by Bob Nelson
With the freezing of Marie Sweet, the CSC now had its first frozen hero. Keeping Marie’s body in perpetual suspension required money. The meager CSC budget depended on member dues, which weren’t enough to cover day-to-day expenses. Knowing Marie, I was confident she had set aside at least the minimal amount necessary for her suspension. We needed to find a capsule, a permanent storage facility, and a liquid nitrogen provider. We were looking at at least ten thousand dollars to start, maybe more.
Russ showed up at my house a few days later. He pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and laid it on the table.
“There’s three hundred dollars, Bob,” he said. “That’s all the money we have.”
Shocked, I stared at the meager pile of money. I had assumed Marie and Russ were financially secure. They lived in a gorgeous home overlooking the ocean, and he sold unique iron gates to wealthy people. Looking at Russ’s forlorn expression, I knew he was telling me the truth.
I picked up the cash and rolled the bills around in my hand. “Is that all?” I asked. Three hundred dollars would pay for only a month of dry ice.
“That’s it,” he said. “We’ve mostly been living on our Social Security. I know it’s not enough to keep her in suspension. Please do whatever you can.”
How could I say no? I dropped the money back on the table, and it landed next to a family photo of Elaine and me. I remembered that Russ cherished Marie the way I loved my wife. I would fight for Marie. “I’ll keep her in temporary storage as long as possible. Perhaps with some publicity generated by the suspension, and a little arm-twisting within the cryonics community, enough money could be raised.”
Russ Van Norden, Russ Stanley, and I set out to find donations for Marie Sweet’s suspension. I wrote Professor Ettinger, asking if he could raise money from the membership of the Cryonics Society of Michigan. He replied with a personal check for one hundred dollars to help Marie. While hope, passion, and faith were plentiful within the cryonics community, cash always seemed to be a scarce commodity. His donation was generous and touching. He wrote, “I’ll see what can be done locally, but I’m doubtful we can raise any substantial sum.”
In Russ’s impassioned plea to the cryonics community and his wife’s numerous organizations, he gave voice to the motivations and dreams of all our members:
Tears dim my eyes and anguish wrenches at my heart as I recall with crystal clarity my wife’s many crusades for the peaceful communication of mankind. I am humbled that I have done so little in comparison. As many of you now know, she lies carefully but critically suspended, no different in essence than when you knew her yesteryear. If she has touched your cause and organization, then you may have felt her contribution and feel moved to give your kind aid.
Perhaps it could be said of her that she had everything except money, for the great and near great counted her as a friend. From East to West and even abroad, she helped to weave the fabric of some good Cause for the benefit and enlightenment of mankind.
I touched her hair and kissed her now cold lips in a farewell for what may well be only a few short years. Swiftly developing science may remove her from her minus-zero suspended animation and return her here among us—her enthusiasm undimmed.
If you would dare believe this is possible, the need is now for funds for cryogenic care until the final sealing of her enclosing capsule for the long wait of months or years ahead. Hers was an ideal passing, and traditional fears only hover at the outer edge of my consciousness. For I believe in steadfast earnestness that she will come back to us.
Russ Le Croix Van Norden
His letter received a torrent of sympathy mail and emotional support, but little money. We contemplated our other options, but none of our efforts proved successful.
Joseph Klockgether agreed to keep Marie Sweet in his unused garage on his mortuary grounds until we could obtain a capsule and a permanent storage facility. Those twin tasks were far more arduous than I had envisioned. First there was the dry ice, which had to be replenished every week and cost ninety dollars. