Cremation

• SAN DIEGO, April 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Trust & Will , the leading digital estate planning and settlement platform in the U.S., releases the findings of its fourth annual Millennial Estate Planning Study, providing insight from nearly 15,000 Millennials on end-of-life and estate planning preferences.
• More than half of Millennials do not know what would happen to their assets if they died without an estate plan.
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• Trust & Will revisits this data each year to see how millennial trends and behaviors continue to change over time.

• "Navigating the Evolving Landscape of Death Care Services: Global Trends and Innovations"
  Death care services are witnessing significant evolution influenced by demographic shifts, cultural practices, and technological advancements.
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• My research into 18th century preservation practices led me to a favourite book that details these heart histories of the famous and infamous: historian Charles Bradford’s quirky tome, Heart Burial (1933).
• Amazingly sweeping and entertaining, the book narrates the heart journeys of many – primarily western – military, religious and political figures.
• One such figure, the diplomat Sir William Temple (1628-1699), is buried next to his wife in Westminster Abbey.

• The practice of preserving the heart – the ancient symbol of the soul and emotion – was not uncommon.
• But for people in the 18th century, as this case and others show, it also symbolised lovers being united in death.

Literary hearts

• Perhaps the most storied literary heart is that of poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).
• Italian law required the cremation of a drowning victim’s body, so Shelley’s corpse was laid upon a funeral pyre on the shores of the sea, with literary luminaries such as Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt in attendance.

• The Shelleys’ son, Sir Percy Florence, had his father’s heart encased in silver and placed on display at Boscombe Manor.
• Upon his death in 1889, the heart was laid to rest in the family vault at St Peter’s Church, Bournemouth.

Hungry hearts

• In May 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte’s corpse was autopsied over two days before it was to be transported from St Helena to France.
• Napoleon had requested his intestines be preserved and given to his son, and his heart be sent to his wife Empress Marie-Louise.
• When rumours circulated in January 1928 regarding the heart of renowned English novelist Thomas Hardy, many were in disbelief.

• Placing the dead cat with the remainder of the heart in a box, he left the Hardy residence, surrounded by mourners, and proceeded to St Michael’s where the contents were buried.
• Though Napoleon’s and Hardy’s storied hearts also serve as reminders, perhaps, that we shouldn’t take romantic traditions too seriously.

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Jolene Zigarovich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The Federal Trade Commission is sending warning letters to 39 funeral homes across the country after investigators conducted the agency’s first undercover phone sweep and discovered several violations of the Funeral Rule, including funeral homes that failed to provide accurate pricing information or failed to give out price information entirely.
• The Funeral Rule gives consumers important rights when making funeral arrangements, including requiring that funeral homes must “tell persons who ask by telephone about the funeral provider’s offerings or prices any accurate information from [their] price lists….