The Museum of Funeral Customs, in Springfield, Illinois is dangerously close to closing. The Springfield Journal reports via the New York Times that the IFDA has laid off the curator, and museum hours are now by appointment only.

“The original idea was that we’d get enough spillover from people visiting the Lincoln sites,” said Duane Marsh, executive director of the Illinois Funeral Directors Association, which operates the museum. “But for whatever reason, that just hasn’t happened. When a business isn’t paying its way, as everyone knows, you have trouble.”

The Illinois Funeral Directors Association is the defendant in a lawsuit filed by six association members over the handling of a pre-need funeral trust fund administered by IFDA Services, a for-profit arm of the non-profit IFDA.

The trust fund was designed to cover expenses for an estimated 49,000 people who took out policies.

The Illinois Controller’s office recently ruled that the IFDA should not have been in the pre-need insurance business; the association had been granted a license by then-controller Roland Burris, now a US Senator for Illinois.

The association is also facing a lawsuit from two consumers alleging violation of state consumer-protection laws.

A statement on the IFDA website says that Merrill Lynch Bank & Trust Co. FSB has assumed the responsibilities of trustee, and that any principal deposited towards pre-need accounts is safe.

I don’t know what kind of life George McClelland led. Believers in karma must think he wasn’t very nice.

George died in January, 2007. He’s still not buried.

Two different women have claimed to be his daughter, and thus administrator of his estate. The main issue is George’s farm, which is worth a lot of money to developers. At any rate, DNA tests were done —a year ago— and the women have agreed on the results—or not. Now, the issue seems to be cremation vs. interment. All the while, George sits at the Bisch and Son Funeral Home in Springfield, Illinois…waiting.

Up in Shorewood, IL (near Joliet), apparently people get pretty worked up over having to wait for funeral processions.

Clara Plut, 20, was recently stuck waiting for a funeral procession (for Troy Fire Protection District Chief Kerry Sheridan) to pass by. I’ve worked firefighter funerals before. They’re big. Think seventy-five cars easy, along with fire apparatus. Clara got perturbed about waiting, and texted a firefighter friend of hers, making what she thought was a joking comment about killing a firefighter.

Now, I don’t know if Clara really was that ticked off about waiting for the funeral. Nor do I know how well she knew the FF she was threatening. I DO know it was a pretty stupid move for her to make, and I think she’s learning that lesson as well. She’s lucky to just be facing a DC charge. These days, she could have been facing a terroristic threats charge, or telecommunications harassment, or both.