Secular funeral in rural present-day Maine

[hagar_972]

Setting: contemporary (2009), northern Maine, fictional town of ~20k people. The town is semi-rural: it has a fairly tiny center that mostly behave middle-class-ish, and then a wide rural sprawl of farms and drifters

Comments

[orange_fell]

I'm not from Maine, but I've visited several small towns there, and I've read the literature of Stephen King (lol). It would be very, very unusual for a town of the size you describe to have only one church. For example, the town of Dexter, Maine (population 3,895) where I visited in 2007, has seven churches that come up on Google (three Baptist, one Catholic, one Universalist, one Episcopalian, and one Seventh Day Adventist). The fictional town of Chester's Mill from Stephen King's novel "Under the Dome," is even tinier than Dexter, and has three churches, one Catholic and two Protestant denominations. A town of 20k citizens would certainly be served by a large number of places of worship.

[hagar_972]

*sigh* This is for a fanfic, and in several seasons there's been no indication of multiple churches in town - you go to this one, or you don't. So while yes, I could make something up, that would actually be a greater deviation from the particular canon I'm working with.

[orange_fell]

Well, you did post to a detail-oriented research comm! Good luck with your story! :)

[ansela_jonla]

Heck, I've been up in tiny little villages in the Derbyshire Peak District with maybe 100 houses (and that's being generous) with three churches visible from the road through.

[belleweather]

For secular American services, you can pretty much make it up as you go. Lots of people use the "first you talk, then you eat" template -- people sit in chairs in a group in front of a podium. Someone calls everyone together with a little speech about how we're here to honor the life/memory of so and so. Sometimes there will be a few readings or a speech or a song, and then often they ask members of the family or community to come up and share a memory or a story about the deceased. (Although, this is more for older people, and you might not do it with a child) Once everyone has had their chance, there's often a closing poem, speech or song, and then everyone has a light lunch, sometimes catered but more often pot-luck. This would all take place at the funeral home. It's totally reasonable to bring children, although probably not toddlers/preschoolers. Kids often have a choice as to whether they want to come or not

[hagar_972]

Cremation is an interesting idea. I don't know what the father was before the supernatural invaded his life; the situation in this town is such that it forces a secular/atheist life on people from the supernatural minority - they're believed to be the people God "orphaned", and this belief is 600 years old. Though most people of this minority are from families that's been living in this town for a long time, there's a few who were born elsewhere and came there later in life, after this thing erupted in their lives. He's one of those, so he had a normal life roughly until his daughter was 2yr old. (She was ~8 at the time of her death.)

(This is also part of why he has no support network in this situation: he came to this town 6yr before because of a supernatural problem, and he just broke up with that group on really bad terms. It's a really messed up situation.)

The cemetery would arrange for grave digging and internment, but it's rare that there would be any sort of formal graveside ceremony and if so it would like be very small

[germankitty]

You know I'm not American, and so I obviously can't give you many of the details you need, but I know this -- in a town of the population you stipulate, there'd most likely be more than one church. ~20k people would have Catholics and Protestants to start with, and never mind all the different denominations the latter "umbrella term" comprises ... it'd be plausible that one denomination is more powerful than others in terms of membership, settling traditions, demographics and whatnot, but being "Christian" is not at all as homogenous as it might seem from the outside. And while some of the differences in denominations are minute and/or barely discernible to someone not familiar with them, they can matter greatly to those concerned.

Also, a town that size is hardly semi-rural anymore, with a "small center" -- there'd be suburbs, likely a sizeable shopping complex nearby ... a population of less than 5k would be more along the line of what you're thinking, IMO. Sure, ~20k could be sprawled over surrounding farmlands and such and yet

[hagar_972]

*sigh* See comments elsewhere. Yes, I KNOW show canon is fucked, please not to be pointing it out like it's an error in my research/worldbuilding, that's not actually helpful. The town's placement, size and the one damn church are all oft-repeated and well-established plot points, I'm stuck with them.

[germankitty]

Actually, I don't even know which fandom it is. :)

[hagar_972]

You might like this show. It's basically Power Rangers, just with +30yr old characters and the baby-proofing taken off.

[lolmac]

Have you done your basic web research on this? Look up demographics statistics on New England towns and read the commercial websites of the funeral parlors and funeral homes. It's important to identify whether the family of the dead child are Catholic or Protestant (or Jewish, or other). If they're Protestant or Jewish, you then need to identify which sect. This will affect what happens with the funeral.

In the US, it's really, really unusual for there to be only one church in a town, even a very small town. Take a look at this site

[hagar_972]

It seems you missed the line in the post that specific this is for a fanfic; apparently I wasn't clear enough stressing that out. I've got a TV show canon I'm working with, and in several seasons of it there's every indication that there really is only the one church in this town, and you can take it or leave it. (The supernatural minority community seem to be on a "leave it" basis with God in general and they're not a small minority, so if I want an in-canon explanation there's that.)

So yes, I could make up more churches, but that would be a massive worldbuilding problem with the canon as established. It would create a thousand things to explain and break what canon has set up.

Similarly, I didn't make up the town's population or its location. I'm very much aware that with this positioning, the town should be 5k at most - but those numbers aren't fanon, they're canon. (The town canonically has at least two schools.)

In a typical US town, especially a smallish rural one, they will, for good or bad. That would be an awful lot

[mithen]

From upthread:

In a typical US town, especially a smallish rural one, they will, for good or bad. A death is generally regarded as an event at which you're supposed to set aside differences, mend fences, make peace (and pry and gossip and prod). A violent death will bring nosy neighbours in like flies.

As a counter-example, I'm from a small rural Maine town (about 6,000 people) with only two churches. When the minister of Church A's wife died in childbirth, the minister of Church B informed him that he had never set foot inside Church A and wasn't going to start now. So...yeah.

And as a person from a rural Maine town (rural enough that I think 20,000 people sounds pretty big), let's see what I can do!

Usually there's a notice in the local newspaper about the death, although it sounds like in your case everyone would know about it already. As belleweather says, close friends will often bring food (I would say they usually bring it themselves, in rural Maine I don't know how else you would get it there!). In an awkward case like this, they'

[hagar_972]

This helps a lot - thank you! This step-by-step is exactly what I needed.

It leaves my open questions at whether to go for cremation or burial, and if burial whether open/closed casket. (The child's injuries are such that the damage could be hidden relatively easily.) Those are judgment calls and a chance to thicken the father's character, so that's great.

(The only shared element between the above scenario and the one I'm used to is throwing dirt into the open grave. Otherwise, everything's different.)

Thank you!

[penknife]

A few things that I don't think have been mentioned yet: the first thing that's going to happen in the process is that someone in the family needs to visit the funeral home and meet with a funeral director to plan (and pay for) the funeral. They'll pick out a casket, plan the funeral or memorial service, and help the family contact the cemetery to buy a burial plot if they don't own one

[hagar_972]

...right, I definitely want to avoid a funeral procession, then. Since that's an actual risk given the tension in the town in the circumstances. Which makes the options: (a) cemetery right next to the funeral home, (b) service at the grave site (<-good for deterring a large crowd), (c) cremation.

Clothes, check. That's one thing I got from TV, but I can always use more reminders on it. (Custom's here is to dress down - it's a way of showing your grief. Dressing up is distasteful. So... old jeans and T-shirt may actually be the most appropriate clothes.)

Thank you!

[samjohnsson]

oooh, no no no. T-shirt and old jeans to a funeral instantly makes you the topic of gossip for at least next month, or until someone else makes a major faux pas. Polo shirt, maybe, or a button-down, and slacks.

[hagar_972]

That much I managed to pick on from TV, yes :)