Follow me for more funeral hacks 👍🏻

(but seriously, I can help you think of ways to personalize funeral services)

#HisAndHearsePress #Funeral #FuneralService #Mortuary #MortuaryScience #DeathPositive #CelebrationOfLife #Pinata #Bees

#WordyWednesday: Bleb

(used in a mortuary context)

A blister on a dead body, filled with stinky liquid, which usually turns into an area of skin slip (moist peeling skin) after it's been drained. Not fun at all.

#HisAndHearsePress #Embalming #Embalmer #DeadBody #MortuaryScience #Bleb #Blister #Gross #Ew #Stinky #Vocabulary #WordOfTheDay

#FuneralFactFriday: Hell Money

The colloquial name for a form of Joss paper (incense paper), printed to resemble legal tender bank notes.

Rooted in Asian culture, the fake currency is burned as an offering to the deceased in hopes of prosperity in the afterlife. Loose bundles are often placed inside caskets prior to cremation.

In this context, Hell represents the afterlife in general and does not have the unpleasant connotation that Western culture associates with it.

#HisAndHearsePress #FuneralCustoms #Funeral #MortuaryScience #Joss #JossPaper #HellMoney #HellBankNote #AsianTradition #Afterlife #Burial #Cremation #Incense #FunFacts

People: "I hope I go to heaven after I die"

Me: "I hope the most diverse little ecosystem grows from the soil of my decomposed body - just the coolest plants, fungi, little insects, birds, animals, microbes just thriving on my remains…”

Words: @wokescientist
Artist: @emossillustrates

#HisAndHearsePress #NaturalBurial #GreenBurial #HumanComposting #AlkalineHydrolysis #EcoFriendlyFuneral #DeathPositive #MortuaryScience #SustainableFuneral

#WordyWednesday: Ptomaine 💨🤢🤮

Pronounced: toe-MAIN.

The unholy gang of nitrogenous stink compounds responsible for the indescribable stench of decomposing bodies. Found in decaying vegetable and animal matter and formed by the action of putrefactive bacteria.

Includes cadaverine and putrescine (the smell of putrefying flesh or rotting fish), indole (smells like mothballs), and skatole (smells like poop).

Other chemical compounds produce smells akin to rotting cabbage, nasty garlic, and rotten eggs. Ptomaine was originally thought to cause food poisoning but has been disproven.

Raise your hand if you've had this smell cling to your nose hairs after a long day at work! Semi-related, death workers deserve a raise.

#HisAndHearsePress #Ptomaine #Decomposition #Cadaverine #Putrescine #Indole #Skatole #Putrefaction #Funeral #MortuaryScience #DeathCare #Embalming #Vocabulary #Stinky #Decomp

*Last Words: A Glossary for Death and Funerals* is available FREE on my website! This 80 page resource defines 460 words found in death care professions, including funeral lingo, embalming equipment, grief, religious customs, funeral options, and death/dying terminology. Perfect for:

Authors/writers, mortuary science students, apprentices, potential future morticians, medical/hospice caregivers, and curious people!

www.LouisePachella.com/glossary

#HisAndHearsePress #WritingCommunity #MortuaryScience #FutureMortician #HospiceNurse #FutureCorpse #WritersResource #VocabularyWords #Glossary #FreeDownload #MortuaryScienceStudent #MortuarySchool

#WordyWednesday: Half Couch vs Full Couch Casket

Most American caskets are half couch. What does that mean?

A half couch casket has a two-piece lid. The top half opens to reveal the deceased’s face and torso while the lower half remains closed to conceal the legs.

These caskets open on the left (it’s just the industry standard, likely because we tend to approach the casket and touch the person with our right hand while turned slightly toward their face; it just works better this way). The inside of the foot end of the casket is often “unfinished,” meaning that it’s spartan rather than upholstered in pleated fabric. We can’t spontaneously decide to reverse a body in a casket, but we can custom order a casket built to open in the opposite direction (like if the right side of a person is too disfigured for viewing).

Note: even though YOU only see the top lid open, rest assured that WE can open both lids to get the body inside. Once the body is nicely tucked in, we close the lower lid.

