JESSICA MITFORD, 78, PENNED EXPOSE ON UNDERTAKER BUSINESS.Byline: Martha Irvine Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Jessica Mitford Noun 1. Jessica Mitford - United States writer (born in England) who wrote on American culture (1917-1996) Jessica Lucy Mitford, Mitford , whose book ``The American Way The American way of life is an expression that refers to the "life style" of people living in the United States of America. It is an example of a behavioral modality, developed from the 17th century until today. of Death'' was hailed as a blistering indictment of the undertaker business, died Tuesday. She was 78. Mitford died of lung cancer lung cancer, cancer that originates in the tissues of the lungs. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States in both men and women. Like other cancers, lung cancer occurs after repeated insults to the genetic material of the cell. at her Oakland home. Written in 1963, Mitford's book poked fun at the euphemisms used by the funeral industry she saw as a way of pulling more money from the pockets of grieving families. The book led to an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and earned Mitford the title ``Queen of the Muckrakers'' as well as charges of anti-Americanism from Republicans and the funeral industry. Born in Gloucestershire, England, Mitford had lived an aristocratic life in the English countryside when at age 20 she ran away from home to fight in the Spanish Civil War Spanish civil war, 1936–39, conflict in which the conservative and traditionalist forces in Spain rose against and finally overthrew the second Spanish republic. as a Communist with her first husband, Esmond Romilly Esmond Marcus David Romilly, (June 10 1918–November 30 1941), was a well-born British socialist and anti-fascist. His mother was a daughter of Lady Blanche Hozier(1852–1925), daughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie and married at the time to Sir Henry Montague Hozier , who was Winston Churchill's nephew. She and several of her sisters - another of whom was a writer and two who were pro-Hitler fascists - were known as the ``Mitford Girls,'' immortalized in the John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August, 1906 – 19 May, 1984) was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack". He was born to a middle-class family in Edwardian Hampstead. poem by the same name. In 1939, Mitford moved to the United States and became a citizen. She married Robert Treuhaft, a lawyer, after her first husband was shot down in 1941 while with the Canadian Royal Air Force. Mitford turned to writing after losing her job at the San Francisco Chronicle's classified department when the FBI investigated her and her husband's Communist activities. She appeared before Sen. Joseph McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities and her civil rights work helped land her on the U.S. attorney general's list of subversive citizens. In 1960 she published her first book, an autobiography titled ``Daughters and Rebels.'' She wrote several other books, such as ``Kind and Unusual Punishment: The Prison Business'' (1973), which chronicled a brutal system, and ``The American Way of Birth'' (1992), in which she accused doctors of doing too many Caesarean sections. Of her own funeral, Mitford once said, ``I always say I just want the best - six black horses with white plumes. And I certainly want to be embalmed, because the embalmers always claim they can make you look 20 years younger.'' |
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