Word: mitfords
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...AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH, Mitford...
Recently published have been two full-length, full-strength books excoriating the merchants of death-warming-over: The High Cost of Dying, by California Professor Ruth Mulvey Harmer (Crowell-Collier Press; $3.95), and The American Way of Death, by British-born Author Jessica Mitford (Simon & Schuster; $4.95). Both of them tend to tear down the mortician's carefully nurtured image as a compassionate, reverent family-friend-in-need and substitute an equally distorted picture of a hypocritical racketeer in black...
...Memory Picture. Author Mitford's basic argument is that the cult of the prettied-up corpse, put on display in a ghoulish, make-believe sleep, is neither reverent nor religious, but a giant feat of merchandising. She has deadly fun with such astonishing specialists as the Practical Burial Footwear Company of Columbus, Ohio, which offer Fit-a-Fut oxfords (in patent, calf, tan or oxblood) and Ko-Zee, with its "soft, cushioned soles and warm, luxurious slipper comfort, but true shoe smartness." Courtesy Products has a "new Bra-form, Post Mortem Form Restoration . . . they accomplish so much...
Caskets are now "styled" with an eye to customer appeal. Very strong now in casket styles, Miss Mitford writes, is the patriotic theme represented by "the Valley Forge," once advertised in color in an undertaker's trade journal with some Early American cupboards and a portrait of George Washington. For "the bon vivant who dreams of rubbing shoulders with the international smart set, the gay dog who would risk all on a turn of the card, there is the 'Monaco' with 'Sea Mist Polish Finish, interior richly lined in 600 Aqua Supreme Cheney velvet, magnificently quilted...
...surprisingly, the unscrupulous undertaker views such clerical counsel with considerable alarm. Miss Mitford quotes some frank advice on the subject from the pages of Mortuary Management: "We tell the family to go ahead and look over the caskets in the display room, and that the minister, if he has come with them, will join them later. We tell the minister that we have something we would like to talk to him about privately, and we've found that if we have some questions to ask him, he seems to be flattered that his advice is being sought...