Today, photographing the dead is making a comeback. But this time it’s not only the deceased who are being photographed – it’s the entire funeral service. Candid shots of the … Continue reading Are You Thinking of Hiring a Funeral Photographer?

Today, photographing the dead is making a comeback. But this time it’s not only the deceased who are being photographed – it’s the entire funeral service. Candid shots of the … Continue reading Are You Thinking of Hiring a Funeral Photographer?
Once upon a time, a young woman walked into a funeral home in Queens, New York. She needed an after-school job to earn some money, while she worked her way … Continue reading A Dying Business
Last night, I attended a most unique event at Green-Wood Cemetery with my friend & fellow funeral director, Doris Amen. It was a two mile stroll through the grounds, after … Continue reading Moonrise at Green-Wood Cemetery
In July’s issue, American Funeral Director pays tribute to COVID-19 heroes.When I was asked to contribute, I thought of the countless funeral directors who fit that description (and how it … Continue reading Unsung Heroes
Today I participated in my second home funeral. The visitation was held in a magnificent estate in Greenwich, Connecticut and, as we were getting things ready, a colleague remarked that … Continue reading Home Funerals
Funerals can be expensive. There’s no doubt about that. In 2017, the median cost of a funeral was listed as $7,360 on the National Funeral Directors Association’s website. That cost … Continue reading 10 Cretive Ways To Keep Funeral Costs Down
Have you ever uttered the words, “I wouldn’t be caught dead in that outfit!?” Well, you just might be – literally speaking – if you leave it to your family to decide what you’ll wear when the time comes for you to make your final public appearance. Now is the time to consider your final fashion options.
Undoubtedly, some families get it right. The family of Salsa Queen Celia Cruz gave it a lot of thought. True to her diva style, she wore more than one outfit at her 2003 funeral, which took place in two cities.
For a public viewing in Miami, Florida’s Freedom Tower, Cruz was dressed in an off-white gown with a feather boa trimmed jacket, while for her wake at Frank E. Campbell’s in New York City, she was clad in a cream-colored gown with a white-sequined overlay.
Custom-made floating wedges with wood bottoms, and a change of wigs, completed both looks.
Funeral director William ‘Bill’ Harley, who accompanied Cruz’s remains to Miami, oversaw the clothing changes and reapplied her cosmetics daily.
But few people should expect such expressions of individuality if they have not thought about their clothing options. For a long time, choice was not part of the funeral tradition.
“When I began my career, everyone wore gowns and suits. It’s a formal occasion and people dressed in their Sunday best,” said Harley.
Andrea Basile, the owner of Basile Funeral Home in Brooklyn, New York, concurs:
“When I started, there were only two options in women’s clothes: burial garments and a gown previously worn on a special occasion. It was all evening wear. Caskets were fully open, so clothing had to be full length.”
To fill that need, burial garment companies around the country became the designers to the dead, making their merchandise available for purchase through the funeral home.
Pastel burial gowns, usually made of polyester or nylon, and often adorned with satin and lace, were designed with the deceased in mind.
Taking post-mortem changes into account, necklines were high, sleeves long, and the material ample, easily adjustable for size. The addition of tulle, artfully arranged around the dress, gave an ethereal look.
Responding to that demand, Abigal Press, a New York funeral supply company with roots that go back to 1936, expanded its product line by purchasing a local burial garment company.
The clothing became “a convenience item” for families making funeral arrangements, said company president Jeff Gaines. But as the garments became more popular, they also became pricier, causing families to use the deceased’s own clothes, or to buy new from retail stores.
According to Gaines, burial garments being sold these days are usually for those who die in nursing homes when “mom hasn’t had a dress in years, nothing fits, or her weight has dropped tremendously.” For the most part, they have become “antiquated products.”
Unless you make it known how you want to be dressed for the afterlife, it will be decided for you by your survivors.
Poring through a loved one’s closet in search of the outfit that best reflects who the deceased was can be emotionally wrenching. That closet holds a treasure trove of memories. For some, making the choice can be deeply rewarding.
“People may not know why, but when something is right, or better, they respond. They feel better about their dead and proud of themselves,” notes Basile.