A full couch casket has a one-piece lid to showcase the entire body, head to toe. They’re uncommon, typically only seen in certain parts of the country. Some include an inner leg covering and/or a foot pillow. Funeral directors must accommodate a few details differently: standard casket flower sprays can only be placed on top when it’s fully closed (or a long simple garland is draped along the hinge panel inside), and similarly, the flag cannot be draped unless the lid is fully closed. Half couch caskets allow flower sprays or a pleated flag to be draped over the closed foot panel during viewing.

Either way, please bring pants for your loved one. Whether we can see their legs or not, they ought to be properly dressed. Full couch caskets expose the feet too, which is rough for us when the feet are swollen. Putting shoes on is really hard! It’s also tricky to keep the feet together rather than splaying out (this is a better reason to tie shoelaces together rather than making the zombie apocalypse funnier).

Which would you prefer? Full or half couch?

#HisAndHearsePress #Casket #Coffin #FullCouch #HalfCouch #Funeral #MortuaryScience #Vocab #Vocabulary #Caskets

🖤🌶️ Spicy Book Recs!

Caveat: I am not typically a romance reader, but I took one for the team due to the nature of these books.

And wow. I was pleasantly surprised!

Megan Montgomery’s Last Responders series consists of Morgue To Love (focusing on a medical examiner and a homicide detective) and the soon-to-be-released Undertaking Love (featuring the medical examiner’s brother and her best friend, both of whom are morticians). There’s a third book in the works about their other bestie, a forensic anthropologist.

First… these are FULL stories with actual plots and great characters. They’re not just vehicles to get two characters together. Megan weaves in so many (ACCURATE) details about what it’s like to work in death care. I connected with so many of their experiences, from feeling called out as a rookie funeral director attending conferences in cheap suits to the extreme burnout of perfectly handling horrible situations day after day. Bonus: Megan adds in conversations about up and coming green funeral options like water cremation!

As I said before, I’m not romance reader. I didn’t mind these books at all though since there was plenty of other material to keep me enthralled. The hot and bother-y parts are indeed hot and bother-y, but they’re not eye rolling or weird. FYI the spice level is pretty high, and the second book strays into some very non-vanilla territory.

I received an advance copy of the second book so I could do some fact checking, but rest assured that I’m promoting these of my own free will. I thoroughly enjoyed these two books and am early awaiting the third!

⚰️ Morgue To Love
Medical Examiner + Homicide Detective
(these characters reminded me of the tv show Bones and includes neurodivergence)
Available now at https://amzn.to/3okC1R0

⚰️Undertaking Love
Rival funeral director/embalmers, enemies to lovers (Reminds me of Six Feet Under + 50 Shades. It touches on the personal struggles many morticians face, plus it features cool green funeral options.)
PREORDER for release on April 25 at https://amzn.to/3omXLvD

#HisAndHearsePress #MeganMontgomery #BookRecs #BookRecommendations #SpicyBooks #RomanceBooks #MortuaryScience

National Titanic Remembrance Day 🚢🪦

It’s been 111 years since the Titanic sunk on April 15, 1912. Of the approximately 2240 passengers and crew on board, over 1500 died that day.

The White Star Line chartered four ships to help retrieve bodies of victims: the Mackay-Bennett, CS Minia, CGS Montmagny, and SS Algerine. They only managed to recover about 330 bodies, about 23% of the number who died.

The recovery ships were loaded with undertakers, embalming supplies, coffins, ice, canvas bags, and iron bars. First Class victims were embalmed and stored in coffins. Second and Third Class victims were embalmed (while they still had supplies), then wrapped in canvas. Crew members were put on ice. Some victims were misidentified as being from a higher class: in moments of desperation, they pillaged the abandoned First Class cabins for warm clothing.

Bodies that were unidentifiable, either from disfigurement or decomposition, were buried at sea in canvas shrouds weighted with iron bars. Others were buried at sea simply due to the shortage of embalming chemicals, as there were rules against bringing unembalmed bodies ashore (the rule was temporarily waived shortly after). Clergy conducted brief services for these unfortunates before casting them back into the water. Most were lower class or crew members, as the First Class were given preferential treatment. It was justified since they were “wealthy men with large estates to be settled.”

Of the 330 or so bodies recovered, 119 were buried at sea. The rest were taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The VIP bodies went to the local undertaker’s parlor. Everyone else went to the temporary morgue at the Mayflower Curling Rink. Bodies were embalmed in a screened area (a woman embalmed the deceased women and children), then placed on platforms for identification. One undertaker collapsed in shock as he discovered the body of his own uncle among the dead.

