The Cost of Dying – Traditional Funeral Services & Burial

A Wedding

We love to plan and prepare for the major events in our lives; graduations, weddings, births, anniversaries, reunions, but when it comes to planning our death – that seems to flummox us like nothing else.  Yet, it is a major life event, and it does need our attention and planning.  Maybe now more than ever!

Invoice Example

Death is a $12 to $15-billion industry in the United States. As we continue to die, rates continue to climb.  Expenses for a funeral service can vary dramatically, depending on what type of funeral you decide on and where you are located.  According to the 2010 Funeral Price Survey by the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) http://www.nfda.org/, Americans spent, on average, $7,775.00 for an adult funeral in 2009, based on the elements of a regular, traditional funeral.

Grave monument

Opening a Grave

This does not include the cemetery costs which include the gravesite, vault, opening and closing of the grave, or the grave marker.  These charges can run another $2,000 to $3,000 for interment in  ‘regular’ cemeteries.  (Remember, the larger, more popular or exclusive a cemetery is, the higher the cost to get admitted.)  And the price of a grave marker or monument depends on what you choose.

Traditional Funeral

So what elements make up a traditional funeral?  What are you paying $7,775.00 on average, for?  Note: a funeral service involves a body being present, it occurs soon after death, and usually includes a viewing of the body.  If there is no body present – it is called a memorial service, does not require a funeral director to be involved and may be held at any time.

To begin the funeral process, you will need to pay for copies of the death certificate.  Then there’s a transportation charge to take the deceased to the funeral home of your choice. 

Studies have found that people make the decision on the funeral home based on these criteria:

Location – usually it’s the funeral home closest to them, or to where the deceased lived.

Family history – they continue to go to the funeral home the family has always used.

Personal recommendations – these are based on suggestions from friends and family. 

Funeral Planning

The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) encourages customers (And yes, that is what you are,) to ask questions about anything you do not understand. If plans were not already in place and you are feeling stressed and emotional, ask a trusted friend to assist you in getting the funeral arrangements decided on.  A clearer head can be an asset to you and the funeral director when planning a funeral in a time of grief.  You do not necessarily have to accept the pre-bundled funeral services offered by funeral homes, although it may be easier to do so in certain circumstances .  You can pick and choose from the options available to find those that best suit your intentions and finances.

Itemized Statement

Once you have decided on the arrangements you want, the funeral home will present you with an itemized statement of the services and merchandise you have selected.  This includes an estimate of all cash advance fees paid on your behalf to third parties, such as the cemetery, organist, florist, clergy, etc.

A Funeral Cost Breakdown:

Offering Professional Services

Professional Services involve the services provided by the funeral director regarding advice, support, and dealing with third parties, external cleansing of the body, burial arrangements made with the cemetery, and securing all necessary certificates and permits.

Use of Funeral Home

Funeral Cars

Supplemental or Optional charges include transporting the deceased to the funeral home, use of the funeral home, the services of the funeral home attendants for custodial care and arranging the funeral, embalming, cosmetology, charges for the casket or urn, burial vault, obituary notices, flowers, music, prayer cards, memorial cards, acknowledgement cards, providing the hearse, and limousine or funeral cars for transportation to the cemetery for the interment.

Embalming is Optional

You do not have to have the deceased embalmed.  Embalming is never required for the first 24 hours after death. Also, you have a set amount of time to bury a body before embalming may be required according to your state law. There are several religions in the United States that do not allow a body to be embalmed.

Embalming Table

According to Funeral Consumers Alliance, http://www.funerals.org/  “There is no public health purpose served by embalming.” However, the Federal Trade Commission does allow funeral homes to require embalming for public viewing.

Embalming does not preserve the body nor does it not stop decomposition.  It only slows it down for a period of time.

Caskets

One of the largest expenses of a funeral is the casket. Caskets come in all makes and models.  There are very basic caskets - the unadorned pine box, - usually running $500 to  $1,000. 

14K Gold Casket

Bronze Casket

  More detailed caskets with gaskets, seals and liners can cost up to several thousands of dollars, depending on what extras you select.  Up to $10,000 can buy a bronze casket. $40,000 or more will buy you one adorned with gold or jewels!

Here is a break down of funeral costs, provided by the National Funeral Directors Association for 2010.

Average Funeral Service Costs:

Professional Services                               $1,800

Transfer of Remains to Funeral Home       $250

Casket (Metal)                                       $2,295

Embalming                                            $628

Cosmetology                                          $200

Use of facilities/staff for viewing               $395

Use of facilities/staff for Funeral Service    $450

Use of Hearse for funeral                         $275

Use of Limo                                            $125

Service Van                                            $125

Basic Memorial Cards                               $125

Graveside Service                                    $405

Average Funeral Service Costs                $7073.00

This does not show average cost for flowers, death certificate, refrigeration fee (when embalming is not selected,) publishing obituaries, organist, clergy, etc.

