Alice was a graduate of South High School in Salt Lake City Utah and had a certificate of Clerk Typist issued from the Salt Lake Skills Center in April of 1986. Alice was divorced at the time of death. She was the daughter of Bert William Hardman and Thelma Brooks.

She was preceded in death by her parents, three infant sisters, adult sisters Lavina and Naomi, and brother Michael.

She was survived by her two brothers George and Joseph, four children; Emma Jeanne, Patricia Kaye, Charles Duane, John Jr., eleven grandchildren, Jami, Joni, Gary Jr., Jason, Christopher, Anthony, Heather, Steven, Tiffany and Ashley & Serenity. She was also survived by sixteen great grandchildren, and many beloved nieces and nephews, cousins, and other family.

Alice was a waitress after high school and worked in the first Harmon’s store bakery before accepting a position with the Ramada Inn as a cake decorator and cook. Later she became a bus driver for Utah Transit Authority. After she retired, she was finally able to devote her full attention to her genealogy research and enjoyed a position on the board of directors of the Hardman Family Organization.

Throughout her life she frequently held get togethers at her home and enjoyed shaping the potato salad into a turkey, jello into stars, and cookies into bells and other ornate shapes for her family’s pleasure.

Alice loved being surrounded by children. She was most happy when all of her siblings and their spouses and children would get together at parks, canyons and at her home. But when the siblings and/or spouse were not able to be there, she loved loading up all the children in her truck and taking all of us on a day of fun and adventure.

Alice’s other hobbies included some crocheting, some knitting, and puzzles. She enjoyed putting together puzzles that had 1000 pieces or more. She would never keep a puzzle together, always enjoying the challenge of putting it all together again. For the most part, she enjoyed teaching anyone interested in how to use DOS on the computer, and loved playing her super Nintendo game, Tetris 2.

Although she always had fragile health she fought it constantly. She had survived the odds so many times that when the last moment came and she took her final breath we almost expected her to get up and show us she could beat the odds again. Alice touched many people with her generosity and fun loving nature. She will be missed by many.

My mother wanted to donate her body to science upon her death and therefore did not set aside any funds with which to take care of her remains. Unfortunately we were informed after her death that the only part of her body which could be used was her eyes. Her eyes will assist in finding a cure for macular degeneration.

As the executor of her estate I want to thank those special people who opened their hearts to our family and contributed the funds needed to have her body cremated;

• Roger & Marty Nadauld
• Cindi Nadauld
• Todd & Joni Nadauld
• Chris Wickhamshire Neal
• Julie Taylor
• Terrie Johnson
• Julie Wickham Sawyer

“The most important things you can give your children are roots and wings”. Author Unknown

Loren is survived by his mother Inez Messick of Provo, his wife Debra Messick, sister Jean Echols of Orem, and brothers; Larry (Terry) Messick of Provo, Don (Esther) Messick of Provo, Clark (Jeanne) Messick of Grand Junction, Colorado, Bryan (Marcia) Messick of Santaquin; his children Bob (Tammy) Messick of Mapleton, Brenda (Scott) Gentry of Lehi, Dionne (McKay) Moss of Kempner, Texas, Shad (Mary Ellen) Messick of Spanish Fork, Shane Messick of Springville, Dwight Messick of Springville, 15 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his father Eldon Messick and his brother Perry Messick.

Loren was a good-hearted man. He will be sorely missed by all who knew and loved him. Peace be with him.

His family would like to express their appreciation to all those who have offered condolences and support during this difficult time, as well as to ASU for all of their love, support and effort.

Madison Noelle Mecum, age 13, left this earth unexpectedly on October 7, 2010.  She radiated happiness, kindness, and love and will be remembered by all.

Madison lived for family, friends, music, sports, night games, and junk food.  She was born in American Fork on June 10, 1997 and is survived by her mother Paige Mecum and siblings Marnie Stevens and Zackery and Helaina Mecum.

Funeral services will be at the Aspen Stake Center 965 W 2000 N in Orem on Tuesday,  October 12 at 2pm.  Viewing prior to funeral at 11am.  Interment at Orem City Cemetery.

Our loving son, brother, nephew and friend, Bryan Lee Taylor passed away unexpectedly on October 2, 2010.

Bryan was loved and will be remembered by many special people. He was an active member of LDS church, and also attending Salt Lake Community College.

He was a free spirit, loving, kind, cute, silly and mischevious, and was famous for his beautiful smile, dimples & contagious laugh. He was the type of person to always be there and lend a helping hand.