59 bodies were claimed by their families. 150 were buried in three Halifax cemeteries, including 42 who remain unidentified.

#HisAndHearsePress #Titanic #NationalTitanicRemembranceDay #Funeral #History #Embalming #DisasterManagement #MortuaryScience

#FuneralFactFriday: Full Body Casket Burial at Sea
🛥️ ⚰️ 💦

Did you know you don’t have to be cremated to get thrown in the ocean???

Full bodies can be buried at sea in caskets! It’s not limited to folks serving in the Navy or other military branches. Anyone can do it (not like Dexter, please hire a legit funeral director who knows how to do it properly).

There are a few requirements. If a casket is used, it needs to be stainless steel and have all the plastic inside removed. Twenty holes (2” diameter) are drilled through the casket to facilitate flooding and air venting. The casket must be secured shut with six durable stainless steel bands, chains, or natural fiber rope. Sand or concrete weights are added (no lead) to help the casket sink and stay put. Ultimately it’ll turn into a reef.

If a casket is not used, the EPA recommends a weighted biodegradable shroud. You may also toss flowers or floral wreaths into the water with the body, as long as all materials are decomposable.

A private boat is hired to take the casket, funeral director, and a few guests out to sea. They must travel at least 3 nautical miles from shore and release the casket into water a minimum of 600’ deep. If the boat regularly performs burials at sea, they might have a platform with rollers to get the casket out into the water with a push and a sploosh. A final yeet into the deep.

No special permission is required, short of filing standard paperwork like a death certificate and disposition permit. The EPA must be notified within 30 days. If it does happen to be performed by the military, there’s no family present to witness. It’s just handled on a regularly scheduled deployment.

Would you be interested in a full body burial at sea???

#HisAndHearsePress #FunFacts #FunFactFriday #Funeral #Burial #BurialAtSea #Ocean #Casket #DidYouKnow #MortuaryScience #FuneralService #FuneralDirector #Yeet

#WordyWednesday: Ossilegium ☠️

A noun meaning the act of collecting bones for placement in an ossuary after the rest of the body has decomposed. FYI, an ossuary is a building or structure to house bones or cremated remains. (I’ll do one of these on ossuaries later!)

The collected bones may be stored in individual boxes, small niches, or arranged into magnificent displays with many other skeletons.

Many cultures performed this as a means of conserving burial space. Ancient Greeks even collected bones from funeral pyres and washed them with wine and oil before placing them in urns.

Pronounced oss-ih-LEE-gee-um.

Not to be confused with the metal band by the same name 🤘🏻

#HisAndHearsePress #Ossilegium #Ossuary #Skeleton #Bones #Crypt #Cemetery #Decomposition #MortuaryScience #Vocab #Vocabulary #WordOfTheDay

Yes. Yes, you should bring pants.

Just because a casket lid is usually closed on the foot end doesn’t mean you can’t see or that nosy people won’t poke around and look. Also, think about how embarrassing it’ll be for your loved one as they attend ghost parties with no bottoms. Shameful.

On that note, there are no requirement about what dead people have to wear in their caskets. You want to be dressed in a suit? Fine. Pajamas? That’s okay too. Superhero costume? You do you! All we ask is that it fits reasonably well (though we can improvise with a few alterations) and that it covers anything that needs covering (autopsy incision, trauma etc). When in doubt, go for something long sleeved and high necked. Make your wishes known to your family!

#HisAndHearsePress #Funeral #Mortuary #Casket #Coffin #PatrickStewart #Meme #GhostOutfit #MortuaryScience #DeathPositive #YouDoYou

#WordyWednesday: Gravity Embalming

An old-timey method of embalming that predates electricity but can still be used in a pinch today.

A large glass jar is suspended over the body with a hose leading to a large artery. Embalming fluid flows into the body at a very slow and steady rate.

Raising the height of the jar increases the pressure (approximately 0.43 pounds of pressure per foot of height above the injection site).

#HisAndHearsePress #Embalming #MortuaryScience #MortuarySchool #Embalmer #Undertaker #Mortician #FuneralDirector #Gravity

#AmReading: The Undertaker’s Assistant by Amanda Skenandore

Ooooh, historical fiction about a woman embalmer?! Yes please!

