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An Embalming Dream Team
Check out the ICFA University
College of Embalming & Restorative Arts program
In January 2003, six of the nation's top embalming professionals gathered at ICFA headquarters to put together a game plan for the new ICFA University College of Embalming & Restorative Arts, led by Dean Todd Van Beck. Once the planning session ended, the team members shared with International Cemetery & Funeral Management magazine their insights on the current status and the future of embalming, as well as their hopes for developing an advanced embalming school that will take funeral service into a new era.
What was the genesis of the ICFAU College of Embalming & Restorative Arts?
 Todd Van Beck: The concept came up over several years of discussions with most of the people around this room; certainly with Bob Inman, Bob Mayer, Melissa Johnson and myself. We'd had discussions very informally about the evaporation of good, practical, solid, postgraduate embalming opportunities for funeral directors and embalmers across the country. There were some good seminars being run, but what we were looking at was something that really went to the DNA of the funeral home-the person who is actually doing the embalming.
Last year, Bob Mayer and Melissa Johnson started working on the formation of the American Society of Embalmers. And at the same time they were working on their project, ICFA Vice President Dave Tobias contacted me about this idea, and I jumped at the chance. I thought immediately of the people who could make up the team.
Every person I contacted said they would be very willing and generous with their time, talents and gifts to see that this program becomes a reality. We have got the finest team of experts in all aspects of embalming and restorative arts involved with this project.
So who are the players on this "dream team"? What are your backgrounds and your goals for the Embalming College?
 Melissa Johnson: I am Melissa Johnson and I grew up in funeral service. Both of my parents taught at one of the embalming schools in Chicago. Our family's funeral business was mostly trade services: embalming and shipping and in that vein.
Over the years, I became very interested in embalming. I spent a lot of time with my dad in the preparation room. It was to me always the one thing that made a funeral possible-having the body present, the body viewed. Unfortunately, over time, as much as this profession has progressed in many areas, the one area where I don't think we have necessarily kept up our pace and our interest is in embalming.
With some of the things we've seen happening in funeral service-the increase in cremations and the like -- I feel we've lost focus on what is truly important, and that is the aspect of embalming and how that makes possible an open-casket funeral for families. This is something we all feel very strongly about, and now we want to be able to address it on a national level and do what we can to fix it.
Some of the existing funeral organizations, if you will, have not done everything that could be done to promote excellence in embalming. As a result, Bob Mayer and Bob Inman and I had talked about the need for an embalming association, something devoted to those individuals who actually do the embalming, to provide them with resources and information that are not being disseminated out into the profession.
When Todd called with the opportunity to participate in this program, it seemed like an ideal way to complement what we're doing with the American Society of Embalmers, a way to highlight what has become important or what we should be thinking is important. We need to go back to having an open-casket funeral-not closing them at every opportunity and telling the families we can't view them, or the bodies ending up not viewable because of something someone did or did not do. For me this is an excellent opportunity to participate in something I firmly believe in, with people who I know also firmly believe in the same thing.
 Robert Mayer: I am Bob Mayer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I started in funeral service in 1958 after licensing in the State of Ohio. I taught at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science from 1967 until about 1982 on a full-time basis. The rest of the time it has been on an associate basis.
In the meantime, for the past 35 years, I've done what they call "trade embalming." I provide embalming services to funeral homes that don't employ embalmers full time. I currently service nine funeral homes.
In 1987, I was asked by Glenn McMillen, who was then past president of NFDA, to review a book that was in preparation, a textbook. We asked a number of people to participate, and we published in 1990. We have now published our third edition in the year 2000. The textbook (Embalming: History, Theory and Practice) is being used not only throughout the United States, but in a number of other countries, including Australia, England, Germany and France.
Since 1972, I have done seminars in this country, close to 100 or so, and also overseas. The ICFA Embalming College is a little different opportunity in that people will come to one location to share topics. I feel it is a chance to learn some new things and share some things with one another along specific lines in restorative art work, embalming and mortuary cosmetology.
 Charles L. Harrison: I am Charles L. Harrison from Memphis, Tennessee. I am in my 30th year of funeral service. My motivation for being here is to further promote and cultivate the art and science of funeral directing and embalming. I think everyone around this table wants to take embalming and restorative art to a different level-a more excellent level, a professional level at which those individuals desiring to enter funeral service will come with a desire of commitment, dedication, understanding and a love for embalming.
