Across Oceans and Revolution: A Principled Life

For many years, Ann was very actively involved with the Redwood Funeral Society, which was dedicated to exposing the problems in the funeral industry. They were inspired by and knew the English activist “Decca” Mitford who wrote The American Way of Death. In 1992, Jackie Spier was conducting an investigation in Sacramento. At one of the press conferences, Ann and friend and fellow-activist, Karen Leonard, did a little strip tease.  Ann was dressed in the layers needed to protect embalmers from the chemicals they used. But, at that time, all the dangerous waste was just dumped into the sewers! As a result of their work and that of Spier and Mitford, many funeral industry practices have been “cleaned up.”