While I’ll give the young lady some slack for being uninformed about the death care industry, and inexperienced about how to do legitimate and accurate research in general, I’ll also have to express my skepticism about the veracity of this information.
Though I grew up on a farm, was a 4-H and FFA member, took my university degree in Animal Science, and worked in the livestock sector for most of my life, I’ve also had an interest in and have followed the funeral profession, and being a licensed funeral director / embalmer was a onetime career consideration because of friends of the family being in the profession. For the past four years one of my gig economy jobs had been as an assistant at a funeral home in the Tri-Cities area of southeastern Washington (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland) with an incorporated area population of 232,740, so nearly three times that of the area the young lady “reported” on.
Since 2015, for my own information, I’ve tracked the number of cases handled by the four Tri-Cities funeral homes (some have multiple locations and some offer a discounted “direct disposal” option under a different business name). I collect this data from the death notices (distinct from obituary listings, which are voluntary and usually paid listings posted by the family) published in the local newspaper, the Tri-City Herald.
| 2015 | 1436 |
| 2016 | 1340 |
| 2017 | 1347 |
| 2018 | 1341 |
| 2019 | 1398 |
| 2020 | 1555 |
As may be observed, there were minor decreases in the local death rate in 2016 (-96) and 2018 (-6), there was a much larger rise in 2019 (+57) and a big jump in 2020 (+157). The funeral home I work for had an increase of 78 cases in 2020 over 2019. These numbers are VERY REAL. I was at time on the care team which picked up the deceased and I frequently was in the cooler of the funeral home I work for and thought that this had better slow down or we’ll have a problem. Reading the trade publications and talking with friends who work in the death care profession in other parts of the northwest, the need to sometimes use refrigerated trailers for auxiliary morgue facilities was a VERY REAL phenomena.
I do not know who this young lady is, nor does she tell us where she lives, which seems suspicious. She supposedly is calling local funeral homes and everyone seems to answers “Hello, this (name of responder)”. I routinely call other funeral homes in my area as part of my job. They all, including the one I work for, answer “Hillcrest Funerals and Cremations (or the name of the firm), (name of person answering the phone) speaking”.
Common sense would have one doubt the veracity of this story.
Topic: Girl Calls Funeral Homes 2020 Was NOT Busy! (Read 457 times)