He was born in Salt Lake City, September 11, 1985; survived by his parents, Sue & Steve Ainsworth, Robert Scott Taylor. Siblings, Peri Thompson, Ali Taylor, Braden Ainsworth, and Alyse Ainsworth and the Love of his life– Valerie Lewis

Funeral Services will be held at the LDS Cottonwood 14th Ward, located at 2080 East 5165 South, Holladay, Utah
Friday, October 8th 2010 at 11:00 am The family requests in lieu of flowers, donations can be made

directly to Sue & Steve Ainsworth to offset the cost of the funeral services, and would be greatly appreciated.

After visiting several funeral providers, Allan decided to pre-plan his arrangements. He wanted control over the final details of his life, and wanted his family to be free of needing to make difficult decisions. Allan created a list of his wishes and gave copies to the funeral provider and his son.

He did not want to pay for the services now, so he created a separate account, making sure his son had access to the account. Although Allan chose one of the least expensive caskets, the entire funeral and burial process added up to $8,100.

Two million people die every year in the United States. For consumers, funerals and burials are big businesses. A funeral is one of the most expensive events in one’s life: the average cost of a traditional funeral is close to $7,000. If you add flowers, obituary notices, acknowledgment cards, burial liners or vaults and special transportation, your costs go up. When emotions are high, it can be hard to remember that the cost of a funeral is not a measure of your feelings for the deceased. It’s not unusual for a family to spend $10,000 for a funeral today.

Most people don’t have much experience in making funeral arrangements, so it is hard to feel prepared. Making decisions can be difficult because we aren’t familiar with funeral goods or services, and we may be experiencing strong emotions when a loved one has died. Instead, take a lesson from Allan and make funeral arrangements a part of your overall estate planning. If you wish, you can pre-plan the ceremony, select the music, or design the memorial cards, all without paying in advance.

Shopping for Funerals
Allan was pleased to learn that he could get information to help him compare prices. The Federal Trade Commission, through the Funeral Rule, requires all funeral providers to give consumers accurate, up-to-date itemized pricing information.

The Funeral Rule requires a provider to give you free copies of price lists when you visit a funeral home. The lists show what options are available and how much each option costs. Funeral homes, but not cemeteries, must also tell you prices over the telephone. Many funeral homes will mail their price lists to you, although the law does not require this.

Many people select a funeral home based on family tradition, location, or reputation. That can be costly. If you choose a provider without comparing prices, you may pay more than necessary. It is wise to call or visit at least two funeral homes and compare prices before you make a selection.

Allan got three separate price lists from each provider: a general price list, a casket price list, and an outer burial container price list. He used all three lists to compare the total costs for goods and services.

Price Lists
The general price list itemizes the cost of every service and product the provider offers. It may include:

• Fee for the funeral director’s professional services: conference, consultation, paperwork and overhead.
• Transportation, care, and preparation of the body.
• Fee for facilities and staff to conduct a viewing, wake, visitation, or funeral or memorial ceremony.
• Flowers, music, and preparing obituary notices and cards.

General price lists usually include the costs for alternative arrangements. One alternative is an immediate burial, when the body is buried without embalming, usually in a simple container. There is no viewing or ceremony with the body present. A package price for immediate burial would include the funeral director’s fee, transportation and care of the body. It may not include the charge for a container, casket or simple pine box.

Another alternative is direct cremation, which costs from $300 to $600. However, the total cost will depend on other services you may want. If you choose direct cremation without a wake or viewing of the body, you would also pay for the funeral director’s services, a non-metal container for the body, the cost of transporting the body to the crematorium and an urn for the ashes. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, cremations accounted for 35% of all final dispositions in 2007 in the United States.

Allan was surprised to see so many options on the casket list. A casket can be the single most costly item in a traditional funeral. Caskets made from expensive woods such as mahogany or teak can cost $10,000 or more. There are many styles of caskets, and many less expensive options. You can choose a metal, wood, fiberglass, or plastic casket. In the past, only funeral homes sold caskets, but now cemeteries and third parties on the Internet sell caskets. You should collect casket price lists from several sources and compare the costs of a particular model.

Under the federal Funeral Rule, a funeral home cannot add a charge if you choose to purchase a casket from an outside source. If you choose direct cremation, an immediate burial or to donate a body to science, no casket is needed.

The funeral director explained the third price list for the outer burial containers. Most cemeteries require the use of a grave liner or vault to surround the casket in the grave. The outer burial containers prevent the ground from sinking as the earth settles over time. In some areas, both funeral homes and cemeteries sell vaults and liners. In others areas you may be able to purchase an outer burial container from a third party and have it delivered to the cemetery. You can collect outer burial container price lists from several providers and compare the costs of a particular model.

