Burial outfit for the deceased

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I was aware of the Muslim custom of shroud only without coffin, and I believe in Israel it is also the custom. Here in the States, Jewish attire vary: shroud plus coffin, suit or dress plus coffin, or cremation, although officially prohibited by Jewish law, not custom. Also, open casket is not permitted according to Jewish law but, as in life, some Jews pay no heed and do have viewings; I went to one of a dear friend many years ago.
 
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My father died just under 2 years ago. He wasn’t particularly religious or a churchgoer but expressed a wish just before he died to have a church funeral. (CofE.)

I approached the nearest undertaker which happened to be under the Dignity banner. I was not impressed. My father expressed the wish to be cremated and his ashes scattered at sea as he’d worked as a fisherman all his life. (Like the Catholic Church, the CofE doesn’t approve of scattering ashes but I respected his wish.)

I went for the least expensive options but the total cost was £4500. I ended up printing the order of service booklets myself as the undertaker claimed there wasn’t time to get them professionally printed in time. The Rector of my church waived most of the church fees as I’m a lay minister there and I played the organ at my late father’s request. My mother didn’t want to hold a separate committal at the crem so our Rector carried out everything necessary for the funeral rite in church.

I’d taken my elderly mother along to the undertakers to ensure she was happy with the arrangements. When we were leaving, the undertaker asked me if my mother had a funeral plan in place and if not, might he approach her on the matter. I told him that she hadn’t but unless he was up for a violent tongue lashing it was probably best not to! He then asked me if I had a plan. (I hadn’t.) I thought it was rather insensitive at the time. For several months afterwards they kept sending me details of funeral plans in the mail but they seem to have stopped now.

There seem to have been a lot of advertisements on British TV lately for prepaid funeral plans and insurance policies. I seem to recall one recently for budget cremations but haven’t followed it up to explore costs.

Burial of cremated remains in a CofE churchyard costs in the region of £150, about half the cost of burial of a body.
 
My grandmother had that all picked out. She’d check it periodically to see if it was in good condition. Even the shoes, that she had purposely for her funeral. She lived to be over 100
 
In that situation must the urn be solid, like ceramic or metal, or may it be biodegradable like wood or something similar?
 
They cut the clothes off of the patients in the ER. My mom wasn’t aware of that and was handed a bag of my father’s clothes. They’d been cut off of him. It was pretty traumatic for her to see them that way.

My son as well. Thankfully he survived his ordeal, but it’s really a terrible thing to open a bag of your child’s clothes and find they’d been cut away.
 
Yeah, your average mom and pop funeral shop in my hometown and husband’s hometown would ask before they ran up extra expenses, because a lot of people simply would not have the money to pay the bill, so the funeral home would get stuck with the expense.

This thread is a bit of an eye opener for me that it seems a lot of people don’t have a friendly neighborhood non-corporate Catholic funeral director to call upon. I always thought they pretty much came attached to a parish, like a bell tower.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
Actually from my talk with funeral directors, it is rare to have to cut clothes in order to dress a corpse. That is a last resort.
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That is good to know, because some say otherwise. (Maybe they are accustomed to getting clothing that hasn’t fit the deceased for 20 years and just issue the warning in advance, so this won’t come up only after the clothing is selected and brought to the mortuary?)
F_Marturana said:
They cut the clothes off of the patients in the ER. My mom wasn’t aware of that and was handed a bag of my father’s clothes. They’d been cut off of him. It was pretty traumatic for her to see them that way.

My son as well. Thankfully he survived his ordeal, but it’s really a terrible thing to open a bag of your child’s clothes and find they’d been cut away.
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No, the emergency departments don’t let clothing slow them down or force them to twist a trauma patient in ways that might even possibly injure the patient in any way.
 
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Pope John Paul II was buried in his red shoes:
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Tis_Bearself said:
Yeah, your average mom and pop funeral shop in my hometown and husband’s hometown would ask before they ran up extra expenses, because a lot of people simply would not have the money to pay the bill, so the funeral home would get stuck with the expense.

This thread is a bit of an eye opener for me that it seems a lot of people don’t have a friendly neighborhood non-corporate Catholic funeral director to call upon. I always thought they pretty much came attached to a parish, like a bell tower.
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The funeral home in the town where I live now is one of 7 in the province owned by a family that is now into its fourth generation offering the service.

The undertaker who is here is part of the community, elected twice to the Town council, and part of other organizations around town. He’s not Catholic but goes to great lengths to do everything he can to meet our needs.
 
I wonder, did the Angels Want to Wear His Red Shoes? 😆

I always feel sorry for poor Pope Pius XII whose body was the victim of a botched embalming procedure . I hope he becomes a saint one day to make up for that.
 
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CilladeRoma said:
On a side note, my great-grandmother had to go buy my great-grandfather new shoes to be buried in.
Yes, you read that right. New shoes, for my deceased grandfather, to be buried with.
Grandma did not want him meeting St. Peter with scuffed and worn shoes.
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Thats sweet.

We burried my dad in his suit but he wore his bear claw slippers because he was most comfortable in them. Worw those everywhere around the house.
 
Preplanned is a great idea. Prepaying? My grandparents did that and my mom thought they didn’t get what they paid for and most importantly paid. But once you’ve passed on how to complain if it wasn’t as you picked it?
 
vern_humphrey said:
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TheLittleLady:
Now, in the US, corporate entities are coming in to buy up family owned funeral homes. They keep the name that is locally owned, but, you will see the corporate name on their information. This does not mean that they are not staffed by caring professionals.

There are many resources to help you become an educated consumer when it comes to funerals and the laws. Order of the Good Death is a professional org/non profit that has a wealth of information.
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In Arkansas, it’s the Roller Company – they add that to the original name when they take over a funeral home. So you have Roller-Kaufman, Roller-Crouch, and so on. The joke is somewhere there’s a funeral home named Roller-Skates and another one named Roller-Boller-Ball. 🙂
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Since we’re talking about funerals and burials, are you referring to the Holy Roller Compsny?
 
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