On the Final Journey, One Size Doesn't Fit All

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On the Final Journey, One Size Doesn't Fit All
By WARREN ST. JOHN

erhaps nowhere is the issue of obesity in America more vividly illustrated
than at Goliath Casket of Lynn, Ind., specialty manufacturers of oversize
coffins.

There one can see a triple-wide coffin — 44 inches across, compared with 24
inches for a standard model. With extra bracing, reinforced hinges and
handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without losing
what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its "integrity."

When Keith and Julane Davis started Goliath Casket in the late 1980's, they
sold just one triple-wide each year. But times, along with waistlines, have
changed; the Davises now ship four or five triple-wide models a month, and
sales at the company have been increasing around 20 percent annually. The
Davises say they base their design specifications not on demographic
studies so much as on simple observations of the world around them.

"It's just going to local restaurants or walking in a normal Wal-Mart,"
Mrs. Davis said. "People are getting wider and they're getting thicker."

Like the airline industry, which was warned in May that passengers were
heavier than they used to be, and was asked to adjust weight estimates
accordingly, the funeral industry is retooling to make room for ever-larger
Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20
percent of American adults are obese, up from 12.5 percent in 1991. Of
those 70 and older — the demographic that most interests the funeral
industry — 17 percent are obese. Despite the numbers, nearly every aspect
of the funeral industry, from the size of coffins to vaults, graves,
hearses and even the standardized scoop on the front-end loaders that
cemeteries use for grave-digging (it is called a "grave bucket") is based
on outdated estimates about individual size.

"Many people in this country no longer fit in the standard-size casket,"
said David A. Hazelett, the president of Astral Industries, a coffin
builder in Indiana. "The standard-size casket is meant to go in the
standard-size vault, and the standard-size vault is meant to go into the
standard-size cemetery plot. Everyone in the industry is aware of the
problem."

The Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx recently increased its standard burial
plot size to four feet wide from three feet to accommodate wider burial
vaults, and the cemetery's newest mausoleum has four crypts designed
especially to hold oversize coffins. The Cremation Association of North
America has begun providing special training to its members in the handling
of obese bodies.

And hearse manufacturers are pushing the limits of design to make their
vehicles ever wider and with bigger rear doors.

"If a funeral home calls looking to buy a hearse, that's one of the first
things they ask: `How wide is it?' " said Terry Logan, the head of
marketing at Federal Coach in Fort Smith, Ark., which sells 250 hearses a
year. "That's the biggest selling point in our industry."

Despite these changes, critics say the funeral industry has not done
enough. Families of obese decedents often have to wait several days for
coffins, and the cost of burial for the obese — which can include
surcharges for embalming and transportation — typically exceed standard
burials by $800 to $3,000.

"It's not exactly rocket science that people have been getting larger;
that's been well known for 30 years," said Allen Steadham, the executive
director of the International Size-Acceptance Association, an advocacy
group for the obese. "People are living larger and they're dying larger,
and industries have to adapt to that situation."

George Lemke, the executive director of the Casket and Funeral Supply
Association, said that shape more than weight determined whether someone
would require an oversize coffin. But for people of average height, he
said, those above 300 pounds are likely candidates.

Many families are unaware their relatives will need a special coffin until
a funeral director measures the body and informs them. Some then face
difficult choices. Grace Moredock of Evanston, Ill., said that in 1999,
when her mother died weighing 340 pounds, the family could not afford an
oversize coffin and opted for cremation. "Because of our faith and our
religious belief we would have preferred to have buried her," she said. Ms.
Moredock herself weighs 400 pounds and she said the experience had affected
her own funeral plans. "I'd prefer to be buried," she said. "But I wouldn't
say to my family, `You have to bury me,' because I wouldn't want them to be
in a bind if they couldn't afford it."

For the severely obese, though, cremation may not be an option. Jack
Springer, the executive director of the Cremation Association of North
America, said most crematoria cannot handle bodies over 500 pounds.

One way that some companies have responded is by reducing the thickness of
their coffins' sides and the profiles of their handles, so they can hold
larger bodies but still fit in a standard vault.

Cemetery owners have less flexibility. Many cemeteries were plotted years
ago, and in the more crowded cemeteries, burial vaults are lined up wall to
wall, not unlike seats on an airliner, to maximize potential sales. And
just as on a plane, it is impossible to buy an extra half a seat.

"If we have someone who is oversized we may have to go larger than the
actual grave space permits," said William Wright, the vice president of
Fairlawn Cemetery in Hutchinson, Kan. "The family would have to own it."

The issue can be especially complicated when the deceased has prepurchased
a site, but cannot fit in it.

