A refrigerated space where a dead body is kept for examination or storage. During times of disaster, public facilities such as ice rinks may be used to act as temporary morgues.
Funeral homes maintain chapels, viewing rooms and casket display areas, and are staffed by funeral directors who help families make arrangements for end-of-life services. They also operate mortuaries, which are laboratory-like prep spaces that perform cremations on-site.
What is a Mortuary?
Mortuary is a place where the deceased are stored until funeral arrangements can be made. This facility usually has an embalming room, a viewing area and a chapel for services. Mortuaries may also have a crematorium for on-site cremation.
The main difference between a mortuary and a funeral home is that the former typically focuses on the embalming and funeral arrangement aspects of death care. In addition, a mortuary may offer more burial and memorialization options than a funeral home.
The term mortuary may also refer to a funeral home that offers only on-site cremation and limited urn and casket options. However, this is not always the case. Many funeral homes, like Green Cremation Texas, have a mortuary on site and also provide full funeral and memorialization services.
What is the Difference Between a Mortuary and a Funeral Home?
A funeral home is a place where family members gather to grieve and celebrate the life of a loved one after death. They offer a variety of services to help families through the difficult times following a death, including visitations, memorial ceremonies and funeral services, onsite cremation, casketing, and makeup. They can also assist with coordinating with churches, cemeteries, and third-party services such as musicians and florists.
A mortuary is a place where bodies are stored until they can be identified or retrieved by the funeral home to prepare for a burial or cremation service. In some cases, a morgue may also be involved in conducting autopsies or forensic examinations to determine the cause of death.
Mortuaries often provide fewer services than a funeral home and can be more expensive. However, funeral homes can be helpful to people who are preplanning their end-of-life wishes and need help wading through all the options available. Many funeral homes also provide grief support and can guide families through the complicated process of arranging a final resting place.
What is the Difference Between a Mortuary and a Crematory?
One theory is that mortuaries are more bare-bones operations than funeral homes, since they focus on mortuary science and don’t offer many services related to the funeral service. For example, a mortuary might only offer a brief viewing for immediate family members and on-site cremation.
On the other hand, a funeral home may have a chapel for services, staterooms for visiting, large parking lots, and more. Some mortuaries, such as Myers Mortuary in Georgia and Hart’s Mortuary in Texas, have a blended offering of a funeral home and a mortuary.
Cremation is a process where the body is reduced to ashes by mechanical, thermal, or other dissolution methods. The ashes are typically pulverized into a fine dust and are then placed in an urn or other memorial object. Cremated remains do not look like ashes, but rather are a grey-white powder with a distinctive odor. They can also be scattered or interred in a cemetery.
What is the Difference Between a Mortuary and a Cemetery?
Interestingly, in a LinkedIn poll we ran recently, 68% of respondents believed that the term mortuary and funeral home are interchangeable. The theory is that funeral homes evolved out of morgues and undertakers, whose services were limited.
A mortuary is a facility where staff prepare a body for burial or cremation. A mortuary is a smaller operation than a funeral home and typically does not have viewing rooms. Viewings are usually reserved for immediate family members only.
Mortuary staff are licensed by the state in which they work. Licensing requirements typically include completing a mortuary science program and passing state licensing exams. States also set standards for the handling, transportation and storage of deceased individuals in a mortuary. In addition, some states have consumer protection regulations that require transparency in pricing and written contracts. Some states require a funeral director to be present at all times when preparing a deceased person for a funeral or memorial service.