Friday, March 9, 1973
9
American Way of Death Expensive
By PHIL McLAUGHLIN
Kansas Staff Writer
"Death is the end of all woes," wrote 16th century poet Edmund Spenser.
University Daily Kansan
In the 20th Century technological societies, death can mean the beginning of financial woes for the survivors, who have to pay for the disposal of the body.
That is true, but the most common and most expensive is the traditional American funeral rite, which Jessica Milford assailed in her book, "The American Way of Death."
"There are so many ways to go
nowadays," said Fred Rumay, owner of
Fred Rumay's Fishing
The funeral industry admits that burial is expensive but says that Americans need the ritual ceremony to buffer the emotional drain from the loss of the dead person.
The August 1961 issue of the National Funeral Service Journal said, "A funeral is not an occasion for a display of cheepsness. It is, in fact, an opportunity for the display of a status symbol which, by bolstering family pride, does much to assuage grief.
According to Miford, about $2 billion was spent on funerals in the United States in 1613, a figure she said was disproportionate given that only 8% of the state was police protection and higher education.
"It seems highly probable that the most satisfactory funeral service for the average family is one in which the cost has necessitated some degree of sacrifice."
Mitford argued that the average cost for burial in 1961, $1,450 by her calculations, was too high a price to pay for such material consolation.
The greatest part of that figure is attributable to funeral home fees.
Each of the two largest funeral homes in Lawrence sells the casket and other items of the funeral services as a unit price. The cost of a casket, including transportation and handling, is fairly stable across the spectrum of funeral services; the variance in price is the cost of a casket.
Most funeralers will run around $1,000 to $4,000, or something like that," Rumsey says.
"They range from around $755 for a cloth-covered wood casket to several thousand dollars for the crafted metal and wood models," he said.
The less expensive wood caskets are the same shape as the more expensive models, simple with plain interiors. The expensive wood caskets are handcarved polished metal capsillations and metal cadillacs of the casket line are well ornamented copper and bronze.
According to a spokesman for another funeral home who didn't want to be identified, funeral costs range from $400 for the very poor to more than $6,000. He said that funeral costs in Lawrence were "Well within the national average rate."
Both funeral homes said that they handed the services for welfare clients with whatever money the money would pay, or sometimes losing money in the transaction.
Besides the average $1,200 fee, survivors who provide the traditional funeral must have a grave plan. To plot, the grave opening fee, the grave marker and grave marker foundation, the casket flower cape and possibly the funeral home's mourners and musicians services at the funeral.
A spokesman for the Memorial Park Cemetery in Lawrence said that state law
requires bursal vaults. Concrete models sell for $175. A source at a one funeral home said that vaults it sold ranged from $200 to $500 depending on whether they were made of concrete, steel or copper. The casket is sealed in the vault within the grave.
Single grave plots cost either $60 or $112 at the city-owned Oak Hill Cemetery and an average of $160 at the corporation owned cemetery. The two largest cemeteries in Lawrence,
Depending upon the day of the week, grave opening fees range from $75 to $85 at Oak Hill and $115 to $155 at Memorial Park. The cost ranges from $250 to $350 in the graves and core of the grave site.
Laura Loews, a representative of Owens Flower Shop, said that the average cost of the hand-woven wreath of flowers comes from the labor and material of funeral services was between $80 and $40.
A source at the Lawrence Monument Company said that an average small grave marker cost about $150 and a normal monument cost between $400 and $500. Memorial Park Cemetery installs the concrete foundation for the markers for $35.
Not all of these fees and services are required if one takes the traditional funeral route, but but most of the services are unavoidable and the grief-striken family usually is not in the frame of mind to shop around and negotiate prices.
For those who wish to break away from this tradition, cremation is an alternative. Recently, many people have chosen this alternative, either because of personal repugnance to burial for economic or environmental considerations.
The nearest crematory is at the Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka. A spokesman there said they charged $100 to burn the corpse and to return the ashes to the family.
Although the process can be just about the simpleest of many variations add to the complexity.
Ceramators require that the body be packed in some sort of container “out of respect for the dead” and for handling purposes. This could consist of an inexpensive wooden container because it is burned to ashes with the body. But according to Rumsey, most bodies sent to ceramators are shipped in regular caskets.