I rather enjoyed this book, particularly because the author did her homework. She referenced both current and historical embalming texts and visited with her local coroner for insight. She also employed sensitivity readers and referenced primary source documents written by Black people (specifically women, though they’re difficult to find) living in New Orleans or the South during that era.

““The dead can’t hurt you. Only the living can.” Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies—and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer’s shortcomings.

Tall and serious, Effie keeps her distance from the other girls in her boarding house, holding tight to the satisfaction she finds in her work. But despite her reticence, two encounters—with a charismatic state legislator named Samson Greene, and a beautiful young Creole, Adeline—introduce her to new worlds of protests and activism, of soirees and social ambition. Effie decides to seek out the past she has blocked from her memory and try to trace her kin. As her hopes are tested by betrayal, and New Orleans grapples with violence and growing racial turmoil, Effie faces loss and heartache, but also a chance to finally find her place . . .”

Learn more at www.bookshop.org/shop/hisandhearsepress

#HisAndHearsePress #JustRead #TBRPile #Books #BookRecs #BookRecommendations #HistoricalFiction #ReconstructionEra #NewOrleans #Embalmer #Undertaker #MortuaryScience #Mortician #Bookstodon #Bookwyrm #AmandaSkenandore

#FuneralFactFriday: Bodies Can Turn GREEN 🍀

Yes, it’s true, and not just on St. Patrick’s Day. It happens when a person with jaundice is embalmed using high index formaldehyde fluids.

Jaundice is a yellow discoloration found in both living and dead people. It's caused by a buildup of bile pigments in the skin, eyes, bodily fluids, and tissue, often resulting from problems with the liver, gallbladder, or pancreas. A person with liver failure, cirrhosis, or hepatitis is often yellow tinged.

During embalming, formaldehyde can change the yellow bilirubin into green biliverdin. It can range from mild to moderate to extreme. Special embalming fluids (like glutaraldehyde) exist to help mitigate the color issues, but the primary concern is preservation. Color correction is secondary. If the color can’t be addressed with proper fluids and internal dyes, we can use cosmetics and colored lighting to help mask the green.

Fun fact: old school embalmers perpetuated a belief that we could flush jaundiced bodies with milk before injecting embalming fluid. That’s just preposterous. Don’t do that!

#HisAndHearsePress #StPatricksDay #Green #StPaddysDay #StPattysDay #WearGreen #Jaundice #Embalming #MortuaryScience #MortuarySchool #Formaldehyde #Glutaraldehyde #Funeral

#WordyWednesday: Reefer (no, not that kind) ❄️

AKA Cooler or Refrigerator

If a body needs to be held for a period of time and isn’t embalmed, it must be refrigerated to prevent decomposition. I mean, we’re going to decompose eventually, but the process needs to be paused for sanitation and funeral/viewing reasons.

Depending on the location, a mortuary might have a 1-2 person cooling chamber, or maybe a mid-size walk-in cooler with shelving or rolling tables. Some high volume facilities have larger capacities (40-50ish). Emergency situations like mass fatality disasters or hmmm, let’s see… pandemics! can necessitate the use of refrigerated truck trailers. They’re basically the same ones that keep your groceries fresh during transit and are referred to as reefers.

By the way, these are NOT freezers. The temperature is maintained between 36-39°F (that’s 2-4°C for you non-USians). This slows decomposition down to a crawl without creating ice crystals that damage tissues.

#HisAndHearsePress #Mortuary #MortuaryScience #Reefer #ReeferTrailer #Cooler #Refrigerator #HVAC #ColdStorage #Death

💀 It’s National Funeral Director & Mortician Appreciation Day!!! 🥳

Death care is strenuous, stressful, demanding, and low paying. It’s often a thankless job, as grieving families are understandably focused on other things.

Take a moment today to consider what morticians face on a daily basis. Death, unfathomable grief, gruesome bodies, tales of devastation, broken families, long unpredictable hours, and generally the worst things you can imagine. Many of us burn out or resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms. It’s a calling though, and we can’t resist the drive to help those in need.

Has a funeral director helped you navigate through a loss? Send them a note to let them know they made an impact on your life. Though we certainly appreciate tips, lunches, and mementos, we don’t expect them. Sometimes the best reward is hearing that our work mattered.

