Transcript
Speaker: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host, Jennifer Muldowney, and today's episode, we learn all about the history of cremation.
Speaker: You might not have known you wanted to know about it, but you definitely want to know about it.
Speaker: Take it away.
Speaker: So Jason,
Speaker: the environment obviously a huge topic in terms of both burial as you you know were saying almost is how cremation started with that purification and cleaning the process cleaning the body almost I guess was was their their thought behind it back in the day in terms of now and if people come to you and they say oh no I want green burial because cremation is too polluting what would your response to that be as a funeral director
Speaker: Well, as a funeral director, I mean, it would certainly be whatever you want.
Speaker: We're going to take care of your needs.
Speaker: It's not going to be a, you know, there's not going to be a qualifying or my opinion that's thrown in there.
Speaker: However, if they ask my personal opinion, I would happily give it, you know, that's not something that I'm shy about sharing if it's asked.
Speaker: I'm not going to say, oh, no, you shouldn't do that.
Speaker: You know, I would say the footprint in general might be a little bit, a little bit less, but
Speaker: You know, there's this entire cultural side of things that can easily be lost with green burial.
Speaker: And if there's not a cemetery, if there's not a, you know, a place that is set aside, if there's not something marking the grave, because let's face it, paper goes away, the internet, you know, during the zombie apocalypse, is it going to be around still, you know, or after the zombie apocalypse?
Speaker: So, you
Speaker: Think about culturally what cemeteries are in our communities.
Speaker: And this is something that I've preached since day one, you know, of my interest in funeral service since I was a kid started with cemeteries too.
Speaker: You know, it's all in that area, all in that same vein.
Speaker: Here's the thing is consider what we have learned about ancient civilizations based on their burial practices or their cremation practices.
Speaker: Think about what then in a thousand years...
Speaker: Who knows what the world is going to look like, but think about what's it going to say about us and how is that going to help future generations as well to learn about this important history of the things that we are doing in our time here.
Speaker: Because who knows?
Speaker: Again, who knows?
Speaker: Look at how quickly technology changes and how QR codes are still around, but barely.
Speaker: Man, I have in my living room underneath my TV, you don't see it, but I have...
Speaker: 200 DVDs under there.
Speaker: And how often do I pull them out?
Speaker: Not very often, but it changes so quickly.
Speaker: Everything changes so quickly that, yeah, there could be something else in the future that takes the place of our visiting of a cemetery.
Speaker: But what about that consistency that a place of rest provides?
Speaker: And that's not even, again, to mention the psychological aspect of it for people, you know?
Speaker: So,
Speaker: So there's a lot there, you know, there's a lot to unpack and discuss, but I feel as a personal response to that would be the impact is not that much greater if you're doing the other things that go along with it.
Speaker: It's not that much greater to do a green burial than to do a cremation.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: No, again, I don't have the numbers.
Speaker: I'm not looking at the numbers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you were talking about cemeteries there, so do you believe that when somebody is cremated, do you believe that they should, I'm going to use my American terminology here, do you believe that they should be placed in a niche, aka a niche for anybody British and Irish watching?
Speaker: Well, if you're talking about art, then it is a niche.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: However, I think that that's a great thing.
Speaker: I think that that's a fantastic way to honor somebody's life and remember somebody's life.
Speaker: Because it can be so personalized.
Speaker: Do you not think people should take their ashes home?
Speaker: And I don't know why I'm just doing it as if they're carrying it like this.
Speaker: Yeah, like they're carrying it in an urn.
Speaker: I don't think that people should take ashes home or however you want to say, cremated remains.
Speaker: I don't think they belong in people's homes with, you know, all together.
Speaker: Now, if you want to have a keepsake, I have
Speaker: You know, I have a ring that I wear every day that has a small portion of my granny's ashes in it because that means something to me.
Speaker: I have this small bird on my desk here that sits on my desk and looks up at me every day.
Speaker: Part of her ashes are in there.
Speaker: You know, that's the thing is we have so many unique small portion things that you can do, but then do something permanent with the remains.
Speaker: Because what if Aunt Jo wants to come visit?
