Women are revitalising funeral services in America
A once-conservative industry has started to change
![2E2W660 El Cajon, CA, USA. 7th Jan, 2021. EL CAJON, CA - JANUARY 07: Kristy Oliver, an embalmer and funeral director, and Robert Zakar, owner at East County Mortuary and Cremation Service, load a casket carrying a person who died after being diagnosed with COVID-19 into the back of a hearse, on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021 in El Cajon, CA. The funeral home has been inundated with work as they deal with their typical January spike in deaths, compounded by hundreds of people with the coronavirus dying in San Diego County in recent weeks. (Credit Image: © Sam Hodgson/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZU](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/media-assets/image/20221203_USP001.jpg)
NOT LONG ago one could admire Crystal Jovae Coratti’s handiwork from the audience at Chicago’s prestigious Goodman Theatre. Ms Coratti designed costumes and powdered actors with make-up. For “The Iceman Cometh” she distressed the trousers and clothes worn by a group of revellers looking for redemption at a bar in New York. These days Ms Coratti displays her talents in a less lively venue: a funeral home. To the surprise of family and friends she became a funeral director and embalmer, trading actors for cadavers. “Almost everyone was pretty gobsmacked because it was so out of left field,” she says.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Bodies, bodies, bodies”
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