I have a box full of thank you cards that help remind me of my purpose when days are tough. 🖤

#HisAndHearsePress #NationalFuneralDirectorAndMorticianRecognitionDay #FuneralDirector #Mortician #Embalmer #Undertaker #MortuaryScience #Funeral #FuneralService #FuneralProfession #ThankYou

#FuneralFactFriday: Bagpipes At Funerals

Why do we play bagpipes at funerals, especially for police officers and firefighters?

Bagpipes have roots among the Scottish, Irish, and Celtic (plus others!), and were routinely played at weddings, wakes, and dances. When large groups immigrated to the United States after the Great Potato Famine of the 1800s, they brought their cultural traditions with them.

When they arrived, they were met with prejudice. Unfortunately, many Scottish and Irish men were forced into difficult, dangerous jobs like policing and firefighting. Work related deaths were common. The fallen were honored with the traditions of their homeland, which included mournful bagpipe music. The hauntingly beautiful melodies allowed the normally stoic men to shed their tears.

Over time, police officers and firefighters from different heritages began to request bagpipes too. They liked the solemn dignity of the instrument and the unity it created within their departments. They even developed uniformed bands of pipers, known as Emerald Societies (an homage to the Emerald Isles). Many of the bands have over 60 members!

Bagpipe music has also been adapted for military services and funerals of every day people. We've assimilated the tradition into our cultural melting pot of funeral customs. Bagpipers can be hired to play old standards like Amazing Grace and Oh Danny Boy, or a limited range of popular songs (the instruments have nine notes with no sharps or flats). Sign me up for AC/DC's Thunderstruck!

#HisAndHearsePress #InternationalBagpipeDay #Bagpipes #Irish #Scottish #FuneralTraditions #Funeral #MortuaryScience #EmeraldSociety

Today is National Barbie Day. Why don’t we have a funeral director Barbie yet?!?

Barbie has made great strides in the past decade, showing children that girls can grow into any number of career paths. Women in STEM? Yes please! We still don’t have a mortician option though. Since mortuary schools are now over 70% women, it’s high time we were represented as a valid profession to aspire to.

Want to sign a petition for Mattel to create Undertaker Barbie? Here ya go!

https://www.change.org/p/mattel-tell-mattel-to-create-a-funeral-director-barbie

#HisAndHearsePress #Barbie #Mattel #NationalBarbieDay #BarbieDay #BarbieDoll #Petition #WomenInStem #MortuaryScience #MortuarySchool #FuneralDirector #Mortician #DeathPositive #AIArt

#WordyWednesday: Shrouding Women

When you think of morticians, you might conjure images of creepy old men in black suits. But did you know that they've only been "in charge" of the dead for the last century or so? Before that, men were typically responsible for building coffins and digging graves. Body preparation fell to the women!

Women were already tasked with nursing the sick, distributing herbs, and aiding in childbirth, so bathing and dressing the dead was a natural progression. Since it was a duty that demanded care, gentleness, and propriety, men were simply unsuited to the task. Enter the shrouding women.

Many neighborhood women became skilled and knowledgeable in the art of preparing the dead. They understood the weather's effect on decomposition and how to tend to bodies suffering from various conditions. They lent their expertise to those in need, not for monetary compensation but as an act of community.

Duties included preparing a cooling board (sometimes an ironing board or barn door placed over chairs), washing and dressing the corpse, closing the eyes and mouth (coins on eyes and jaws secured shut with tied rags or forked sticks propped against the breast bone), and otherwise arranging the body into a restful pose.

Commercialization of death care after the Civil War led cabinetmakers to evolve from coffin builders to embalmers. They wrested control of bodies away from women, claiming women were weak, delicate, and unable to tolerate the sight of blood. As the men rose into the ranks of professionals, women were relegated to the sidelines of death care. They became decorations. Trade journal advertisements portrayed men doing funeral work and women as objects of beauty. The foundation was laid for men to dominate the industry for the next 100 years.

Fortunately, we've come full circle and women are entering funeral service in droves. Over 70% of graduating mortuary science classes are women. Turns out we *can* handle some blood after all.

#HisAndHearsePress #InternationalWomensDay #WomensDay #WomenInSTEM #WomenSupportingWomen #DeathCare #FuneralService #MortuaryScience #MortuarySchool #DeathPositive #FuneralDirector #Embalmer #Mortician #Undertaker