Cemetery Burial Costs:

Digging a Grave by Hand

The first cost for a traditional interment is the price of the burial.  The charges associated with this include the grave opening and closing.  (Formerly known as digging the grave and filling it in.)  And there may be a charge for annual or perpetual care, (also known as grounds and grave maintenance.)

Installing a Vault

Concrete Vault

Most cemeteries also charge for a vault.  Known as the outer burial container or a grave-liner, these vaults may be made of concrete, steel or fiberglass.  Their purpose is to keep the ground from sinking in as the casket deteriorates over time.  This also makes it easier to use heavy equipment in the cemetery when needed.  Just as caskets do not prevent the body from decomposing, neither do vaults.  No state requires a vault be installed, but most cemeteries do.  Vault prices range from $1,200 to $2,000.  The price of installing the vault may be included with the vault price.  If not, figure another $300 on average.

Family Mausoleum

Stacked Mausoleum

Other burial options instead of in-ground burials include mausoleums and columbariums.  Mausoleums are above ground structures where the casket is placed in a drawer-like space.  Mausoleums may be private or public.  Private mausoleums were especially popular during the late 1800’s through the 1920’s, mainly for well-to-do individuals and families.  Private or family mausoleums have regained some popularity, but look less like small buildings and more like stacked drawers.

Public mausoleum

Some cemeteries also offer public mausoleums.  This consists of a large public building where hundreds, even thousands of people are entombed.  Many public mausoleums offer the advantage of visiting in a quiet, comfortable place, regardless of the weather.

Columbarium

Columbariums are smaller versions of mausoleums, offering a niche for urns to be placed.  The urns are the receptacles for cremated remains.  Plaques attached to the niches bear the name and information about the deceased.

Rules on Decorations

Cemetery Information

As with funeral homes, cemeteries should provide you with an itemized price list before you buy.  Be sure to read and get a copy of the cemetery’s rules and regulations.  Information on stone size and requirements will be listed here.  Also find out the rules on grave decorations and plantings, and become familiar with the cemetery’s hours for visitation.  Public cemeteries may cost more than not-for-profit cemeteries, especially when considering their location and popularity.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association, cemetery charges for 2010 average as follows.

 Average Cemetery Burial Costs:

Cemetery Charges                                    $1,400

Vault                                                       $1,195

Average Burial Costs                                 $2,595

(Perpetual Care is usually between 5 to 15% of the total sale.)

This number does not include the cost of a gravestone, monument, urn, or space in a mausoleum or columbarium.   These costs vary greatly depending on what you have selected and where the cemetery is.

Total Cost for Average Funeral & Interment       $9,668

(Not including third party charges as listed after funeral service costs and cemetery burial costs.)

Graveside Service

Direct Burial

You also have the right to select direct burial.  This means there is no embalming, no public viewing of the body; no funeral home services need to be performed. You will need to get a death certificate and set up burial with the cemetery.  You also have the option of holding a graveside service at the time of burial and or/a memorial service at a later date. 

All told, for a basic, traditional funeral with viewing, hearse and burial, expect to spend around $10,000 to $15,000 dollars.  As my grandfather used to say, "Death is not for the faint-of-heart!"

~ Joy

Cemeteries Worth the Visit - Bellevue Cemetery, Danville, Kentucky

Bellevue Cemetery Map

Danville Historic District

Bellevue Cemetery was founded in 1847 as the Danville Cemetery. Robert Montgomery and William Speed purchased the first four acres from the Philip Yeiser farm.  The cemetery now consists of 29 acres near the historic district of downtown Danville, Kentucky 

A Lawn Park style Cemetery

Bellevue Cemetery

Designed as a Victorian Lawn Park style cemetery, Bellevue is made up of tree-lined paths and pastoral vistas. Upon entering the cemetery from North First Street, an allee of red oaks acts as a divide between the eastern and western sections of the cemetery. 

The eastern section of the cemetery contains newer graves; the western section is where you will find the older monuments and statues.  This is the section that still maintains the look of the Lawn Park cemetery from the 19^th century.

The Danville Cemetery had a name change in 1897 and became Bellevue Cemetery The City of Danville took over management of the cemetery in 1931.

McDowell's Monument

McDowell Family Stone

Although not buried in the cemetery, Danville doctor, Ephraim McDowell has family buried here.  McDowell is buried at McDowell Park in the center of town, near the Old First Presbyterian Church. 

Ephraim McDowell

 McDowell was a doctor and world renowned surgical pioneer.  On Christmas Day, 1809, he performed the first ovarian surgery on Jane Todd Crawford, a Kentucky resident.  An ovarian tumor weighing over twenty pounds had to be cut into several pieces to be lifted out.  Crawford was awake for the procedure, since anesthetic was not yet invented.  Jane Crawford survived the operation and went on to live another 33 years.  She died at the age of 79.  McDowell became famous as the pioneer of abdominal surgical techniques. He performed the same operation on two more women.  He published his report “Three Cases of Extirpation of Diseased Ovaria” in 1817.  Ephraim McDowell died in 1830.

