Funerals are now just a mouse click away
By Dane Stickney | omaha.com
When traveling salesman Jack Rittenhouse died of cancer in February, folks from as far away as Pakistan and Costa Rica mourned.
They told his widow, Angie, they wished there was a way they could get to his hometown, Waterloo, Neb., for the funeral, but the trip was too costly or time-consuming. Turns out, Angie told them, they could take part anyway.
All they needed was an Internet connection.
The technology has advantages. Rittenhouse''s friends and family in 85 locations around the globe logged on to watch live video of the funeral. From as close as Omaha and as far as Islamabad, they were able to digitally take part.
But some traditionalists find it hard to embrace. Is nothing, not even a funeral, sacred in this digital age?
Jon Reichmuth lets his clients answer that question for themselves. He runs funeral homes in Elkhorn, Bennington, Valley and Yutan and offers free webcasting for funeral and graveside services.
In December, Reichmuth contracted a California-based firm, Event by Wire, to provide a video camera and technical support.
The company advises mortuary employees on how to film the service and hosts the video on its Web site for up to a year. Family members invite people to watch the service by sending them a link and a password to the company''s Web site.
Roughly 75 percent of Reichmuth''s clients have elected to webcast their services. The technology gives their far-flung friends and family an experience they otherwise couldn''t have.
Jack Rittenhouse''s funeral is a prime example. The 37-year-old Hewlett-Packard salesman traveled around the country and sometimes abroad. He developed close ties with people thousands of miles from eastern Nebraska.
Reichmuth asked Angie Rittenhouse if she would like to webcast her husband''s Feb. 12 funeral. She had never heard of the practice but thought it was an ideal way for the far-reaching net of friends and family to celebrate Jack''s life.
The webcast captured the funeral inside an Elkhorn church. Nearly 600 people attended the service, which featured a slide show of images from Rittenhouse''s life and a flower arrangement with ears of corn and a mini John Deere tractor.
Reichmuth employees also taped the graveside service and put it on the Web site a few hours later. They couldn''t webcast the interment because the cemetery had no Internet access.
Once the webcast was posted, Rittenhouse''s friends and family around the globe could see the 23 firetrucks that led the former volunteer firefighter''s procession to the cemetery. They could hear two bagpipers play "Amazing Grace."
Angie received dozens of e-mails from those who had watched online.
"They told me they felt like they were part of the funeral," she said. "It made me feel warm inside to know they were there watching and supporting us."
She has since gone back and watched archived parts of the service and interment online.
Reichmuth has broadcast 13 other funerals online, with mixed interest. A few, like Rittenhouse''s, have drawn nearly 100 viewers. Others have attracted fewer than 10.
Customers who elect not to webcast tend to be older and live in rural areas. Almost all their family members physically attend, and they''re leery of having their services posted online.
Others are tied to tradition. Reichmuth held a funeral this weekend for clients with extended family in England. Webcasting would have been an effective tool for far-away mourners, but the clients felt the technology detracted from the reverence of the occasion.
Reichmuth discovered webcasting at a national conference last year. He''s noticed clients-mainly baby boomers-breaking from tradition. Their funerals are more like parties than services and are highly personal. Some have sports logos on their caskets or shoot their ashes into the sky with fireworks.
For them, webcasting is a tame no-brainer.
Many across the country feel the same way. Event by Wire is the nation''s largest funeral webcaster and has been in business for 18 months. It now serves more than 100 funeral homes in more than 40 states. Some of the mortuaries offer webcasting as a free perk, while others charge as much as $300 to add it to standard funeral packages.
Reichmuth is Event by Wire''s first Nebraska client. Some area funeral homes have posted taped video of funerals but haven''t yet webcast services.
The trend leaves Larry Compeau conflicted. He has studied funeral rituals as a professor of marketing and a consumer psychologist at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. He understands the value to people who can''t attend the funeral and agrees funeral webcasting is quickly becoming mainstream.
But he''s worried about the technical intrusion into a personal ritual.
"It''s another step in our cultural base that could undermine how we connect and maintain relationships with other people," he said.
Webcasting makes it easier for people to shirk their obligation to physically attend funerals, he said, and the technology has a layer of creepy voyeurism.
A local grief counselor questions its emotional value.
"The point of a funeral is to provide support to survivors," said Robin Zagurski, a therapist and social worker for the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "Watching it over a webcast, the only thing a survivor is going to get is the count of how many watched.
"That''s not the same kind of support they get when people physically attend a funeral."
It may be a different style of support, but Angie Rittenhouse happily took it.
"I was glad people were able to do it and be part of Jack''s funeral," she said.
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