We have got to return the pageantry to funeral service. It has been lost. It is our desire to do that. As Melissa stated, at every turn where the funeral service professionals want to close the casket for non-viewing purposes, we are losing. We are losing our art form. What we are trying to do is return that.
 Nathan Minnich: I am Nathan Minnich, and I am from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. When Todd asked me to be a part of this, I was truly honored to be among professionals like this. I only graduated from mortuary school a couple of years ago. I am a licensed embalmer and funeral director in Pennsylvania.
Charles, you said it well: The embalmers in this field are neglected. They are put in the back room and are just not getting the knowledge the funeral directors are. I think it is great that an organization is moving forward to expand the knowledge base and expertise of those men and women who are committed to putting out the best embalming jobs they can do. Sometimes that is overlooked. I hope we can turn it around and bring embalmers back out to the front line.
 Robert Inman: I am Bob Inman from Cleveland, Ohio. I graduated from the Cleveland College of Embalming in 1950. I have spent 53 years in funeral service and have owned two funeral homes. I started trade embalming in 1956, and embalmed up to about a year and a half ago. Over the years, I have probably done 25,000 or more bodies.
I began shipping bodies out of the Northern Ohio area in about 1963. In 1971 I opened a crematory. Since the second year in operation, which would have been 1972, it has been the largest crematory in the State of Ohio. We do 1,400 to 1,500 cremations a year.
In 1979 I began Inman Shipping Worldwide. We ship around 8,000 bodies a year all over the world. I became concerned because the incidence of cremation away from home, of sending the cremated remains back for funeralization as opposed to the body, has increased tremendously. My concern is, it could be due to the quality of embalming and also the cost of funerals, the combination of the two. It motivates people to cremate at the place of death in place of bringing the remains home for funeralization.
In 1990 to 1991, I was president of the Cremation Association of North America. So I am really involved as much in cremation as in embalming. However, I would like to be remembered in funeral service as an embalmer. That is my true calling. I was a restorative artist in Cleveland for many, many years. I did most of the accident and cancer patients in Cleveland.
There has got to be remedial work done to bring back the quality of embalming we had many, many years ago. The bodies have changed because of medications, and the heroic methods of keeping them alive makes embalming more difficult. But still, we have the knowledge and the chemicals to cope with that if they are applied properly.
I had the privilege of doing embalming seminars for the Champion Company for over 20 years. It began in 1971. I did practical demonstrations and lecture seminars in almost all of the states. I went to New Zealand in 1986 for two weeks of seminars. In 1995 I went to Osaka, Japan, to embalm victims of the earthquake they had in Kobe, Japan. That was an experience, 16 hours a day injecting bodies. In 1995 I was the chairman of the North American Division of the British Institute of Embalmers. And I am currently the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science.
Todd Van Beck: You can see why I chose these folks. I have high hopes for this endeavor. I am going to take some license here and go back around the table, because the folks here have been very modest about their accomplishments and I just want to pass them on.
Each of these people was invited, first of all, because of my respect for them as human beings, and second of all, because of my admiration for them for their contributions to funeral service.
Melissa -- I have met a few great people in my life, and one of them was her father. He was a scholar and a gentleman. Some of the most fascinating conversations I have ever had in funeral service were with Ed Johnson. I have in my library The History of Embalming. He gave me one of the last copies, about a year before he died. He autographed it, and I was so honored that I went out and had it bound in leather with gold lettering. And Melissa has the same passion. It is a genetic thing, I think. Her contribution to funeral service includes some very important scholarly, researched articles.
Bob Mayer is the editor of the Embalming textbook, which was sorely needed in this line of work. Years ago, I had a very serious life situation and I ended up interviewing at the Pittsburgh Institute. I was going through a very rough time. I was in a strange city. I was worried. I had my interview at the college the next morning, and Bob asked me over to his house that evening. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to ask a perfect stranger over. We sat in his house for hours talking about funeral service. He was so supportive. I will never forget Bob's kindness.
