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Fall-Winter 2008: My Parents’ Funerals: Then and Now
by George Schmidt My father died in 1962 when I was 16 years old. He had married late in life, had very little insurance and was receiving a small pension which was immediately stopped by his former employer. He left his widow, my brother who was a first classman (senior) at the United States Naval…
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Fall-Winter 2007: Funeral Price List Report Card
By Jean T.D. Bandler We appreciate those funeral homes that responded to our price list requests, but remain puzzled that most ignored our letters, apparently willing to keep their charges a secret. We are also surprised that several homes reported the price lists “were unavailable” or provided incomplete “estimates”. We are thankful for the hard…
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Fall-Winter 2006: A Gift to Others
by Craigg McRae On May 12, 2004 my son Tom had a car accident which left him brain dead with no hope of recovery. After 18 hours of agony watching him kept alive on various machines and having numerous tests to see if there was any brain activity at all, Tom’s mother and I gave…
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Spring 2006: Preparing and Sharing
by Stuart E. Rapp When I walked into the kitchen from some errands in mid-morning, my wife held up a scribbled message while talking quietly but urgently on the phone. “Danny was killed in an auto accident early this morning near Frederick, Maryland” it read. My second son was calling about the sudden death of…
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Fall-Winter 2003: A Matter of Life and Death
by Jean T.D. Bandler Everyone wants to have “a good life”. Definitions will vary, with some hoping for fame, success, and money and others stressing personal ties, civic contributions, and good deeds. Most wish for health, happiness, and productive work. Everyone also hopes for “a good death”, and here the definitions are remarkably similar. “A…
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Spring 2002: Memorial Services: Mourning a Loss and Honoring a Life
by Jean T.D. Bandler Funeral directors tend to urge a “full” funeral as a necessary part of the grieving process, essential for survivors to “deal with afterward”, and to come “to closure” on death. The mortician/poet Tom Lynch feels that a service without a body is “like a baptism without a baby”. Such comments are…
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Fall 2001: A Gift To Medical Education and The Next Generation
by Jean T.D. Bandler Most end of life choices usually focus on financial wills, health care directives, and decisions on burial or cremation. Many of us may forget about the most useful bequest of all: the gift of one’s own body. While organ and tissue donation has garnered a great deal of publicity, there is…
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Spring 1999: Dignified, meaningful, affordable choices
by Jean Bandler Dignified, Meaningful, and Affordable are the key words of our FCA motto and mission. The purpose of our Society is to help all people — rich or poor, young or old, well or ill — make choices consistent with their own philosophy, purse, and principles. To meet goals of dignity and relevance…
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Fall 1998: Yes Virginia, there is a cheap coffin!
by Josephine Black Pesaresi My father, Hugo L. Black died in 1971. At that time he was 85 years old and the second longest sitting Associate Justice in the history of the United States Supreme Court, having sat on the Court for nearly 35 years. An avid tennis player, he served on his two beloved…
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2019 Price Survey
For the 2019 survey, FCA of CT wrote to the approximately 300 Connecticut funeral homes and cremation services requesting their current price lists. As in previous surveys, we then turned to volunteers to contact funeral establishments that did not respond. Members can get the full survey, a summary is available here.