Should You Prepay or Not?
AARP urges you to be cautious about signing a pre-need contract or making other financial arrangements with a provider to pay for your funeral in advance. In the past, some people lost money when companies were involved in fraud, bankruptcy or mismanagement of the funds. Before you make a commitment, find out where your money will be kept and what the terms are. Ask the provider what will happen if you move and wish for the funeral to be elsewhere. Can you transfer the contract to a new city or get a refund?

Even if you don’t prepay the funeral provider, there are many ways to set aside the money for your funeral. You can use a separate account, like a certificate of deposit. You can create a shared bank account with someone close to you, who will use the money for your funeral. People who need to become eligible for Medicaid can set aside a certain amount of money for a funeral. What you need to do to do this is governed by the law in your state.

Take Action

• Learn more about your rights under the Funeral Rule from the Federal Trade Commission.
• Get answers to questions about preplanning your funeral from the National Funeral Directors Association.
• Check out the information and discussions at the Funeral Consumers’ Alliance Web site.

Source: http://www.aarp.org/family/lifeafterloss/articles/funerals.html

A funeral-industry scandal that’s fleecing thousands of Americans

In 1975 Audrey and Carl Brewer purchased what they thought was peace of mind—both for themselves and their family—when they bought two pre-paid funeral plans from Forest Hill South, a mortuary and cemetery in Memphis. Their plans cost them a total of $1,298, which they paid off in monthly installments of $27. That included caskets, the funeral services, and two burial plots on Forest Hill South’s 80-acre grounds. The Brewers considered their pre-need contracts as protection against inflation and a way, when they died, to take the financial burden off their children. “They [Forest Hill] told me everything was taken care of,” says Carl, 89, a retired housepainter. “The only thing I would owe would be if I wanted some flowers on the casket.”

The Brewers had no reason to question the honesty of Forest Hill. Its three locations had been in business since 1888, serving the rich and the poor alike, including such luminaries as Elvis Presley and his mother, Gladys. Like the Brewers, thousands of customers from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas had also trusted the company’s reputation enough to buy pre-need policies. Then in July 2006, one of Forest Hill’s new owners, Oklahoma oilman Clayton Smart, called a press conference to announce he was invalidating 13,500 pre-paid funeral contracts, including the Brewers’. While police stood by to prevent a customer riot, Smart explained that any contract holder who wanted to use his or her pre-need policy would have to pay an additional $4,000, more or less, at the time of death, even if the plan was already paid in full. “Obviously, things were a lot cheaper in 1965,” Smart explained. “I wouldn’t have bought the business if I thought I’d have to honor those contracts.”

Officials with the Tennessee attorney general’s office offer a different explanation for why Smart wasn’t honoring the contracts. They allege Smart and his partner, attorney Stephen Smith, drained the company’s pre-need trust funds of $20 million shortly after they purchased Forest Hill in 2004. Those funds, which were part of the purchase and were earmarked to pay for the pre-paid funerals and cemetery care, “were supposed to be in very conservative investment vehicles,” says Martha Davis, a senior counsel in the state’s bankruptcy division. Instead, she says, Smart and Smith diverted the money to risky hedge funds and unsecured loans owned by Quest Minerals and Exploration, an oil-and-gas company controlled by Smart’s family. The attorney general’s office says the Quest loans ended up being worthless.

People believe that if they have a pre-paid funeral, everything’s fine. It’s a dangerous delusion.

Smart’s staggering announcement was just one more chapter in what is becoming a growing national scandal: pre-paid funeral contracts that don’t deliver. Industry watchdogs say that while most funeral directors operate honestly, the problems associated with pre-need policies have become too widespread to ignore. “This is not every once in a while, and it is not just a few bad apples,” says Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance. “People want to believe that if they sign a check now for a pre-paid funeral, they can close their eyes and say, ‘La, la, la, everything’s going to be fine.’ It’s a dangerous delusion.” A delusion because too often funeral companies change hands, close their doors, or simply raid the trust funds where their customers’ payments are supposed to be securely collecting interest. As a result, when the services are needed, there’s no money left. Even worse, because of inconsistent state regulation and enforcement, there’s often no recourse for distressed families who thought everything was taken care of.

It’s not just consumers who are outraged. The funeral industry itself has warned that pre-need abuses are ruining their profession’s reputation. “We funeral directors should never have been able to take money for pre-need,” says Michael Tod Good, a mortician in Reamstown, Pennsylvania. “It’s just too tempting.”

