My Funeral Home career

When I was a junior in high school, I got a job at a funeral home(a friend was an apprentice funeral director, so I guess I "networked" it). I knew that I wanted to go into medicine, so I was interested in the anatomy, and it is certainly a good way to learn how to deal with folks at a bad time, as well as, meet the public. I worked after school, nights, and weekends, and it was a great job. I slept there, and since the phone bell was right under the head of my bed, I became conditioned to waking on the first ring. That came in handy later.

One of the two owners was the county coroner, and I enjoyed going on his cases with him. In those days, there were no EMTs, so funeral homes ran an emergency ambulance service. There was no training as today. We had a big red standard shift Cadillac accident ambulance with more lights and sirens than you could count. That scoundrel would go 70 MPH in second gear. I only drove it when the boss told me to take it out for a warmup spin, but at seventeen, that was a thrill. Our place had been in business for 100 years, so we buried all the aristocrats in town.

One coroner call will remain in my memory fore life. We were called by the police to a home that I had passed many times on the main street leading into the business district. As we entered the front door, it was obvious that all the house except a large kitchen was filled with lumber stacked almost to the ceiling. In the kitchen was a black man who was employed by the owner. He had reported the case to the police after finding his employer dead. It turns out that this employer owned a lot of property in the poorer section of town and lived off the rents. He didn't have rental payment problems because if a renter failed to pay, the black man just went by and took the front door off the house until payment was received. The dead man had lived alone with his mother in the house until she died. The black man showed us a brand new Lincoln in the garage that had never been driven except home from the dealer in town. It had been covered totally with cosmoline, that grease with which that weapons shipped at sea used to be covered. It was about three years old.

The deceased man was no doubt psychotic, but he did rig up an ingenious way to kill himself. In a corner of the kitchen, there was a wooden box built flush to the walls. It was about 4 by 4 by 8 feet in dimensions. The black man said he had helped the man build it, and they had caulked it like a boat. It was air tight when the lid was closed too. Now this dead man was really big (so big that we had to get a specially built coffin from a supplier to fit him). He was lying in the box clad in a nice bathrobe, quite dead, and quite cherry red. His skin and even the whites of his eyes were bright red. He was peaceful in repose, as if no struggle had occurred. There were about six carbon dioxide fire extinguishers, all discharged, at his feet and sides. He had done a good job of asphyxiating himself.

We took him back to the funeral home, embalmed him, and got him situated in the new coffin. He had two nephews as survivors. It was a small funeral.