Frank Coker, registrar of statistics in the Kansas Health Department, said that state health officials should follow after cremation so families can do what they want with the ashes with one exception. Federal law states that ashes may be buried with other meaningful places, water supplies and so forth.
He said that it was not unusual for people to be cremated in the most expensive metal casket.
According to Rumsey, people either scatter the remains on some ground that was meaningful to the person during life, keep it in their home, or provide a funeral and burial.
If the family decides to provide a funeral, the whole series of traditional services will be carried out. If you decide to buy a burial receptacle, pay for funeral costs, marker, flowers and all the expenses involved with the cemetery. "The average arm for cremations is $115," Ramsey said.
According to Coder, state statute allows families to bury their own and does not require funerals when religious conviction prohibits them.
The Health Department provides certain requirements all the alurian services
He said that a family may bury a dead member as long as it is done with 24 hours of time.
Corder said that the only law or regulation limiting the place of burial was that the burial must not endanger the public's health or create a public nuisance. Within these regulations, he said, burial could be anywhere unless regulated by local authorities.
disease, and the dead person is buried in "a permanently sealed container."
Neither the City of Lawrence nor the Douglas County Health Department has any
The School of Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City accepts such gifts. Dr. William Stephens, professor of anatomy at the Medical Center said his department accepted all body donations, but did not pay for them
According to the Lawrence Police Department, the question of backyard burials has never come up in Lawrence. There is still room for it.
There is still another alternative method of body disposal; the anatomical gift.
The process is simple. The donor fills out a release for his body and has it signed by witnesses and members of the family, if possible. When the donor dies, his body is
Stephens said that the bodies were transported to the Medical Center by the local funeral homes and the anatomy department paid for any "reasonable" charges for handling and transportation. The Medical Center keeps a two-year supply of preserved bodies on hand for study, he said.
claimed by the anatomy department and stored at the Medical Center until it is sold.
When the department is finished with the bodies, they are cremated at the Medical Center and buried in a plot in the Oak Hill School of Medicine. If the family wants the ashes or the body before it is cremated, they are allowed to take it. But any disposal or burial is permitted.
For those with only economic considerations in mind when picking a method of disposal, this absolutely free service is the optimum choice. Those diehands who wish to avoid being at any coel can have their medical care managed by those who want a complete funeral service have little trouble finding a funeral home which offers complete line of services.
9 KU Students Suggested For Fulbright Study Grants
Six University of Kansas graduate students and three undergraduates have been recommended for Foreign Graduate Study Grants under the Fulbright-Hawt Act.
The students were recommended by the National Screening Committees to the Binational Education Commission and the Board of Foreign Scholarships, but final approval by the Board is not expected until April.
Students recommended are listed by name, home address, class, country and city.
Burton K. Tidwell, Caldwell senior,
Germany, music and organ.
B. C. Bollinger, Kansas City, Kan,
senior, German, German language and
languages.
Grants cover one year of study in a foreign country.
Marti Moore, Kansas City, Kan,
graduate student, Japan, teaching.
bonnie M. Wash, Kansas City, Kan.
graduate student, Spain, Spanish govern-
ment
Jean H. Robinson, Lawrence graduate student, French, French literature.
Michael H. Droge, Lewood senior,
Germany, biological sciences.
Victoria L. Lanebey, Pittsburgh graduate
school of education, University of
Carol A. Fine, Norman, Olla, graduate
Harold C. Lowe, Greenville, Tex.
graduate student, Mexico, American
American
Carine A. Folie, Norman, Okla., graduate student, Germany, German literature.
Daniel Bell, Harvard professor of sociology and scholar of american economy and political philosophy, will speak April 12 at the University of Kansas future series at the University of Kansas.
Harvard Professor To Speak at KU
Bell has spent the last 26 years as an educator at Chicago, Columbia, and Harvard.
One Coupon per Person—Not good on delivery
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--biggest effect on the judicial system would be the elimination of the Safe Streets Act, a program which provided funds for police equipment.
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One laboratory eliminate that possibility.
The Emergency Employment Act has
One of the effects of the special revenue sharing plan will be to end the neighborhood Development Plan, which would have provided for some rehabilitation of homes in east Lawrence. Watson said the plan would create a community development would assistance.
He said that in the past the Safe Streets Act has been criticized because it fostered "the opinion that the police are overloaded with sophisticated hardware."
