The Oathout Funeral Home was located in Iowa City, Iowa. IC was also home of the Univ of Iowa and had a huge medical facility with hospital. I often had to pick up a body at the hospital morgue and return to the funeral home for embalming and then placed in an aluminum container for shipping. The morgue was chilled, kinda dark, and deathly quiet. Its entry code was DOA.
Shipping to an out of town mortuary was either by train (Rock Island RR) or the other mortuary would drive to Iowa City. There was a damn train that was to arrive at 02:30 AM. and was ALWAYS late about 2-3 hours. If I were on duty, that would be my bag.
One evening the door bell rang and I went down. A driver was there to pick up an embalmed body and drive it into Illinois 300 miles.
There were two bodies in storage. Neither was tagged. Like a patient in a hospital, corpses are always tagged. We looked behind the ears, in the crack of the butt. No tag.
There's more.
BOTH were white males, similarly aged and sized. And get this--both had their LEFT legs amputated at the knee.
I went up front and inspected the two death certificates. The first and 2nd years of dental school are studying all the -ologies; indeed, at that time, Harvard had their dental and medical schools take the same classes for two years. So I had some knowledge in this area.
Both Ralph A. and Ralph B. had died of heart disease, 2nd cause diabetes but Ralph B. had a tertiary cause of liver decease. We went back and saw that Ralph B. was slightly jaundiced by the yellow hue.
Good Luck and Good Night !!
3 comments:
That is a great little series of articles. Of course you would "
Slip down the back stairs, and wiggle a fingere and groan".
You make me laugh, poo- paw
I, too, love the Mortician series. These are glimpses into a world that most of us are unfamiliar with. I am glad you had so many laughs with a job that wasn't always peachies n cream. Keep the stories coming. I catch up on a slew of that at a time. It is like reading chapters from a novel. Keep up your writing! You have so many special experiences to share and when they are written down we will be able to remember them always.
Love and hugs!
Sara
Why do I find this one so analgous to the economy! Keep 'em coming...
Post a Comment