Charles Harrison is very modest in that he didn't bring this up: He is the president of the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association, which represents many of the African American funeral homes in the United States. He has been a great supporter. When this project came up, I called Charles and said, "I need your help. I need some contacts with the coroner's office and some political contacts in Memphis." I knew he was the man.
Of course, Nathan is a young funeral director. He was a student of mine. I was very impressed with his knowledge, particularly of the embalming chemicals. But also, and this is absolutely selfish, he is a master at organization, of helping put things together, and I needed some organizational support. Nathan didn't tell you that he was one of the stellar guys at Dodge Chemicals. He was a mortuary science student, and they had him on the phone fielding questions from the field about embalming because he had assimilated that information so well.
What Bob Inman hasn't told you is that he is the grand statesman of funeral service. His name is synonymous with the funeral profession in Canada, the United States and Great Britain. What Bob has been able to accomplish in this profession is truly legendary.
This college will be a graduate program for people who are already embalmers who want to improve, right?
Todd Van Beck: Yes, we are looking for functional embalmers who are actually doing the work. It is not necessary for a person who hasn't embalmed for 25 years and has no intentions in embalming. We are looking for meat and potatoes.
When Bob says he wants to be remembered as an embalmer - I would echo that sentiment. The DNA of this stuff is what goes on in that prep room. You start taking cuts in the prep room, and you are going to take cuts upstairs. If you can't face up to the prep room, it is going to be hard to face up to some of the stuff that happens upstairs in the funeral home.
Robert Mayer: I used a quote in the forward of the textbook that to me sort of summarizes this work. It is by a lady named Jan Brugler. She said that the purpose of our work is to gently close the eyes of the deceased while we gently open the eyes of the living. I always thought that sentence summarized so well this work.
Bob Inman mentioned that embalming has become more difficult due to current medical practices. So do you think families are requesting embalming less because it is not as good? Or that funeral homes aren't encouraging it because they don't feel they can offer what people want?
Robert Mayer: That's a difficult question to answer politically. Quite frankly, I think the bodies are more difficult. But I also think that not enough emphasis is put on that aspect of funeral service, both education-wise and attitude-wise.
When I had a large embalming service and was hiring embalmers, I would try to be a little on the jolly side and say, "Well, what do you want to be when you grow up?" They would say, "Oh, I want to be a preneed salesman." Well, that was the end of the interview. It is difficult to find somebody who wants to go into the embalming aspect of funeral service. The emphasis has been on other aspects rather than embalming, which is the basis of funeral service in the United States, in North America really.
Robert Inman: Since about 1980 the curriculum changed a great deal in funeral service, for the good. Most mortuary schools operated on a 12-month basis. But within that now there has been so much added with the sociological sides of funeral service as a whole. In order to provide the time for that, it had to be taken from the science side, which probably needed a revision.
Early mortuary schools were started by doctors for the most part. So there was a great emphasis on chemistry, anatomy and the preparation arts. Since 1980, in order to provide more time for the funeral directing aspects, which were becoming more complicated in our society, the time had to come from the mortuary preparation arts.
Hence, today we have mortuary schools that provide very little on-site practical experience. It is being done in funeral homes. So you don't have the oversight like you used to have in many instances.
So that is where we are at right now in America with mortuary education. There is a great need now for communication. The public is better educated, so more time has to be devoted to this end of the curriculum rather than the actual embalming.
When Bob talks about attracting people into this work, embalming itself isn't the most pleasant task. The hours are demanding. It is a 24 hour, 7 day a week, 365 days a year job. That is not always attractive to a young person today. It is a very unique person that goes into this type of work.
Robert Mayer: Bob, what you're saying is very true. I went to the old school where they dwelled on anatomy, physiology, sanitation and hygiene. We had that drummed into us. One of the questions we would get drilled on was to trace a drop of blood to the big toe and back again.
We know our anatomy, so when we embalm, we understand what is going on in the system. We know our physiology. To protect ourselves, we know sanitation and hygiene. So that is why we probably protect ourselves better accidentally than a recent graduate would do on purpose.
Melissa Johnson: This particular line of work is changing. Embalming is truly part science and part art. The science part changes with what happens in medicine. What happens in medicine will directly run downhill and end up in the embalming room. Unfortunately, there isn't a source that is keeping up with those changes, keeping us educated about what is happening in medicine.