For funeral directors and grieving families, discussions over the
deceased's weight can be especially awkward. Tim King, an undertaker at the
Tufts-Schildmeyer Funeral Home in Goshen, Ohio, said, "When you tell a
family that just lost a loved one that their loved one is too big for a
casket, what they hear is you saying, `Mom or Dad is fat,' " he said.

Mr. King said the weight issue had given rise to a new euphemism. "We say,
`Mom's not going to look comfortable in that casket,' " he said. "The
family knows we mean, `Mom won't fit.' "

Families that have buried large relatives say it is important to compare
funeral homes, since some funeral directors with more experience burying
the obese can perform the task at a lower cost. Lois Kehrer, whose
brother-in-law John Kehrer of Loveland, Ohio, died last spring at 52 of
heart failure at 696 pounds, said the first undertaker the family spoke to
said Mr. Kehrer would require a custom casket, a custom burial vault and
two funeral plots, which together cost $20,000.

The Kehrers eventually found another funeral director who could fit Mr.
Kehrer into a ready-made coffin from Goliath, and a local cemetery agreed
to fit the coffin in a single plot, by positioning it slightly off center.
The cost of the funeral came to $7,921.74.

"People need to be aware there are other options," Mrs. Kehrer said. "We
kind of lucked out."

Mr. Hazelett, the coffin maker from Indiana, said he expected the coffin
industry to continue courting the oversize market.

"The economic opportunity exists until the country changes," he said.
"We're just reacting to the supersizing of America."

****

NR

http://www.pat-acceptance.org/kookrant.html
http://www.pat-acceptance.org/kookrant2.html

If I catch you busting into a mass and vilifying a church, the last thing
you'll hear in your entire life, will be the ratatatatat of an automatic.
- --Steve Chaney to Mark Ira Kaufman
Message-ID:

Young Mr. Chaney, the man who has told me that he wants to murder me and
sodomize women in my family, has said, repeatedly, that advocates for
choice had vandalized churches.
- --Mark Ira Kaufman
Message-ID:

she probably has to have her picture taken by satellite because no normal
camera can fit all that whale blubber into one picture.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

Excessively fat women look ugly. It is impractical to try and have sex when
she's 100lbs overweight and the weight is all fat - but most women ain't
that big.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

You of course do know what a lot of Asian women prefer, right? Besides,
after ****ing a cute asian chick, experience tells me it isn't all that
except that she looks good on your arm. In bed it ain't much at all. If the
lights go out, any guy whose hormones are more fixed on performance than
looks, is going to go to sleep right there and then.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

Clarice and Allisson were well beyond a BMI of 25 in their pictures where
they were called cows.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

If Dutton knocked on Steve's door and Steve shot him in the face, I would
really not care.
- --Crash Street Kidd about Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

Stephen A Chaney is NR's whipping boy.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQA/AwUBP3e6MTL3IlvsWvnjEQKzyACeOXWWk/Fjix1LI8JBxpS2pFVtMgEAoOVF
vAlhlQS5oTCzEm1e1xTtvIQk
=yMpJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

In article ,
(NR)
wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On the Final Journey, One Size Doesn't Fit All
By WARREN ST. JOHN



John Kehrer of Loveland, Ohio, died last spring at 52 of
heart failure at 696 pounds,

How fat accepting of him.





****

NR

http://www.pat-acceptance.org/kookrant.html
http://www.pat-acceptance.org/kookrant2.html

If I catch you busting into a mass and vilifying a church, the last thing
you'll hear in your entire life, will be the ratatatatat of an automatic.
- --Steve Chaney to Mark Ira Kaufman
Message-ID:

Young Mr. Chaney, the man who has told me that he wants to murder me and
sodomize women in my family, has said, repeatedly, that advocates for
choice had vandalized churches.
- --Mark Ira Kaufman
Message-ID:

she probably has to have her picture taken by satellite because no normal
camera can fit all that whale blubber into one picture.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

Excessively fat women look ugly. It is impractical to try and have sex when
she's 100lbs overweight and the weight is all fat - but most women ain't
that big.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

You of course do know what a lot of Asian women prefer, right? Besides,
after ****ing a cute asian chick, experience tells me it isn't all that
except that she looks good on your arm. In bed it ain't much at all. If the
lights go out, any guy whose hormones are more fixed on performance than
looks, is going to go to sleep right there and then.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

Clarice and Allisson were well beyond a BMI of 25 in their pictures where
they were called cows.
- --Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

If Dutton knocked on Steve's door and Steve shot him in the face, I would
really not care.
- --Crash Street Kidd about Steve Chaney
Message-ID:

Stephen A Chaney is NR's whipping boy.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQA/AwUBP3e6MTL3IlvsWvnjEQKzyACeOXWWk/Fjix1LI8JBxpS2pFVtMgEAoOVF
vAlhlQS5oTCzEm1e1xTtvIQk
=yMpJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

"NR" wrote ...