Carl Brewer, the housepainter, discovered the dangers of pre-need last year when his wife, Audrey, died suddenly of an aneurysm. Six months earlier, just before Smart’s announcement, Carl had talked with Forest Hill employees, who assured him his contract was still valid. So he was surprised when, after Audrey’s death, the staff at Forest Hill South informed him he’d have to pay an additional $3,510 before they would honor his wife’s pre-need contract. “There’s nowhere we could go to come up with that much money,” says daughter-in-law Shirley Brewer. Forest Hill finally accepted $194 in cash as a down payment on the extra fee. Then, Carl, not knowing what else to do, signed a contract promising to pay the rest even though he knew he couldn’t. “We did what we had to do to lay Mom away,” says Shirley.

The notion of pre-need funerals dates back to the 1930s, when local morticians informally began allowing customers to pay for their services in advance. The deals were often sealed with little more than a handshake. “It was a matter of trust,” says Ron Hast, publisher of the industry newsletters Mortuary Management and Funeral Monitor.

By the 1980s, as national chains began gobbling up family-run funeral homes, the industry realized there was profit to be made in pre-need sales. Pre-payment would guarantee a steady stream of business in the future, and the pre-need money could be invested to keep pace with the rising cost of funerals. The companies developed more aggressive marketing tactics to convince Americans that pre-payment was a gift to one’s survivors. “Your purchase price is frozen now,” Forest Hill wrote its pre-need customers. “You will not [have to] pay one cent more.”

Today, pre-need continues to be big business. A 2007 AARP survey of 1,087 Americans 50 and older found that 23 percent of them had made pre-payments on funerals, burials, or both. Dan Isard, founder of The Foresight Companies, a consulting firm for funeral homes, estimates that $18 billion is currently invested in pre-need accounts. He projects that will increase by about $2 billion a year. This money, however, isn’t being stuck in file cabinets as in the old days. Funds are now invested in sophisticated life insurance policies or state-regulated trusts.

Too often funeral companies change hands, close their doors, or raid trust funds. Then, when services are needed, there’s no money.

For many customers, their pre-need money is safe. Take the case of Donald Lavender, 82, a retired city administrator from Des Moines, whose wife, Delores, died unexpectedly in 2001 while the couple was flying home from a European vacation. The pilot radioed Des Moines’s Westover Funeral Home, which sent a representative to meet Donald at the airport. Delores’s funeral, purchased 11 years earlier, “went exactly the way we had anticipated,” says Donald. “There were no surprises. It was one of the best things I could ever have done.”

But even customers dealing with trusted funeral homes must study their policies. Otherwise, details—often buried in the fine print—can pop up to surprise at the worst moment.

Before You Buy…
Think it over
Both AARP and the Funeral Consumers Alliance advise against pre-need contracts in most cases. Instead, consider depositing money in a separate interest-bearing account at your local bank. On your death, the person you name as the beneficiary of this “pay on death” account (also called a POD account or Totten trust) has immediate access to the money. Just be sure to name a trusted relative or friend, not a funeral home, as the beneficiary.
Bring a magnifying glass
Check the fine print carefully so you can determine what’s covered. Some plans exclude flowers, clergy honoraria, death certificates, newspaper notices—even the opening and filling of graves. Prepare a list of uncovered expenses and inform your survivors.
Ask about refunds
Be certain the contract can be fully transferred to another funeral home, or the funds can be refunded to you—in case you move or change your mind. Find out if there’s a penalty for canceling the policy or for missing payments.
Follow the money
Know where your pre-need payments are being invested. If they’re to be used to buy an insurance policy, make sure the company writing the policy is highly rated. If payments will go to a trust account, find out what bank or institution will be holding the funds.
Plan for change
Ask what happens if your circumstances change. What if something you requested, such as a specific casket, is no longer available? What if the funeral home changes ownership? What if your family decides on a simpler, less expensive funeral?
Review your finances
If you are close to being eligible for Medicaid, you can put some of your money into an “irrevocable” pre-need funeral plan as a way of spending down your assets.
Talk to a lawyer
Most important of all, have an attorney or trusted adviser review any pre-need contract before you sign.

One of the most common complaints about pre-need involves the casket bait and switch: the customer asks for a specific casket, but when the time comes, it’s not available and the funeral home offers a lesser-quality model. In 1999 Katie Smith, a retired practical nurse, pre-paid a Chicago funeral home for her service. She chose a lavender casket. When she died in 2006, the mortuary insisted that a lavender casket had to be special-ordered and would take ten days to arrive. “I didn’t want to hold up the arrangements that long,” says Katie’s goddaughter, Alicia Hill, who reluctantly accepted an “iridescent pink” casket. Alicia believes her godmother would have been disappointed.

