who teaches the embalming theory class and is coordinator of the mortuary science program, explains how different ratios of fluid and water are used under different circumstances. By using a mathematical equation, students figure the ratios of water to arterial fluid they would need for bodies that may have been refrigerated, frozen, involved in traumatic accidents or laden with gangrenous limbs.
Although it's not the typical history or science class, it's still just a class. The 24 students, divided fairly evenly between male and female, chat beforehand about football games and weekend festivities like anyone else.
And despite the subject matter, Wright carries on a rather cheerful discussion with his class.
"You don't take death lightly, but you must have an outlet to discuss the various cases you've been involved with," says Wright, who shares a few stories during class from his 18 years in the business.
The mortuary science program requires students to take 72 credit hours, or four semesters, of classes. This includes two practicums that involve working at a funeral home about 15 hours a week. Students are then required to pass a state examination and complete one year of apprenticeship before they are considered full-fieDED morticians.
For many in the field it's a second career choice. Before studying mortuary science, Dandas worked as a teacher's aide at the Eudora elementary school. After working closely with the funeral director who handled her mother's death a few years ago, Dandas became fascinated by the profession and decided to jump in.
"Life is short," she says, explaining her move. "We need to do things we want to do."
You do what?
Dan Rexwinkel didn't tell his girlfriend that he was studying to become a mortician until three weeks into their relationship. When he finally broke the news, she was a little stunned.
"She opened her eyes kind of big and was like,' you do?' Rexwinkel recalls.
Such reactions aren't uncommon toward those studying mortuary science. The profession can
summon up a few disturbing thoughts as well as some incorrect assumptions.
"They usually remember what you do." says Wright.
Dandas, who is completing her practicum at Warren-McElwain Mortuary, 120 W. 13th St. in Lawrence, attempted to keep the news of her new career choice private for as long as possible in the small town of Eudora.
"I didn't want to tell people because I wanted to keep my friends," she said. "When I finally told them, they asked me why I would want to deal with death every day."
Rexwinkel pointed out an interesting conflict in publicizing his line of work.
"The family is really quick to brag while you want to keep kind of a low profile," he said. "When I told people I wanted to become a mortician they were saying 'ugh,' but to me it's like any other job."
Perspectives
In most cases, a mortician isn't only in charge of preserving a body. Duties can range from counseling a family to selling coffins to driving a hearse. The job also involves upholding an important tenet of mortuary work: being quiet.
"If you can't keep things to yourself, you can't make it in this business," says Rexwinkel, who lives and works at Ramsey-Yost Funeral Home, 601 Indiana St., while attending classes. "Confidentiality is a must. When suicides and murders happen, people want to know about the situation. I tell them, I don't know any more than you know."
There is a time to talk, however. In the mortuary science program, courses such as Grieving Process teach students how to deal with those who have lost loved ones — a task that few would consider delightful.
"You've got to be able to express emotion and then move on," says Rexwinkel. "Your neighbor could die. You're still going to feel grief, but you have to move on."
Dealing so often with death can bring new perspectives on life into play.
Dandas, who remembers being so queasy she had to sit down at her first embalming, said that a funeral brought closure on a person's life.
"We are a society who doesn't face death," she
"We are a soc says. "It makes you appreciate
every day."
F o r Rexwinkel, seeing death every day sparks a preventative outlook.
"It makes you think twice when you see drunk drivers," he says. "You want to go up to them and ask them what they're thinking when they step into their car."
For all the insights mortuary science students gain, some realms of death are left untouched.
It's not like the movies, says Wiley Wright, where bodies come back to life to seek revenge or peace. It's real life and real death.
"Everyone has moments when they see a body move or breathe," he says. "There's always some uncertainty at the beginning."
Students also learn about burial alternatives, such as cremation. Cardboard coffins are used in the cremation process.
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