For others, though, the choice may be difficult, and funeral directors have an important role to play. Harley believes that “the personal clothing of the deceased works best.” However, he adds, “we [as funeral directors] need to be specific when speaking with families about appropriate clothing for the deceased.”
When Harley meets with families at the arrangement conference, he asks them to provide clothing similar to what the deceased would have worn for a social occasion, including a full set of undergarments.
Stressing the need for a high collar, and long, opaque sleeves, he explains that these attributes will mask arms that are too thin or too heavy, or which have been poked and prodded with medical apparatus.
Being specific is especially important when the deceased is young. Harley is reminded of the funeral of a young woman who died suddenly. Her grief-stricken mother allowed her daughter’s best friend to choose her clothing.
The girl’s choice was a black leather miniskirt and a sleeveless blouse with a plunging neckline. Not an appropriate choice for a fully-autopsied remains, which is generally the case when one is young and death is sudden.
The condition of the remains must be taken into consideration when selecting clothes.
Over the years, Basile, who once worked for Pierre Cardin, has put together funeral outfits for both women and men in her care.
“I think women look better in a lightweight jacket, from silk to knitted.” She favors double-breasted jackets on men and a single turn in the tie. “A suit is fine but a navy blazer and charcoal or gray slacks are my favorites,” says Basile.
“I always emphasized the clothes should be appropriate for the person; keeping the deceased still looking like themselves.”
That was certainly true for Basile’s mother, who had purchased a pair of black velvet slacks with a matching bateau-neck tunic for herself not long before she died. With the addition of a sheer black jacket, chosen by Basile, it would serve as her final outfit.
“She looked fabulous,” Basile shares about her 96-year-old mother, whose natural dark brown hair had no more than a streak of gray. “Even though the casket was closed, I was happy she looked so much like herself. Her vanity would not have been frustrated.”
Although most times one’s last outfit is chosen by others, that is not always the case. Harley recalls the preparedness of an elderly lady, who had taken the time to think through her funeral.
“She had set aside a beautiful pink floral nightgown with a satin quilted bathrobe, a matching bracelet, and rosary beads. When she died, she looked beautiful in her pink ensemble which complemented the mahogany casket,” Harley remarks.
The woman was among those who opt for lounging pajamas and slippers, or a negligee, to be comfortably at rest.
When Basile’s own grandmother died at the age of 99, she dressed her in a similar style.
“I went to Bloomingdales and bought this incredible ice blue, silk jacquard nightgown, and matching jacket. All the lace on the bodice and bed jacket was pale beige. It was so appropriate and so beautiful that for years people asked for the same thing as we’d used for my grandmother,” shares Basile.
“Baby boomers have certainly introduced changes to funerals,” says Harley. But he notes that funerals have, for the most part, continued to be formal affairs, as evidenced by “the large percentage of traditional funerals, as well as the protocol of viewing the deceased.”
“Exceptions do exist,” he adds, recalling the funeral of a 50-year-old man who requested beforehand that on the morning of his funeral he be changed out of the suit he had worn for his wake into khaki shorts and a Hawaiian print shirt.
Today, when there are myriad choices, Basile draws the line at message T-shirts. “I think people should use anything personal as long as it is respectful. Exposing the dead requires at least some discretion.”
This article was originally published on October 8, 2019 @ https://sixtyandme.com/fashion-to-die-for-how-to-choose-your-last-outfit-or-burial-gown/
Inside The Reform Temple of Forest Hills, it was SRO as hundreds of people, including elected officials, judges, prosecutors, court staff, and New Yorkers, attended the funeral service for Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown. In his lengthy career, the highly respected district attorney successfully prosecuted many cases. The last one was the Karina Vetrano case.
The eulogies, especially those by Brown’s son-in-law, and a lawyer who was a longtime friend and protege of Brown’s, were alternately touching, informative, and humorous. His casket was shouldered out the door of the temple by the NYPD Ceremonial Unit, a helicopter flyover above, to a throng of mourners and dignitaries, including Mayor DeBlasio, Mayor Dinkins, Police Commissioner O’Neill, and acting Queens DA Jack Ryan.
As I always say #funeralsmatter.