Another problem occurs when customers try to cancel their policies: many states don’t require that funeral homes make full refunds. Also, customers who try to transfer their policies to other funeral homes sometimes have problems. “We’re a transient society,” says Robert Biggins, past president of the National Funeral Directors Association. “There’s no reason a person’s pre-need funds shouldn’t [be able to] travel with them.”

When Pat Cairns bought her pre-need policy from a Cleveland funeral home in 1995—she and her husband, Arthur, 88, now live in South Carolina, but Arthur owned a burial plot in his home state of Ohio—she didn’t realize she was locking herself into using the services of only that one business. “They gave me the paper and said, ‘Check this, check this, check this,’” she says. “Stupidly trusting them, that’s what I did.” Eight years later, the couple realized how impractical their decision had been. “I don’t think either of us could handle—emotionally, physically, or financially—having our spouse’s body sent from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to Ohio,” says Pat, 82. But when she called the Cleveland funeral director to cancel the policy, “he said, ‘You know, these are noncancelable.’ ” It took more than a year’s battle just to get a partial refund.

Even worse are cases involving outright fraud. Most states require that pre-need sellers deposit 70 to 100 percent of their customers’ pre-need payments into trust accounts, which are supposed to remain untouched until the money is needed to pay for the service. (In states that allow pre-paid funerals to be funded by insurance policies rather than trusts, those plans are regulated separately, under state insurance laws.) With industry profits on the decline, though, some morticians find it too tempting and easy to dip into pre-need funds for other purposes. “You’ve got this pile of money, and maybe you think, ‘I’ll take a little bit out and put it back later,’ ” says Slocum of the Funeral Consumers Alliance. “But, like a domino, that can knock down the whole pile.”

That’s what happened in Salem, Missouri, when Jane Spencer Turner inherited two debt-ridden funeral homes. Rather than depositing pre-need money into trust accounts, as she was supposed to do, Turner used the funds to try to stabilize the business, according to her attorney, James Bowles. “She never intended to cheat anybody out of anything,” Bowles says. Missouri attorney general Jay Nixon, who prosecuted Turner as part of a larger crackdown on death-care-industry abuses, took a less charitable view. While Turner’s customers lost more than $200,000, Nixon says, “Turner was driving a Mercedes.” In 2006 she pleaded guilty to unlawful merchandising practices and received an eight-year prison sentence.

Depending on state law, customers often have little recourse when their pre-paid funeral policies disappear. Lawsuits are an option. But, as in Turner’s case, if the funds are gone, they’re gone. In Russellville, Kentucky, funeral director Tim Hanna took off in 2005 with more than $300,000 in stolen pre-need funds. Until then, Hanna was a respected citizen of the town. “We’d see each other in the drugstore; we’d stop and have a conversation,” says Ashley “Cocoa” Kees, whose disabled mother, Sheila, 54, had prepaid her funeral with Hanna’s company. Hanna is now behind bars, but Cocoa’s family has received only $32—their share of proceeds from the sale of Hanna’s automobiles—in compensation for Sheila’s policy, which cost her $3,000.

And big funeral chains don’t necessarily offer more protection than the smaller family-run businesses. In Hawaii, state officials accused RightStar, a conglomerate of cemetery and funeral companies, of bleeding at least $20 million from pre-need accounts. “Money was wired or taken out or transferred,” alleges Attorney General Mark Bennett. In addition, he claims, RightStar illegally canceled $2.8 million worth of pre-need contracts. “The people weren’t informed,” he says. “Many were still sending money.” (RightStar’s attorney didn’t return calls.)

Even with mounting evidence of widespread abuse, the federal government has done little to regulate pre-paid funerals. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and then-Representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) twice introduced legislation to protect pre-need consumers, including giving them the right to transfer their policies from one funeral home to another. But Congress never took up the measures.

The only federal agency currently concerned with protecting pre-need customers is the Federal Trade Commission. And it’s not doing much. The FTC focuses mainly on funeral homes’ compliance in providing itemized price lists to customers. But price lists can’t protect customers against pre-need fraud: “At this very moment some cash-strapped funeral director is diverting pre-need funds for his personal use,” declared the industry newsletter Funeral Monitor in April 2007. FTC attorney Monica Vaca says the agency is privately reviewing possible rule changes.