Governor William Owsley

Brigadier General Jeremiah Boyle

There are several U.S. Congressmen, two Civil War Union Generals; Boyle County native Jeremiah Tilford Boyle and Danville native, Speed Fry, along with Kentucky Governor William Owsley buried here.

Bellevue is also the site of a National Cemetery.  At the start of the Civil War, the federal government set aside 18 cemetery lots in the Danville City Cemetery.  Made up of less than half an acre, the section was laid out in a rectangle with all four corners marked with U.S. corner posts. 

A total of 394 Union soldiers were buried here, most of them had died at Civil War hospitals scattered throughout Danville.  A Confederate lot set up just east of the National Cemetery has 66 interments.   In 1868, the Danville National Cemetery was established.  Burials continued in the National Cemetery until 1952. In 1998 it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

 

Bellevue Cemetery does not have a web page, Facebook page or Twitter account.  For information about the cemetery, contact Josh Morgan, Assistant City Engineer at (859) 238-1206.  The cemetery is located at 377 North First Street in Danville, and is open daily from dawn to dusk.

Although finding information on Bellevue Cemetery is somewhat difficult, the cemetery itself is a treasure.  Plan on spending an afternoon wandering among the older stones and mature trees of this gorgeous old Civil War era cemetery.  The statues and stones are outstanding!

~ Joy

A Closer Look at Prostitutes in the Cemetery

March is ‘Women’s History Month’ and it seems an apt time to remember those women who were shunned in life and forgotten in death – the prostitutes.

Jack the Ripper

18th Century Prostitutes

Fallen Women, Soiled Doves, Unfortunates, – prostitutes have carried hundreds of monikers throughout the ages.  Always living on the B-side of life, they have been neglected, abused, even murdered for being too accessible, too easy – their trademark. And as in life, prostitutes have not fared any better after death.

Pauper's Cemetery

19th Century Society Outcast

Ostracized by society and considered to be impure and immoral, most private and religious cemeteries would not allow prostitutes to buried among the sanctified and moral.  Many times, public cemeteries would agree to take them only to place them in paupers graves, unmarked and unremembered. 

In Singapore, during the close of the 19^th century, researchers estimate that close to one-thousand Japanese peasant girls, some as young as 13, were tricked and sold into a life of prostitution, known as karayuki-san. They were taken to Singapore to service immigrant laborers working on plantations and in mines. 

Japanese Cemetery Park

Prostitutes Graves

The girls died, many times at the hands of clients, or committed suicide due to abuse by their handlers, or because of the lose of money due to ageing. These prostitutes were buried at the Japanese Cemetery Park, land that was donated by brothel owner Tagajiro Fukaki for destitute women.

View of cemetery

During WWII Japanese soldiers and civilians who were ill were also buried in the Japanese Cemetery Park. Over 900 graves are located there. Though most of the prostitutes’ remain nameless, it is said that all of their graves face the same direction, away from their homeland of Japan.

Mohe Memorial

Mohe Entrance

In Beijing, China, Mohe Prostitutes Cemetery is the burial ground for Chinese, Japanese and Russian prostitutes.  Most were buried without names on their markers, but epitaphs do exist such as, “Here lie buried 12 Russian prostitutes.”

Bishop of Winchester

In England, Cross Bones Graveyard is another such place.  During the 1500’s it was established as an unconsecrated graveyard for “single women.”  Women working this area were also known as Winchester Geese since they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work within this jurisdiction just outside of London.

John Stow

The age of the graveyard is not known. John Stow first referred it to in 1598 in his Survay of London where he wrote,

 “I have heard of ancient men, of good credit, report that these single women were forbidden the rites of the church, so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial, they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground called the Single Woman's churchyard, appointed for them far from the parish church." 

By 1769, the Single Woman’s Churchyard had become a pauper’s cemetery. 

In 1853 the graveyard was closed because there was no more room for burials. It is believed that over 15,000 people were buried there.  In 1883, the cemetery was sold for a building site but after complaints were made, the sale was ruled null and void.

Cross Bones Graveyard

Decorated Gates

The Cross Bones Graveyard now has a plaque on the gates for “The Outcast Dead.” A local group, known as the Friends of Cross Bones, is currently working on getting a permanent memorial garden in place. Every Halloween, they hold special events and processionals to remember those buried here.  The gates of the cemetery are always decorated with messages, flowers and ribbons in remembrance to those unfortunates of the past.

Tending the Graves

In some countries, and in some religions, prostitutes would establish their own cemeteries.  There, others of the same profession would tend the graves and mourn the dead, since no one else felt them worthy of such attention.

It is not our place to judge them; we do not know how or why they led these lives.  Even in the twenty first century, the sex slave trade still exists.  Thousands of nameless, faceless women continue to be banished from society, living on the outskirts of humanity, to be exploited, abused; to die and be buried, forgotten, in unmarked graves.

~ Joy