(Continued from page 1)
The special revenue sharing plan will instead allow increased salaries which could attract more, well-qualified lawyers and attorneys in the court and penal systems. Rose said.
813 Mass. VI3-2091
already been eliminated and Watson said one of its functions had already been used.
We try to discourage hitchhiking." Capt. Chappell unselect of the Missouri Patrol said recently that he and his team were on
Caution Urged for Safe Thumbing
Although it is legal in some states, hitch-hailing does cause problems, occasionally leading to crashes.
Colorado and Oklahoma have state laws prohibiting hitchhiking on all roads. However, Capt. Kidd of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said the law was not always enforced on all state roads, but was strictly enforced on the turnoike.
MISSOURI AND NEBRASKA state laws allow hiking on state roads, provided the person stands on the shoulder and not on the paved section of the road. Hitchhiking is on or interstates in the two states and, as well as cities can pass hitchhiking ordinances.
Brown hitchhiked from Los Angeles to Kansas during spring break last year. Although she arrived safely in Kansas, she did have some problems.
"I don't do it because I like it," she said, "I have to because of economic reasons."
"We've always enforced the city ordinance on hitchhiking," Garcia said. "We seem to have eliminated most of the people there, but there don't seem to be as many hitchhikers."
"IHAD JUST been let df." Holmer said, "when a Lenexa policeman stopped and questioned me. He put my name through the hole." I could see her eyes. I wasn't a criminal and then let me go."
"I didn't have many problems," Holmer said. "When you needed I need a ride, I usually got one. Usually it was the younger people on bus trips, but I also got rides from older people."
The only trouble Holmer had with police occurred in Lenexa, when he was returning to town.
Donna Brown, Topea junior, said she did not hitchike for pleasure.
However, Kansas cities and towns can pass ordinances against hitchhiking. According to Sgt. Miguel Garcia of the Lawrence Police Department, Lawrence does have an ordinance that it illegal to hitchhike within the city limits.
By TIM WINTERS
In Kansas it is illegal to hitchhike on the turnpike or on interstate roads. Hitchhiking on entrance and exit ramps is also prohibited. A person can hitchhike on state roads if he does not stand on the paved section of the road.
During the week of spring break, many students will take to the roads to travel with their thumbs, hitchhiking to glamorous spots in the Colorado mountains or on the rocky shore to backpacks and hiking gear, hitchhiking fellowers should use something else—caution.
National surveys show that the number of crimes related to hitchhiking, ranging from theft to rape, is increasing along with the number of hitchhikers. Hitchers also run the risk of being jailed for violating state laws.
because because of hitchhiking, either by the person hitchhiking or a driver."
According to Maj. Carl Gray of the Kansas Highway Department, residents related to hikking
BY TIM WINTERS
Kansan Staff Writer
Chris Holmer, a former KU student from Lawrence, said that hitchhiking was an enjoyable and economical way to travel. Mr. Holmer also walked from Washington, D.C. to Boston.
"We do have quite a few hikchihkers," Gray said. "But although accidents do happen occasionally, they are not frequent occurrences."
"For many, it is possible that there is not commercial transportation leaving at the right time," Gray said. "Others just can't work." Pay commercial rates, so they hitchblet.
"One guy who gave me a lift did get a little obscene," Brown said, and when I got out of the car my knees were shaking. But it wasn't that bad over all."
824 Mass. St.
Garcia said that the city had not had any recent incidents that could be attributed to hitchhiking. However, last year a female student was kicked up and painted red by a carlift of men.
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GARCIA SAID that most hikchilers in Lawrence were of college age, and that meet were trying to get rides across town. The hikchiling usually was based on economy.
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At the same time that hitchhikers are trying to thumb rides, drivers of the cars are trying to decide whether to pick up the hitchhiker.
"I usually won't pick them up on the highway because I'm usually by myself. I'll usually pick up a girl before a guy, and I won't pick up a groun of hitchhikers."
Wherever the hitchkiller is going, he should be aware of the state rules on hit chikling. It would better be to make a few small mistakes than to spend a vacation in a city jail.
"It depends on whether it is in town or on the highway," Linda Doherty, Hutchinson junior, said. "If it's in town and during the day I probably would pick up a bibbitch."
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