Home funerals without funeral homes: Guide shows how to do them

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) March 5, 2009 -- Oak Ridge, N.C.—Home funerals without funeral homes? Yes, they’re legal in 43 states, and a new guide for social groups by a cadre of home funeral advocates across the country shows how to support them.

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Home funerals without funeral homes: Guide shows how to do them

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http://www.homefuneralmanual.org

Undertaken With Love: A Home Funeral Guide for Congregations and Communities describes how to start and sustain a home funeral committee. It walks social groups -- religious or secular -- through the process of researching their legal rights, options and responsibilities in caring for the dead until burial or cremation. It tells them how to handle, bathe and transport the body. It also directs them to sources of further information and training as well as to its own website, where additional resources may be found. In so doing, the guide helps social communities to reclaim the knowledge and skills in caring for the dead that once were commonplace in America.

In most of the U.S., a family may care for its own dead until burial or cremation without involving licensed funeral professionals.

“It does require a willingness to be something of a pioneer in today’s hands-off society,” says project leader Holly Stevens, “but those who have chosen to reclaim this historical tradition emphasize how healing and meaningful the process can be.”

Home funerals, Stevens says, appeal to families for a variety of reasons. Many are drawn to the spiritually wholesome and emotionally healing aspects of lovingly attending to a loved one’s body at an unhurried pace until burial or cremation. Many tout the noninvasive, earth-friendly processes involved in home death care. Others, who have already participated in home births or home schooling, see home funerals as yet another way to return significant life experiences to the hearth. Still others are pragmatic, aware that family-directed final arrangements cost only a fraction of what a funeral home would charge.

While a motivated family can independently acquire the legal knowledge and practical skills to arrange a home funeral, the process is eased considerably when a group assists. That is why the group of home funeral advocates created Undertaken With Love, designed as a study guide for six weekly or monthly self-training sessions.

Undertaken With Love is available in two formats: as a saddle stitch bound, full color printed version for $15 or as a free PDF download, both through the group’s website at www.homefuneralmanual.org.

The individuals involved in producing the manual are active in the home funeral movement, whether as members of Funeral Consumers Alliance chapters or as members of local groups embracing home funerals. They include: Donna Belk of Austin, Texas; Margalo Eden of St. Augustine, Fla.; Gere Fulton of Columbia, S.C.; Holly Gilbert of Rochester, Mich.; Ann Harr of Circleville, Ohio; Wendy Lyons of Lake Orion, Mich.; Joyce Mitchell of Orem, Utah; Michael Rulison of Raleigh, N.C.; and Holly Stevens of Oak Ridge, N.C.

The group currently seeks community groups—religious or secular—that would pilot the manual as a study guide for six weekly or monthly self-training sessions. Hospice and other social worker facilitated groups especially are encouraged to participate. For more information, contact Holly Stevens at (336) 643-5947 or at hstevens@homefuneralmanual.org

More information can be found online at http://www.homefuneralmanual.org

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