The resulting lack of federal oversight leaves regulation of pre-need policies up to the states. A few take a tough stance. New York, for example, requires funeral directors to deposit 100 percent of pre-paid money in interest-bearing trusts that are refundable to customers at any time. The only exception: irrevocable contracts, designed to shield the assets of consumers who are spending down their assets to qualify for Medicaid. Such contracts are not refundable in New York but can be transferred to another funeral home. New York’s tough oversight, though, is an exception. Most states “operate with a loosey-goosey patchwork of regulations” that enables “unscrupulous” behavior, writes Chris Raymond, editor of the National Funeral Directors Association’s newsletter.

Funeral-industry leaders say they support consumer-friendly laws, though their definitions of friendly vary wildly. Service Corporation International, a $1.7-billion-a-year empire based in Houston that owns 2,000 funeral homes and cemeteries, insists it should be allowed to withhold and keep a certain percentage of the cost of each contract—rather than depositing that money into a trust account—even if a consumer chooses another funeral home. “When a customer makes arrangements with us, they’re essentially saying, ‘My plan is to do business with you in the future.’ That’s an implied commitment,” says Tom Reichert, the company’s managing director of North American sales.

One might argue with this logic, but then one would be up against the vast power of the funeral industry, a formidable lobby and a generous contributor to political campaigns. As a result, state-level reform efforts have faced stiff resistance. Consider what happened in Hawaii, which has some of the weakest pre-need regulations in the nation. Outraged by the RightStar scandal, a group of Hawaii lawmakers introduced a bill raising the mandatory percentage of pre-need funds to be deposited in a trust account above the current 70 percent. The bill never received a hearing: it was killed by the committees overseeing consumer protection.

Instead, the Hawaii legislature passed a bill written by Governor Linda Lingle’s administration in consultation with members of the funeral industry. Lingle’s measure did include some consumer protections. But it didn’t increase the percentage of funds required to be deposited in trust funds, a key point of industry contention. Jo Ann Uchida, a Lingle administration official, explains that the tougher trust requirement was omitted from the legislation to stave off industry protests, which would have killed the measure.

Sarah Robinson, Hawaii state president of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, offers a blunter explanation. “Basically, [the funeral] industry wrote this bill,” says the consumer advocate. Robinson notes that funeral companies and their lobbyists gave $11,000 in contributions to Governor Lingle in 2005, and lesser amounts to key legislators.

Uchida insists campaign donations had no influence on the bill-drafting process. “Our usual practice is to try to unveil an initiative with the industry.” The administration does not, however, extend that courtesy to consumer groups, she says.

Meanwhile, back in Memphis, customers of Forest Hill are still reeling from owner Clayton Smart’s summary cancellation of those 13,500 funeral contracts that were supposed to be guaranteed. Some clients paid the extra cash that Smart demanded. Others, like Donna VanDyke Tacker, 63, were so ticked off that they went elsewhere rather than pay Smart’s company any more money. Just before Christmas 2006, Donna’s mother, Viva, died unexpectedly. Forest Hill demanded an extra $4,600 before the company would bury her. “I’m not paying y’all another penny,” the retired florist recalls telling an employee. Instead, Donna walked away from the pre-need plan completely and paid $5,440 to another funeral director in Mississippi for her mother’s funeral.

Some Tennesseans wonder why owners Smart and Smith couldn’t have been stopped earlier. “Had the state exercised a little more oversight, I don’t think we’d be in the position we are in now,” says attorney Kevin Snider, who has filed an unresolved class-action lawsuit on behalf of Forest Hill customers. State officials did spot the risky investments in 2005. But it took another year to complete an audit, which the attorney general’s office says was hampered by its being short-staffed and Forest Hill’s poor record keeping. “Sometimes we’re hamstrung by due process,” says Assistant Attorney General Gill Geldreich. Last January the state finally filed a lawsuit to freeze Forest Hill’s assets and appoint a receiver.

Almost a year after Smart canceled the contracts, the law caught up with him. Last April he was arrested in Oklahoma; then he was extradited to Tennessee to face theft, conspiracy, and money-laundering charges. He also faces criminal charges in Michigan, where officials seized control of 28 cemeteries he owned, after an audit showed that $70 million was missing from trust funds. (Smart and Smith declined to be interviewed. But Smart did leave a brief phone message just before his arrest saying, “The truth will eventually bear out.”)

Now under the control of the state of Tennessee, Forest Hill has agreed to honor future pre-need contracts, and it plans to refund the additional fees Smart demanded from his customers. But that doesn’t help people like Donna VanDyke Tacker, who is out the extra $5,440 she paid to a different funeral home. And there are the countless other pre-need victims across the nation who paid thousands of dollars for policies that are now or will end up being worthless.