If you took a doctor out of medical school who graduated, did their internship and their residency, and threw them into an office and said, "go forth and practice," and that was it -- how comfortable would you be going to that doctor? Someone who didn't have an understanding of all the changing illnesses, the new information that is out there.
We have done lots of great things on preneed, the psychological effects, aftercare, how to sell a cemetery lot or a headstone and all of that. But for embalmers, it is sorely lacking. It is that kind of thing we need more emphasis on, so embalmers have the best information available. This kind of program at least starts to answer some of those problems.
What would be the benefit to funeral home owners of sending one of their embalmers to the ICFAU college?
Robert Mayer: Well, there are very few opportunities in funeral service for post-graduate education. In almost every other line of work, whether you are an electrician, a plumber or a carpenter, there is plenty of written material, seminars, etc. Not so for embalmers. There are fewer and fewer articles every year. Even our fluid companies, there is less and less information coming out in written form from them these days. There are very few opportunities for participation in seminars. This is an opportunity to spend several days to discuss and share ideas, to give the practitioner a chance to continue their education.
Todd Van Beck: I think we have a tendency as owners to spend an inordinate amount of time on the 30-odd percent of the population that seems to want to cremate vs. talking about the 60 percent that chooses not to. So when they say embalming is old-fashioned or has lost its luster-not in my hometown it hasn't, not out in Iowa it didn't. So the need is still there.
Owners are naturally going to be interested in the bottom line, which we have all been through. The question is, how many times have you put an unembalmed, unprepared body in an oak casket?
Melissa Johnson: Even more to the point, how many copper caskets can you sell for an immediate cremation?
Todd Van Beck: Right. And if you are not using a casket, then why did you have to buy that $85,000 hearse? So that is the economic side.
The other side that really keeps me going is the psychological side. Everybody in this profession owes Edgar Jackson a tremendous debt for the work he did. Jackson was a chaplain at Massachusetts General Hospital the night of the Coconut Grove fire in Boston in 1942. After that fire, they started to notice that as people who were healing their burns were being let go from the burn unit at Massachusetts General, six weeks later they were being readmitted, but now they were being admitted to the psychiatric care ward.
So they started to examine this and they came up with what is today standard curriculum for mortuary science students, the symptomatology of acute grief. They studied 100 people who had survived the Coconut Grove fire where one of their loved ones had died. And of the 100, they all had depression, hallucinations, anger, distress, etc., etc.
But out of the 100, a third literally got sick. They had ulcerative colitis. They had rheumatoid arthritis or an asthmatic condition. When Jackson and his partner, Erich Lindemann, put together a graph of these people, they all had one thing in common: They had not seen the dead body of the person who had died in that fire.
Dr. Lindenmann once asked students at the New England Institute, "What is the most important thing that goes on in the funeral home?"
No one had an answer. He said, "You don't know, and you are becoming funeral directors?" He said, "Let me tell you, it is when the family sees the dead body. That is the center of why you have a funeral home, because seeing is believing."
I try to keep up with the literature, and I've read nothing over 30 years that contradicts that position from a psychological standpoint.
Melissa Johnson: September 11th is another example. The last time I checked the statistics, almost two-thirds of the families had never received remains back. How many of those families, if they get something back, do you think are going to have that body cremated? I don't think so. Not only that, but how many people buried a finger, a hand, a small piece of tissue? They didn't burn it. They kept it because that was the only thing that was left of their loved one. That is what makes all of this important.
Bob Inman: I have respect for people who do want immediate burial or a closed casket. That is perhaps their philosophy or religious conviction. But for those who do want to view and can see the value in viewing, the quality of the work should be first-rate, excellent. I am not there to try to convince somebody against their wishes to do something. I might be able to show them that maybe the statistics say you will recover a little faster from all of this, get back on your feet again, but I can respect their wishes. But I do think that for those who want to view, we should offer a quality product.
Todd Van Beck: I agree. We wouldn't want to force our opinion on people when they have already made a conviction to it. But for a lot of families, if you give them a suggestion, you may plant a seed about something they had not considered before.
What funeral service boils down to is a very simple formula: We are called to care for the dead, which embalming does in an educated and professional fashion. We are called to care for the living. I think it is a wonderful, wonderful combination of things.
Copyright ICFA 2003
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