Speaker: You're going to let her come into your house and visit your mantel?
Speaker: You know, or are you going to say, no, go somewhere else and visit somewhere else?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you believe that there, no matter what disposition you choose, there should be sort of some permanent marker of the person, whether, you know, for their legacy, for other people, visitations.
Speaker: Culturally and psychologically, it is absolutely proven.
Speaker: that those things are important for us as people and us as a society.
Speaker: A place of rest is important.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And can I ask you then along these lines of what we're talking about, what are your thoughts?
Speaker: And you can be absolutely free and frank with me.
Speaker: I think you probably know that already.
Speaker: and I can tell you're that person but what are your thoughts on all of these new age forms of disposition so you've got composting that's been done by a variety of different people alkaline hydrolysis that's been done by a couple of different people permission I don't think ever got anywhere as far as I'm aware and you know all of these new age ones do you think they have a leg to stand on it's probably
Speaker: is the funny phrase to have in this industry, but do you think they have a leg to stand on?
Speaker: Do you think they're the future?
Speaker: Or what do you think is the future for cremation?
Speaker: I remember in 2004, how long ago was that?
Speaker: 16 years.
Speaker: 17 years?
Speaker: 17.
Speaker: I keep forgetting that we're in 2021.
Speaker: Where did 2020 go?
Speaker: We're done with that.
Speaker: It's away.
Speaker: Yeah, probably a good thing.
Speaker: I remember in 2004 reading an article in a trade journal, alkaline hydrolysis, the next disruptor in funeral service.
Speaker: Here we are 17 years later.
Speaker: It's out there and it's growing.
Speaker: But again, when society places so much emphasis on things that make them comfortable at death,
Speaker: I've heard, how many times have you heard stories of deathbed conversions, you know, of people who are facing death.
Speaker: They were raised in a church somewhere and they're facing death and here they are face to face with death.
Speaker: And it's like, you know what?
Speaker: Maybe I should get this right.
Speaker: You know, maybe I should, maybe I, maybe I wasn't right all along, you know, think about that comfort that can be given to us as people from something like that.
Speaker: from me saying to my family, you know what, just kidding.
Speaker: I believe in Jesus.
Speaker: I mean, my mother would just be, she would love it.
Speaker: When it comes to death, we're slow to change things.
Speaker: Do I think that those have a place for people?
Speaker: If it makes them comfortable and it makes them happy and it's something that they would want to do, by all means, do it.
Speaker: As a professional and seeing what I've seen in the past,
Speaker: Is it something that is going to change the world overnight or even in a decade?
Speaker: No, I don't think so.
Speaker: For me personally, I reject in my personal life fads until it is something that is tried and true with the exception of a few things.
Speaker: Until it's something that's tried and true, I am not interested in jumping on a bandwagon.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is why I still have an Android phone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just as an example.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But again, there are comfort for a lot of people.
Speaker: There's comfort for a lot of people in these things that are tangible and are experiential on a face-to-face basis.
Speaker: The pandemic has taught us so much about what we can do without being physically in the same room as people.
Speaker: But how many people do you know have said, I cannot wait to see my friends in person?
Speaker: You're going back to Ireland as an example.
Speaker: You're wanting to go visit Ireland.
Speaker: But that's my point, is that you have that aching to do that, to be in proximity with the people that you love that are there.
Speaker: Death is the same way.
Speaker: If we can be in the proximity of the people that we love that are dead, their memory is still here.
Speaker: It does volumes for us to be able to be in that close proximity.
Speaker: It gives us that communion, that ability to be part of their community.
Speaker: existence in whatever spiritual realm they're in and our existence here and refresh our memories and refresh our thoughts and our ideas.
Speaker: You've actually segued into my next question for you, actually.
Speaker: You keep doing that.
Speaker: There has, along with all these new age forms of disposition, and you are right, I mean, the growth in
Speaker: That in 17 years is fairly minimal.
Speaker: I do wonder, will we see a faster uptake of it post-COVID?
Speaker: You know, I do feel like people were faced with death a lot more last year than they ever had thought about it before.
Speaker: But there has been an evolution of direct cremation going online.