For Carl Brewer, the retired housepainter who was asked to pony up an additional $3,510 on a supposedly fully paid policy for his wife’s funeral, the final insult came in the mail. In March 2007 he received a standardized customer-satisfaction questionnaire from Forest Hill asking him to rate his experience. “Would it have been helpful for you to have planned this funeral in advance?” the survey asked.

Enraged, Carl tossed the form aside. Even today, he seethes when he thinks about that time. He was supposed to be grieving for his companion of 63 years. Instead, he was forced to sign away a good portion of his future earnings to pay for the funeral he thought was already paid for. “They get people in their moments of sorrow, when they can’t think straight,” he says. “That is highway robbery without a gun.”

Source: http://www.aarpmagazine.org/money/funeral_rip_off.html

Expert: Denise Urban
Bio: Denise has a B.A. in psychology and two Masters degrees. She is an LPC(Licensed Professional Counselor).
Filmmaker: Travis Waack

“There is a strong LDS culture here”, Larry and Susan Turpen ( local funeral home owners) said, noting that the perception is that the church seems to frown on cremation, however, that is not true.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be more understanding of cremations than people realize. Dale Bills, a spokesman for the LDS Church said, “For Latter-day Saints, normally cremation is not encouraged. However, in some countries the law requires it. The family of the deceased must decide whether to cremate the body, taking into account any laws governing burial or cremation.” In other words, it’s not encouraged, but it’s not viewed as a sin, either. If an LDS person is cremated or has a member of their family cremated, the church maintains a nonjudgmental stance. “There is not anything in cremation that would cause a member of the church to be looked upon in disfavor in any way,” Bills said. And it won’t hurt that person’s chances in the afterlife, either. Some people may die in fires. Some may be lost at sea. Some may be cremated or buried. In all cases, LDS theology has the same view about the remains. “Our faith is that through Christ the blessings of the resurrection will be universal,” Bills said. “Body and spirit will be reunited for all who have lived.”

Joseph Fielding Smith in Answers to Gospel Questions 1957 Vol 2, pp.99-102  “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never taken a definite stand on this (cremation) question.  Presumably no edict in relation to it will ever be taken.  The matter of burial of the dead, as far as the Church is concerned, is an individual or a family matter.  If any member of the Church should state in his will, or make any general statement, that he wished to be cremated, the Church authorities would not step in and interfere but would consider it something with which they had no official concern.”

The General Church Handbook #1 p 156 Normally cremation is not encouraged or discouraged, however in some countries the law requires it.  Family of the deceased must decide whether to cremate, taking into account the laws governing such.  Where possible the body of a deceased person who is endowed should be dressed in temple clothing before the cremation…

I Have A Question Ensign Article 1991:  Cremation is a custom in various parts of the world. Do Latter-day Saints practice it?By Roger R. Keller, associate professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University (Condensed to get the gist of the answer)

It is true that many peoples practice cremation as a way of dealing with the bodies of their dead. It is an ancient practice….

Among the Jews, cremation was generally not practiced. The Mishnah forbids cremation as an act of idolatry.[7] … 

Christianity likewise opposed cremation. This reluctance to cremate can basically be traced to the Jewish and Christian belief that when God created the body and all other things, he pronounced them “very good.” (Gen. 1:31.) The body was God’s creation and, according to Christians, it would rise with the spirit in the resurrection. Thus, to cremate it would be an act of disrespect before God.

A change occurred, however, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The unsanitary conditions of many cemeteries in western Europe caused people to reassess the way they treated their dead. Movements recommending cremation began around 1860, and in 1884 a judicial decision legalized cremation in Britain. France legalized it in 1889, and today it is legal in more than three-fourths of the world’s nations. The reasons are widely known—cremation is hygienic, requires little land, and is appropriate to rapidly growing urban areas.[9] Today, 10 percent of the dead are cremated in the United States, 20 percent in Canada, and 60 percent in Britain.[10]

Where do Latter-day Saints fit into this picture? We reaffirm the perspective that the body is good and, as a creation of God, is to be respected. But as the Church has moved into nations other than the United States, there has been recognition that cultural practices differ. Generally, Latter-day Saints in the Western world have felt that nothing should be done which is destructive to the body. That should be left to nature. Church leaders have counseled that only in unusual circumstances or where required by law should cremation take place.[11]

Ultimately, after consultation with the Lord and with priesthood leaders, the family must decide what to do. If the person has been endowed, some special instructions are available for the family from local priesthood leaders. Even if a body is cremated, a funeral service may be held… [12]

Where there is no overriding reason to cremate, burial is still the preferred method of handling our dead. In the end, however, we should remember that the resurrection will take place by the power of God, who created the heavens and the earth. Ultimately, whether a person’s body was buried at sea, destroyed in combat or an accident, intentionally cremated, or buried in a grave, the person will be resurrected.

