Author Jessica Mitford Dies; Funeral Homes, U.S. Prisons

detailed price lists. But Miss Mitford, Women's Detention Center as part of an avid reader of undertaker maga- her research. zines, told the Chronicle that morti- "I've always gotten into these sub- Ikfitford, 78, the muckraking cians continued to encourage elabo- jects by chance," Miss Mitford told - who skewered the fimeral in- rate funerals, even after cremations. The Washington Post in 1973. She be- Ausitry* in her 1963 expose, "The She maintained that the FTC, under came interested in prisons after the 1...Arnerksii Way of Death,* and indicted pressure from the industry, no longer American Civil Liberties Union asked '*elkinerican prison system 10 years was enforcing its directives. her to write a pamphlet on prisoner later_ in 'Kind and Unusual Punish- The most important change since rights. She took on the funeral indus- dixl of cancer July 23 at her 1963, she said, was the emergence of try after her husband, a Labor lawyer lirisite*Oakland, Calif. funeral home monopolies, a subject who wanted to help families of union -,Ker_Investigation into the basilic:* ss she intended to address in a revision of •members, founded a collective organi- *.cifikiiith was a selection of the Book of her book that was underway. zation, the Bay Area Funeral Society. :tfteTtfoith Club, stayed on the best- Miss hfitford was the child of an Miss Mitford's articles, published by peller lists for a year and led to a CBS aristocratic British family whose ec- such magazines as Life, Esquire and docuthentary and an investigation by the Nation, targeted and &federal Trade Controissicai Time centricities were widely chronicled by herself and others. She wrote six other members of the Famous Writers batigaine dubbed her the "Queen of books, including two autobiogra- School, television executives, a spa ca- Abe kihickrakers." She was denounced tering to overweight wealthy women, - phies—"Daughters and Rebels" and funeral industry, which helped and overpriced restaurants. bite* sales of her book, she said later. "A Fine Old Conflict"—and several - Described by a British writer last `Miss Krtford set the country talking collections of articles, including `Poi- son Penmanship: The Gentle Art of year as someone who easily could play charge that morticians were an elderly lady detective in some long- lierpentating a "huge, macabre and ex- Muckraking" in 1979. running television serial, Miss Mitford Jegive.practical joke on the American In 1992, she took on the medical es- retained the mannerisms and accent of puhlic° by exploiting grief. She said un- tablishment, writing in 'The American *takers routinely gouged money Way of Birth" about inequities, techno- a well-bred Englishwoman. While in- frOUI families of modest means for un- logical obsessions and unnecessary ex- terviewing her subjects, her seeming naivete would encourage people to say peceseary services such as ernhAming penses in obstetrics. Her interest in mid :caskets that were hermetically the subject began with a California things they'd later regret. seithiL To facilitate her research, she midwife who was being investigated "You may not be able to change the .'haeLpalied as a bereaved widow. for practicing medicine without a li- world," she was fond of stating, "but at Ifisa Mitford actively promoted cense. least you can embarrass the guilty." IoakOst' 'cremations and cooperative Miss Mitford became a fierce advo- Miss Mitford, known as "Decca," societies. She said she was cate of midwife-assisted births, con- was born in Batsford, Gloucestershire; iiatid that the gross income of one cluding that challenges to the profes- England, the next to youngest of six _:Major :Casket manuactirer fell by 10 sion of midwifery were an example of daughters of David, the second baron 7,40cent ,the year after her book was doctors' desires to keep control of a lu- of Redesdale, and Sydney Bowles Mit- ittMligned. In an interview last month crative business. ford. The children were schooled at with the, Chronicle, she 'Kind and Unusual Punishment." de- home. Their father had Fascist lean- 'said; that cremations had risen from scribed the American prison system as ings, and two of of the sisters became as'iticent of American deaths in concentration camps for poor, young, supporters of Hitler. As a young wom- 1963 tO 21 percent. mostly minority offenders. Prisons an, Jessica declared herself a commu- In the wake of her revelations, the spent $6 billion a year on buildings nist. The Mitfords were profiled in a :YTS issued rules governing the fuller- alone while failing to protect society, number of books,' including four that : 41 industry, among them a directive deter, crime or rehabilitate offenders, came about the same time in the that **narks must give consumers she said. She spent a night in the D,C. 1970s. Miss Mitford rejected the life of the English nobility at an early age, when she began her own "running away fund." She wrote that, as a young girl sharing a room with her Fascist- adoring sister Unity, she used a dia- mond ring to scratch hammers and sickles on the windows of the family mansion. At 19, after a Season as a London debutante, she eloped with her second cousin , 's 18-par-old nephew. Rom- illy also believed that was the road to utopia, and they embarked on a journey- to join the International Brigade in the . Lord Redesdale sent a British de- stroyer after the cousins, but they jumped ship in France, fled to Barcelo- na and were married in 1937. Shortly after, they came to the United States, where she sold English tweeds at the New York World's Fair while he wrote advertising copy and tended bar in Greenwich Village. They tried selling silk stockings door to door in Washington; moved briefly-to Mi- FLEPHOTO ami, where they worked in a bar in JESSICA MITFORD Biscayne Bay, and then returned to Washington: Romilly joined the Royal from a job in the classified acfrerlisihg Canadian Air Force in 1940, and Miss department of the San Francisco Mitford worked in a clothing store. Chronicle for being a subversive. She Their daughter, Constancia, named said that writing appeared to be the for the daughter of a Spanish grandee only job- available at the time that who cast her lot with the Republican didn't require skills or ability. Among army during the Spanish Civil War, the interests that had dogged her was born in February 1941. Eleven since childhood was music. She said months later, .Rornilly died when he she had always dreamed of being a was shot down by the Germans over torch singer. Last year, encouraged by the North Sea. her friend the poet. , she His widow scratched out a living in formed a rock band,' Decca and the wartime Washington. She met lawyer Dectones, and cut a rap-style CD on Robert E. Treuhaft while they were the Don't Quit Your Day Job label. both working in the Office of Price Ad- In addition to her husband, of Oak- ministration. ' land, Miss Mitford is survived by a They moved to Oakland, where they were dedicated members of the daughter from her first marriage, Con- stancia 'Dinky" Romilly, a nurse who Communist Party for 15 years. Regu- larly called before the House Un- lives in New York, and a son from her American Activities Committee; she second marriage, Benjamin Treuhaft, called her Marxist training '`a kind of a Berkeley piano 'tuner who heads a adult Project Head Start" that enabled group that sends pianos to Cuba and her to function in the outside world. has been in the news lately; two sis- They quit the party in 1958 bit re• ters, Diana Mosley of Paris and Debo- mated active in lleral causes. rah Devonshire of Chatsford, England; Miss Nfitford didn't begin writing and three grandchildren. until she was. 38, after she was fired A daughter from her first marriage died in infancy, and a son from her sec- ond marriage, Nicholas Trenhaft, was killed in an accident in 1955. Miss lvfitfOrd met with the owner of a cut-rate cremation society in San Francisco last month and arranged for her own, $475 cremation. She speci- fied that there would be no embalming and no frills.