Speaker: So and there's both pros and cons to it and experts have said that, you know, it's our denial of death.
Speaker: The fact that we're now choosing to just sort of deal with Aunt Mary's body by not even seeing her and having somebody pick it up and doing everything online.
Speaker: And then there's other people who are just more comfortable and feel less sold out.
Speaker: What's your thoughts on those?
Speaker: And are we saying goodbye to the funeral home?
Speaker: Or do you think that is a cultural thing, especially here in the US, that is just never going to go away and will always be around?
Speaker: I think that culturally, it's something that's always going to be around as part of community.
Speaker: I think that how involvement in the community is going to be very, very different.
Speaker: And it's already proving that that's the case.
Speaker: Funeral homes aren't starting to look like funeral homes anymore.
Speaker: They're starting to look more like event centers.
Speaker: They're starting to look like fine hotels where people are comfortable and not dark, spooky parlors where people are a little less comfortable.
Speaker: But definitely their place in society, their place in existence, that's never going to completely go away.
Speaker: Because more and more people are relying on funeral homes that may not have necessarily done that because funeral homes are adjusting the way that they do things, believe it or not.
Speaker: adjusting the way that they do things so that they can maintain their cultural significance.
Speaker: You know, that's a business decision.
Speaker: Yes, it's a business and that's what it's all about.
Speaker: But that discussion of putting away your grief and cremation, fulfilling that need to put away your grief, that's been a discussion for many years.
Speaker: That's been a discussion since direct cremation, that term wasn't coined until the 1960s.
Speaker: That being the case, it hasn't, you know, it's been around for a good
Speaker: significant portion of modern history.
Speaker: And it's always been a discussion that direct cremation denies people that process of grief.
Speaker: And it does.
Speaker: I feel like that that does in a lot of ways.
Speaker: But I also feel like that people are learning more and more about the importance of being able to remember loved ones in personal ways and not in ways that necessarily are
Speaker: traditional or conventional.
Speaker: That doesn't preclude the fact that they are doing so.
Speaker: I don't think that fewer people are doing services.
Speaker: I think they're just doing them differently.
Speaker: It's definitely one to watch.
Speaker: And as I was speaking to a driver behind one of these sites, as I said, Tim, I've been around and I'm fairly new still, but I've been around the funeral industry for the last 10 years and I've seen startups come and go.
Speaker: And one of my biggest fears or worries, if you like, is that these new businesses and these startups are
Speaker: will come and go and what will happen is that families are the victims of, for example, say, and I've been approached by so many of these over the years, but say, for example, an app that's now pitching to do obituaries.
Speaker: And so a family pays to have an obituary, yada, yada, and then all of a sudden the app and the website have just disappeared and are no longer...
Speaker: you know, and kind of to what your point said about the niches in a prematorium or a cemetery, it kind of robs the family of that legacy that they actually did want.
Speaker: There are people who don't want it, and I understand that too, and we each should be allowed to express ourselves and our grief in our own ways.
Speaker: Considering, and I feel like that's very true, considering though that don't be selfish about it, you know, think and remember that there are others, and there will be others, you know, think about
Speaker: children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren in that future progeny that's important.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And Jason, you literally hit on my three things.
Speaker: I always say my three pillars are digital environment and pre-planning.
Speaker: And that is exactly one of the main reasons why I always push people to pre-plan, pre-plan, pre-plan.
Speaker: Because even if you're just jotting your notes down on paper of what you want, at least you get to say what it is.
Speaker: Whereas I know, for example, I'm always using this.
Speaker: My poor parents have been killed a million times over on all my different medias.
Speaker: But, you know, when my mum dies, I would be the one responsible.
Speaker: And I'm going to do her funeral from my point of view because she's my mother.
Speaker: But she's also my brother's mother, which is a different person in itself.
Speaker: She's also a wife.
Speaker: She's a grandmother now.
Speaker: She's a daughter herself.
Speaker: She's a best friend.
Speaker: Whereas it would just be from my point of view.
Speaker: And so I would be perhaps make selfish choices or make choices that just speak to my grief.
Speaker: So that's another reason.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Main reason why I think people should pre-plan.
