Welcome to Dead Reckoning, the podcast where death isn't the end of the story. Hosted by writer and creator Courtney Minick, and journalist and author Beth Winegarner, based in San Francisco. Produced by Carolyn Kissick and Here Lies a Story. Artwork by Dante Silliman.
Steven Welch, a fifth-generation funeral director at San Francisco's Duggan's Funeral Service, joins Beth and Courtney to share what mortician life is like, both today and historically. He also dishes about the embalming job on Pope Francis, how HBO's "Six Feet Under" feels torn from the pages of his own family's life, and how cremation services leave room for funerary malfeasance. Links: Jessica Mitford, "The American Way of Death" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Way_of_Death Valencia Street funeral home map, FoundSF: https://www.shapingsf.org/images/fall2021/Corridor to Colma 11x17_final smaller.pdf Pope Francis' embalmed hands:
05/12/2025 • 70:25
If you got sick with a visible disease in 19th century San Francisco, you wouldn't be taken to a doctor or a hospital. You wouldn't be given chicken soup and penicillin. You'd be forcibly removed in a zinc-lined cop carriage to a set of nasty, claptrap, decrepit cottages in Potrero Hill known as the PESTHOUSE. And you guys thought Covid-19 quarantine was bad! References "Driven by Fear: Epidemics and Isolation in San Francisco's House of Pestilence," Gunter Risse "[The Origin of the Word Quarantine](https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-origin-of-the-word-quarantine/#:~:text=But to find the origin,to mid-14th century Europe.)," Science Friday "City of Plagues," Susan Craddock "The Pest House," HLAS [including a map of the location] The David Rumsey Map Collection The Chinese Exclusion Act Visiting Hawaii's Tragic and Remote Leprosy Colony "The Sick Rose," Richard Barnett "And the Band Played On," Randy Shilts Ward 86 at San Francisco General Hospital An 1896 etching from the San Francisco Call of the San Francisco Pesthouse Annex
24/10/2025 • 59:03
Do you know what happens to people when they die in poverty and estranged from family? We talk to writer and advocate Amy Shea about her book, "Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins," in which she looks at how society treats poor, homeless and marginalized people in life, and how that connects to their outcomes when they die. We also chat about a resurgence of anti-poverty laws in the Bay Area and beyond. Sources and additional reading: "Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins," Amy Shea: https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/too-poor-to-die/9781978843981/ Equitable Disposition Alliance: https://equitabledisposition.org/ "A Certain Kind of Death," dir. Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErooOhzE268&pp=ygUdYSBjZXJ0YWluIGtpbmQgb2YgZGVhdGggbW92aWU%3D "The Potter's Field," dir. Edward Heavrin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwN_rfOoIuA "The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels," Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/669835/the-unclaimed-by-pamela-prickett-and-stefan-timmermans/ "Ashes to Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer," Evie King: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76699588-ashes-to-admin "The Lonely Death of George Bell," N.R. Kleinfeld, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/nyregion/dying-alone-in-new-york-city.html "Dying old: and preferably alone? Agency, resistance and dissent at the end of life," Allan Kellehear: http://ijal.se/article/view/1183
02/10/2025 • 70:32
How did all those bones end up in a pit at Fort Mason? The Anatomy Act, that's how! In this episode, Courtney takes us through the history of using human cadavers to learn about medicine — whether people liked it or not. What started out as punishment for criminal acts turned into punishment for being poor. We'll talk about how this practice evolved from England to the US, from the East Coast to the West, and how the bodies of the poor and marginalized fed the study of medicine and anatomy. Links & References Death, Dissection, and the Destitute by Ruth Richardson The Butchering Art by Lindsay Fitzharris Archaeology and Bioarchaeology of Anatomical Dissection at a Nineteenth-Century Army Hospital in San Francisco by Willey et al On Penn's dubious collection of human remains China Turns Out Mummified Bodies for Display Surgeon's Hall Museum, Edinburgh - home of Burke's death mask Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach Reuters Investigates: The Body Trade Photo of a Mortsafe A note from Courtney On Mathus: The Malthusian theory - sometimes called the Malthusian trap - posits that if population growth outpaces agricultural production, famine will result, which will lead to more poverty and declining birth rates, leading to societal collapse. His work was used to justify eugenic forms of population control (Including the New Poor Acts) - and although Malthusianism has since come to be identified with the issue of general over-population, the original Malthusian concern was more specifically with the fear of over-population by the dependent poor. Still not a fan.
12/09/2025 • 61:36
Workers clearing lead-contaminated soil at Fort Mason in 2010 got an unpleasant surprise when they uncovered a pit full of body parts dating back to the 19th century. Beth shares the research into who these early San Franciscans were, why they were buried in a Fort Mason courtyard, and the man most likely responsible: A U.S. Army surgeon named Edwin Bentley. Sources: "Archaeology and Bioarchaeology of Anatomical Dissection at a Nineteenth-Century Army Hospital in San Francisco," edited by P. Willey, Peter Gavette, Eric J. Bartelink and Colleen F. Milligan: https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9781683402664 "Now and Then: Fort Mason," National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/photosmultimedia/now-and-then-foma.htm Dr. Edwin Bentley. Image courtesy of the NIH's National Library of Medicine: https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101416384-img?qvq=q:bentley;lc:NLMNLM~1~1&mi=5&trs=8 Check out the books we are reading https://bookshop.org/lists/dead-reckoning-sources
22/08/2025 • 56:27
There's an unmarked cemetery in the heart of San Francisco, where hundreds, possibly thousands, of graves rest beneath the popular destinations like the Main Library, the Asian Art Museum, and the United Nations Plaza. Beth takes us through the history of this place, once called Yerba Buena Cemetery, and touches on the history of SF burials before and during the Gold Rush. Sources: "San Francisco's Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History" by Beth Winegarner: https://www.bethwinegarner.com/san-franciscos-forgotten-cemeteries "Archaeological monitoring and architectural documentation : San Francisco Main Library project, site of the former City Hall completed in 1897," City and County of San Francisco: http://sflib1.sfpl.org/record=b1554397~S1 From San Francisco Call, Volume 75, Number 69, 7 February 1894
07/08/2025 • 66:49
Welcome to Dead Reckoning, the podcast where death isn't the end of the story. Hosted by writer and creator Courtney Minick, and journalist and author Beth Winegarner, based in San Francisco. Produced by Carolyn Kissick and Here Lies a Story. Artwork by Dante Silliman.
01/08/2025 • 04:37
Welcome to Dead Reckoning - the podcast where death isn't the end of the story. Hosted by writer and creator Courtney Minick, and journalist and author Beth Winegarner, coming to you live from San Francisco. Produced by Carolyn Kissick and Here Lies a Story. Artwork by Dante Silliman.
06/05/2025 • 00:22
