The Funeral Industry's Evolution

A snippet from Cullen Murphy 1998 article:

The choices I was offered by a company called Casket Royale ranged from the understated and inexpensive Canterbury model to the costly but elegant Buckingham; a box on the order form could be checked for "24 Hour Rush Delivery." Though still the destiny of a majority, burial is the option desired by fewer and fewer Americans these days. A company called Relict Memorials, in Mill Valley, California, specializes in turning cremated remains into customized granitelike slabs. Kits are available for swabbing and preserving samples of the departed's DNA, and a company now exists to provide "perpetual care" for one's Web site. A Kentucky bookbinder and printer, Timothy Hawley Books, offers a line of what it calls bibliocadavers -- handsomely bound volumes whose blank or printed pages are created from a pulp containing the ashes of a loved one.