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Natural Death Care Project (California)

Janelle Melvin

From a letter (Dec 11th '97) to The Natural Death Centre UK from the Janelle Melvin (e-mail: ndcp@metro.net) of the Natural Death Care Project (Sebastopol, California). Janelle Melvin adds: "We got your e-mail address from Karen Leonard of the Redwood Funeral Society here in Sonoma County, California. We seem to all share in the passion for natural choice in after death care and consumer's last rites/rights."

'Advice to those wanting a home funeral and a more earth-friendly disposition'

Jerri Lyons started the Natural Death Care Project (NDCP) in 1995 in the aftermath of caring for her friend Carolyn Whiting. Carolyn left her friends detailed instructions on how she wanted her body to be cared for. I worked for a hospice and decided to quit and join her project as a co-director in 1996. Since then, we have assisted over 60 families (more by summer '98) to care for their own at home. We are in the middle of preparing a step-by-step manual to be used in training people who want to care for their own at death and people who are interested in starting a project similar to NDCP. This should be available from early 1998.

We are a non-profit tax-exempt educational and charitable organisation offering advice to those wanting a home funeral and a more earth-friendly disposition. We are a program of the Community Network for Appropriate Technologies.

From our brochure:

Can you imagine ... You have created instructions for how your death care is to be handled. There is no panic about what to do or who to call. Your body being touched with respect and caring. Your loved ones saying goodbye to you in a way that would ease their fear about dying. Family and friends being transformed in life through caring for you in death. People who hold sacred the time of death. Imagine your death as a heartfelt story shared and retold for generations. Economical after death care.

We educate families on how to pre-plan while still alive, how to fill out and file end-of-life documents, how to care for the body, how to use dry ice while lying in state, how you can create your own funeral ceremony, how to acquire or make a cardboard container or a plain pine box, how to transport the body and share other resources and about referrals to professionals.

We tell people about our project through conferences, in-services, interviews, articles and trainings. We have an audio tape and slide show presentation about some of the home funerals we have been involved in and are developing a web page.

'Investigate how people can be buried on private land. We cannot seem to find any laws or codes against it'

Little known facts:

  • A family can act as their own funeral director. It is possible for the deceased to lie in state in the home (one to three days is usual).

  • A family can be taught to fill out and file all end-of-life documentation (Certificate of Death and Permit for Disposition).

  • Embalming is not essential.

  • You can build and decorate your own casket or pre-made cardboard box.

  • The deceased can be transported in any vehicle by a family member or Power of Attorney.

  • The average cost of a traditional funeral is about $5000, but these costs are not required in order to honour our dead meaningfully.

    We encourage people to:

  • Start talking to each other about the subject of death.

  • Envision collectively owned crematoriums and cemeteries that are more economically and environmentally harmonious.

  • Form a local group similar to The Natural Death Care Project.

  • Investigate how people can be buried on private land. (We cannot seem to find any laws or codes against it. Local government suggests that a permit may be required from the board of supervisors, from a water or land board and from adjoining property owners.)

  • Start looking for ways you can reclaim your individual right to a natural, sensible and more economical after-death care. The office of Vital Records in our county refuses to give a family a blank original Certificate of Death. Funeral directors are allowed, but where is it written that it is illegal for a family to have a blank certificate in their possession?

    We are currently working with three crematoriums in our area and seem to maintain consistently good relationship to this date.

  • Janelle and Jerri, Natural Death Center Project office, PO Box 1721, Sebastopol, CA 95473 (also Jerri's home), USA, (Janelle Melvin, e-mail: ndcp@metro.net). For five articles about the NDCP, about home funerals and about the funeral industry, send a donation of $8.95 (12 articles $12.95).

  • For more information sources on natural-death-related topics in the USA, see the (UK) Natural Death Centre's American info web page (at: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac026/ndcusa.html).

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