Speaker: We've talked about a lot, obviously on this, but, you know, 150 nearly years of cremating, you
Speaker: When it originally started, and, you know, we've said that it hasn't changed a huge amount, how long did it take for, and I know you said that there was a service in the room, was the body in and cremating at the time the service was taking place?
Speaker: Or is it more, was it more like today where it took place sort of after, you know, maybe the family could close the door and then it happens?
Speaker: And then how long did that process take versus today?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Typically, if something concluded at a crematory, it was like a committal service like you would have at a burial.
Speaker: It's very, very similar.
Speaker: Same kind of thought.
Speaker: In fact, a lot of the early crematories in the country, the cremation apparatus was in the basement.
Speaker: The chapel was on the upper floor and there was an elevator between the two and they would lower the casket to the lower level, which, you know, mocked the idea of a burial.
Speaker: Same kind of thing.
Speaker: In fact, there was a crematory in New Jersey that had
Speaker: The lowering device elevator had a kind of a canopy over it.
Speaker: And when that canopy was all the way down, it was flushed with the floor and it looked like a mound of dirt.
Speaker: It was made to look like a mound of dirt with flowers on it and all kinds of things.
Speaker: It was this desire to maintain tradition and, you know, create these architecturally significant buildings that would house this committal service.
Speaker: And that was all part of the process of the cremation movement.
Speaker: Typically, the casket would be lowered at the earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Speaker: The casket would be lowered.
Speaker: The cremation would begin then, typically.
Speaker: A lot of the early crematories in the country actually requested, and some even required, that somebody witness the casket being placed into the cremation chamber and invited people, even a lot of them early on, invited people to look through the peepholes and see what was happening in the cremation chamber.
Speaker: And, you know, that's all things that were important for the movement of cremation.
Speaker: But that being the case, you know, that process then took place in two hours, you know, hour and a half or two hours.
Speaker: Some of the early crematories got up to, you know, 2,500 degrees.
Speaker: Of course, that took a little less time.
Speaker: But they also would take a lot of time to get to that temperature as well.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Again, not much different than what it is today.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, as you said, technology has just sort of moved, moved it forward a little bit.
Speaker: It's interesting and kind of mind blowing, really, as I kind of pointed out that it started with one guy wanting what he wanted.
Speaker: and having the money to build it, all of a sudden other people want in as well.
Speaker: And it's kind of... That's definitely what gave it the kickstart.
Speaker: It wasn't like only one person wanted cremation.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's that it was this massive discussion and he kickstarted it by building a crematory.
Speaker: He had the money.
Speaker: Let's just call it day to day, Jason.
Speaker: It's like today.
Speaker: If you have the money, you get to start.
Speaker: You get to start the movement.
Speaker: That's just the way it goes.
Speaker: But isn't it kind of interesting that that's similar in the way the funeral business became commercialized?
Speaker: Because I mean, funeral homes, the reason why they look like homes
Speaker: And the reason why they're called funeral homes is because it originated in people's homes.
Speaker: Obviously, as an Irish person, you know, I'm from Dublin, so not so much in Dublin, but down the country in Ireland, especially in really rural parts of Ireland, we're still waking.
Speaker: You know, we still do wakes.
Speaker: It's still a huge thing.
Speaker: And it's just fascinating.
Speaker: It started as such a personal thing, cremation and...
Speaker: funerals and came from a really pure place to now where it is quite commercialized and is such an industry whether to call it a community or an industry or a business etc etc I personally flip between all of the above because I think it is all of the above because to me profit and loss happens it's an industry it's a business sales and you know there's buying and the selling and
Speaker: But some people are hesitant of that.
Speaker: And I feel like that's almost doing the industry a disservice because, and honestly, it's a part of what I try and do whenever I'm speaking to the media, which is actually one of the reasons why I wanted to start this podcast was to have these open and honest conversations and show the public that
Speaker: It's not all money grabbing.
Speaker: It's not cowboys.
Speaker: It's not sometimes the way the media pictured.
Speaker: Like during COVID, I'll never forget, obviously, up here in New York, we were in the trenches.