“What’s it like to work as a funeral director?” This is a question I’ve been asked time and again. My response: It’s not easy, given the complex emotions involved. It takes enormous commitment and dedication, along with a compassionate nature and respect for tradition and ceremony.
Funeral directors deal with issues of mortality – our own as well as those of our clients – on a daily basis. We work long and erratic hours, and we are never truly ‘off.’ In fact, I sleep with my cell phone by my bed in case someone needs me in the middle of the night.
The ever-present sense of urgency is a reality of the job. One must be able to adapt to sudden changes because death is unpredictable.
Some people think that funeral service is a 24/7 goth fest. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, we interact more with the living than with the dead. People who have just lost a loved one need to talk, and we often serve as counselors and confidants.
It’s true that our work can be very physical and sometimes exhausting. Funeral directors remove bodies from their place of death, embalm them, apply cosmetics and then dress the remains. In some cases, we may do reconstructive work as well.
We also arrange the funeral details, supervise the visitation and direct the funeral service. To comply with city, state and federal regulations, we have to deal with a seemingly never-ending mountain of paperwork.
While our work has many demands, the pay, contrary to public perception, is not commensurate with what we do. And not surprisingly, my work wardrobe is primarily black.
Death is perhaps one of life’s only certainties, and the mere mention of it often evokes a mix of curiosity and discomfort. It did for me.
Having been orphaned at birth, I often thought about death. But I relegated those thoughts to the back of my mind as I aspired to a career in journalism until an after-school job in a funeral home changed my career path. I began to see funeral service as a viable career option.
Mortuary school followed on the heels of college, as I put my plan of becoming a writer on hold. Many of my classmates were children of funeral directors, less common these days because large corporations have absorbed many of the once family-owned funeral homes.
After completing mortuary school, I set out to find an apprenticeship, a requirement for licensure. This was not an easy feat in the late 1970s, especially for a woman. To the public, it may appear that jobs are easy to come by, but they are not.
After much pavement pounding, I was hired by a busy family-owned firm in Queens, New York. Immediately, I was thrust into an intense work environment, with my days being spent driving around New York City in the service vehicle, making removals.
I spent many hours in the preparation room embalming body after body, learning the craft. I quickly understood that the emotional quotient of the work could overwhelm and turned to writing as a catharsis.
The result: a published memoir called Grave Undertakings. My experiences as a funeral director became a source of inspiration for my writing. Soon, I was able to meld the two careers.
I have worked as a funeral director for more than 35 years, prepared thousands of remains, and conducted countless services. As I’ve grown older and lost friends, family and colleagues, I’ve understood more acutely what my client families go through.
The most difficult thing for me as a funeral director is looking into the faces of those who have lost a loved one and knowing that it is not in my power to do what they want most: bring them back.
Still, I strive to ease the transition between life and death by providing a service that, in the words of funeral director/author Thomas Lynch, “… gets the dead where they need to go and the living where they need to be.” The funeral, as I see it, serves as a metaphorical bridge from this life to the next.
This article originally appeared on https://sixtyandme.com/what-its-like-to-work-as-a-funeral-director/
The article I wrote about the importance of keeping the funeral tradition alive is in the current issue of the Saturday Evening Post. It’s an honor to be able to make the argument in such a venerable publication. Here’s a link to read it online:
This recent piece on Ranker, titled “The Morbid Truth About Working as a Mortician” was called to my attention. Apart from the redundant terms funeral director/mortician (an antiquated term, as well), the author is on the mark in titling item #1 It’s Hard to Break Into the Death Industry. A couple of my colleagues came up with a list of the closed funeral home sin the NYC/LI area, and there were many. I feel for the young people who spend a considerable sum of money to attend mortuary school, only to learn that jobs are few and far between.
I was honored and humbled to be among the thousands of mourners inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral this morning for the funeral Mass of Det. Steven McDonald. The police office, who was paralyzed in a 1986 shooting became a symbol of forgiveness and compassion, inspiring so many.
There was not an empty seat in St. Pat’s, and I was invited to sit in the Press section (where I was in some heady company). We all took copious notes for our respective articles, and television news segments. My upcoming article will be part of Kates-Boylston’s popular series “Funerals of the Famous.”