On the Final Journey, One Size Doesn't Fit All
By WARREN ST. JOHN

[snip]

There one can see a triple-wide coffin - 44 inches across, compared with
24
inches for a standard model. With extra bracing, reinforced hinges and
handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without losing
what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its "integrity."

I wanna know who's going to carry it!

)


Rachel
(New Zealand)

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 11:10:43 +1200, "Supergoof"
wrote:

"NR" wrote ...

On the Final Journey, One Size Doesn't Fit All
By WARREN ST. JOHN

[snip]

There one can see a triple-wide coffin - 44 inches across, compared with
24
inches for a standard model. With extra bracing, reinforced hinges and
handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without losing
what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its "integrity."

I wanna know who's going to carry it!

)


Rachel
(New Zealand)

There are special trolleys for coffins, used particularly for
heavyweights, or in circumstances where it can be difficult - when my
mother died we used the trolley to carry her from the hearse to the
gravesite since the cemetery was on a slight slope (gorgeous views
across Port Phillip Bay for the mourners - I doubt the corpses
particularly care) and this could have been difficult for humans to
have carried it safely.

Aramanth
(I know the question was tongue-in-cheek, but I couldn't help but
answer it seriously. At least I snipped all the other newsgroups!)

"Aramanth Dawe" wrote ...
Supergoof" wrote:
"NR" wrote ...
[snip]
handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without
losing
what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its "integrity."

I wanna know who's going to carry it!

There are special trolleys for coffins, used particularly for
heavyweights, or in circumstances where it can be difficult - when my
mother died we used the trolley to carry her from the hearse to the
gravesite since the cemetery was on a slight slope (gorgeous views
across Port Phillip Bay for the mourners - I doubt the corpses
particularly care) and this could have been difficult for humans to
have carried it safely.

yah, the last thing you want is to stumble and drop the dearly departed -
funerals are hard enough without that (unless you have the sort of family
that would see it as comic relief)

I remember that when we carried my dad's coffin from the hearse to the
crematorium and despite him being very thin at the end, he was still a big
man at 6'2" and 80-odd kgs, and it wasn't terribly easy - us girls got the
feet 'cos they're lighter (can't remember if there were 4 or 6 of us).


Rachel
(New Zealand)

Supergoof wrote:
|| "Aramanth Dawe" wrote ...
|| Supergoof" wrote:
|||| "NR" wrote ...
|||| [snip]
||||| handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without
||||| losing what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its
||||| "integrity."
||||
|||| I wanna know who's going to carry it!
||||
||| There are special trolleys for coffins, used particularly for
||| heavyweights, or in circumstances where it can be difficult - when
||| my mother died we used the trolley to carry her from the hearse to
||| the gravesite since the cemetery was on a slight slope (gorgeous
||| views across Port Phillip Bay for the mourners - I doubt the corpses
||| particularly care) and this could have been difficult for humans to
||| have carried it safely.
||
|| yah, the last thing you want is to stumble and drop the dearly
|| departed - funerals are hard enough without that (unless you have
|| the sort of family that would see it as comic relief)
||
|| I remember that when we carried my dad's coffin from the hearse to
|| the crematorium and despite him being very thin at the end, he was
|| still a big man at 6'2" and 80-odd kgs, and it wasn't terribly easy
|| - us girls got the feet 'cos they're lighter (can't remember if
|| there were 4 or 6 of us).
||
||
|| Rachel
|| (New Zealand)


Wow, where I live, only men are pallbearers. It is but another male role
that I do not wish to aquire.

--
Lori
220/150/135
LC since 1/17/03
Sept Challenge 155/150
http://community.webshots.com/user/lorismiller
Back to Curves 6/30/03

Aramanth Dawe wrote:

There are special trolleys for coffins, used particularly for
heavyweights, or in circumstances where it can be difficult - when my
mother died we used the trolley to carry her from the hearse to the
gravesite since the cemetery was on a slight slope (gorgeous views
across Port Phillip Bay for the mourners - I doubt the corpses
particularly care) and this could have been difficult for humans to
have carried it safely.

Some funeral directors and ministers encourage families to use a
trolley even for babies because if someone stumbles or trips it can
be very distressing.

Shirley

to reply via e-mail remove the trees from my address