Perhaps the most comprehensive funeral site is one maintained by Father Henry
Wasielewski, a Catholic priest who lives in Tempe, Arizona. Wasielewski helped
found the Interfaith Funeral Information Committee, which has a fact-filled
website (http://www.xroads.com/~funerals/). A longtime critic of the mortuary
industry, Wasielewski says that the key to saving money is to shop around.
People “don’t get ripped off because they are grieving,” he explains. “They get
ripped off because they are ignorant. If you know how much tomatoes cost,
nobody’s going to sell you a $10 tomato.”
For A to Z information about death and dying, go to the Natural Death Center
site on the Web (http://www.newciv.org/GIB/natdeath/ndhbook.html). Based on the
Natural Death Handbook, which was published in Britain, this site has all kinds
of interesting and sometimes useless information. One section is called “Green,
cheap and `D-i-y’ [do it yourself] funerals.” Another is called “The Good
Funeral Guide.” There’s also information on setting up a living will,
organizing a funeral without an undertaker, and blueprints for making your own
coffin out of plywood.
The Funeral and Memorial Societies of America maintains an informative website
(http://vbiweb.champlain.edu/famsa/index.htm), that includes an estimate of the
number of funeral homes that are actually needed. (According to FAMSA, Texas
has about twice as many funeral homes as are needed to handle the number of
deaths in the state.) The site also has information about Federal Trade
Commission guidelines and how to handle a funeral yourself, plus numerous links
to other death-related sites. — R.B.
This article appears in March 28 • 1997 and March 28 • 1997 (Cover).