The Centre for Natural Burial

Michigan State University

People often are surprised to learn that Michigan law does not require embalming as long as the remains are buried or cremated within 48 hours. And home funerals are allowed, but require that a licensed funeral director and doctor sign the death certificate.

A funeral just for you

TRADITIONAL: The cost, on average, is $7,000. That includes the casket, embalming and cosmetology, visitation in a funeral home and transportation to the cemetery.

AT HOME: The cost is about $900. A funeral director must transport the body to a hospital or medical examiner’s office to document the death, then return the body home. The cost does not include embalming or a burial plot.

• Burial: Michigan law allows bodies to be buried on private property of less than half an acre — as long as the property is outside municipal limits and the people burying have the permission of the local health department.

DO-IT-YOURSELF: These are often home funerals, but sometimes mourners incorporate religious services or memorial services in public places like parks or beaches. The cost of religious services varies, but usually requires donations, starting at $500. Clergy are paid as well.

SIMPLE CREMATION: Skip the service. The cost runs from $835 at alternative funeral home firms, like Simple Funerals, to $3,000 at traditional funeral homes. The cost includes the retrieval of the body, the cremation, obtaining and filing the death certificate and returning the ashes to the family. State law does not require specific urns. Some families place the ashes in containers they have at home.

GREEN BURIAL: This involves using more environmental products — biodegradable or wicker caskets (which cost less than $1,000) and limited use of embalming chemicals.

At-home funerals were commonplace

Before World War II almost all families laid out their dead at home, often in a living room or parlor, according to Terry Desmond, president of A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors.

The Desmonds have been in the funeral business for 78 years.

Families either skipped embalming or called the undertaker who embalmed the body in the home — or took the body to a funeral parlor, embalmed it, then returned the body.

Home viewing would continue for two or three days. Family members stayed awake with the body — hence the term “wake.” Afterward, the undertaker took the body to a religious service or straight to the cemetery.

The practice died out when postwar families began moving to homes in the suburbs that did not contain generations of family history, Desmond said. By the 1960s, the practice was almost unheard of in Michigan.

For the full article, see L. L. Brasier, “Many families opt to cut frills as the cost of dying skyrockets”, Detroit Free Press, November 16, 2008.