Speaker: And the one thing the media went on, and thankfully I did get a bit of press and was able to sort of address certain things.
Speaker: one of the things they highlighted was the truck outside a funeral home in Brooklyn that was housing millions of bodies, wasn't millions, but they glorified.
Speaker: It's like, would you do that to a hospital?
Speaker: Everybody was in the trenches at that point.
Speaker: And my heart really went down to what I kept calling us the last responders because we were working, well, not me because I'm not actually a licensed funeral director, but the funeral homes that I know,
Speaker: They were working every hour, God's ends, just like the nurses and the doctors.
Speaker: And honestly, to me, it was almost just as difficult as the first responders because we were dealing with the deaths just mounting.
Speaker: In my experience, it was a tough time.
Speaker: I was at that when COVID first hit.
Speaker: And until October of last year, I was on the management team of a huge funeral home here in Austin.
Speaker: And we had the care center at the back of our funeral home.
Speaker: for all of our funeral homes in the area.
Speaker: I've never seen so much death.
Speaker: I've never seen so much of that.
Speaker: And it was tough.
Speaker: It was tough to see and experience and watch happen.
Speaker: Being in that depth is tough.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: And it's, as I say, it's not to harp on about it or it's not to seek sympathy because actually that's one of the last things any funeral director I know does is seek sympathy.
Speaker: It's really interesting actually.
Speaker: And selfless and, you know, it's funny for people to talk about, you know, death care being so money driven when in actuality, I very few funeral homes or funeral directors that I know would would be so self-serving to.
Speaker: say that that's why they're in it.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a calling first.
Speaker: Do they make money out of it?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And again, I don't want to make light of it, but we regularly do on the Glamour Reaper podcast, but it's like Irish people.
Speaker: We're not drunks.
Speaker: We just like having a good time.
Speaker: And if we keep drinking and we end up drunk as a consequence, then do you know what you're going to do?
Speaker: Just like to have a good diet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's the big thing and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker: Well, listen, Jason, we won't hold you on any longer because we have held you on long enough.
Speaker: But thank you so much.
Speaker: And I can definitely see that we will have you back on again.
Speaker: And thank you so much, Jason.
Speaker: Really an absolute pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker: I do want to just really quickly before we stop recording.
Speaker: Can you tell us a tiny little bit about Kena?
Speaker: I'm not necessarily a spokesperson, but I am the historian.
Speaker: Kena is the oldest cremation-focused industry association, not necessarily a company per se.
Speaker: We are a non-profit organization that basically our factors are educating cremationists, educating funeral professionals about cremation, and especially providing and maintaining statistics that we gather each year for the U.S. and Canada.
Speaker: for the rates of cremation.
Speaker: We are the, again, the oldest association that focuses on all aspects of cremation, whether it's water cremation, fire cremation, any of the above.
Speaker: We have a couple of events that happen each year that are kind of gathering place for people who want to actually learn about cremation.
Speaker: But we also have several in-person trainings that take place, and hopefully those will pick up again.
Speaker: But we have virtual as well, virtual and in-person trainings for crematory operations certification program.
Speaker: That is something that the industry standard, we created the crematory operator training.
Speaker: That crematory operations training is the benchmark that many have copied from other associations as well, but a little partial to.
Speaker: We are the go-to for
Speaker: cremation information statistics all of those things and cremationassociation.org is the the website well thank you jason so much for being on the podcast and if anybody has any questions about cremation jason's definitely your man so either shoot us an email at glam reaper podcast at gmail.com and we will gladly put you in touch with jason or leave something in the comments and tell us ask a question and yeah thank you so much for
Speaker: You're also welcome to find me on Facebook, The Cremation Historian.
Speaker: Just look me up there and you'll see all kinds of fun history tidbits that go back a few years.
Speaker: It's been a little quiet lately with me making posts, but there's a lot of information there that if you haven't seen it yet, then it'll keep you busy for a while.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: I bet you didn't know any of that abitformation.
Speaker: I personally found this conversation really fascinating.
Speaker: And as always, any comments, feedback or questions, send them to glamouryperpodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: We'll see you next week.