No clearer picture of God’s restorative powers can be found than Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (see Ezek. 37), in which he sees the bones gathered together and clothed with sinews and flesh by the power of God. Nothing that is done to the body will in the end prevent the purpose of our Lord from being fulfilled. Our bodies and our spirits will finally be reunited in the resurrection of the dead.

7. The Mishnah, trans. Herbert Danby (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 437 (Abodah Zarah 1:3).

8. V. L. Reed, “Burial,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 4 vols. (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 1:475-76.

9. Kaplan, p. 172. 10. Robert Fulton, “Cremation,” The World Book Encyclopedia, 22 vols. (Chicago: World Book, Inc., 1986), 4:904-

11. General Handbook of Instructions, March 1989, 1-5.                 12. Ibid.

Other Thoughts and Research:

Cremation can save the costs of a cemetery plot, vault, burial fees, and headstone or marker if you like or you may bury the cremains and save on only the vault and fees (since the plot is so much smaller).

Those who are financially unable to afford the costs of burying their dead may be considering cremation (should be about $650).  We certainly would not want to be judging them.   Congregations’ fast offerings sometimes pay for body disposition and sometimes government welfare pays so in either case the family weighs very carefully between cremation and full body burial, which costs at the very least three times as much.

Consider as well that when we choose full body burial out of “respect for the body” God created do we also think nothing of embalming which involves sending the persons blood to the sewer system?  Does cremation express any less respect for the body than the socially acceptable custom of embalming?  In light of the scriptures on blood it may be worth examining this issue: Lev 17:11-14, Lev 19:26-28, Deut 12:16, Psalm 72:12-14

Upon the death of Sarah, Abraham purchased a cave as a family burial site. (Gen. 23:2-20; 49:29-32) Abraham’s descendants, the Hebrews, attached considerable importance to the proper burial of a person. For someone to be deprived of burial was very bad. (Jer. 14:16) God cursed King Jehoiakim, prophesying that the king would receive “the burial of a he-ass,” that is, his corpse would be dragged outside the city and left unburied—Jer. 22:18, 19; see also Jeremiah 25:32, 33; Isaiah 14:19, 20.

With this emphasis on proper burial, you can see why it might have been considered disgraceful for someone to be refused burial and the corpse just be burned up as trash. In connection with some crimes the Law required that the criminal be killed and his body burned. (Lev. 20:14; 21:9; Josh. 7:15, 25)

Similarly, when Jesus was on the earth, the Valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem’s wall, was a garbage dump where fires were kept burning to destroy refuse. Some bodies of dead criminals viewed as unfit for a decent burial were cast there. Jesus used this as a symbol of complete destruction without hope of resurrection.  See Mark 9:47, 48; Matt. 5:22.

Deuteronomy 21:23 says that the body of a man executed and hung on a stake should not be left overnight, but “but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day.” So this shows a criminal’s corpse might be disposed of by burial as well.

There is a vast difference between the corpse of an ancient criminal being burned with refuse and modern funeral procedures involving cremation. While the former was intended to express rejection and shame, the latter is arranged as a dignified alternative to a person’s returning to dust.

When the bodies of King Saul and his sons were rescued from the Philistines “All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones (cremains before they are ground to smaller pieces), and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.” (1 Sam. 31:12, 13)  David did not consider their burning the corpses as shameful. It was part of a respectful disposing of the dead: “…And David sent messengers unto the men of Jabesh-gilead, and said unto them, Blessed be ye of the LORD, that ye have shewed this kindness unto your lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him. And now the LORD shew kindness and truth unto you: and I also will requite you this kindness, because ye have done this thing.” (2 Sam. 2:4-7).

The early Christians continued the  Jewish custom of burial in the earth or in tombs. Cremation at that time was associated with paganism. There is no New Testament command for or against either burial or cremation. Nor usually does burial instead of cremation help to distinguish true Christians from believers in paganism (such as that the soul doesn’t escape the body unless it is burned.

. The Bible shows that whether a dead body is returned to dust rapidly by fire or gradually by decay it is still true that “From dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.” (Gen. 3:19)  Regardless of choice of disposition the scriptures show that the body of a dead loved one should be dealt with in a dignified, respectful way.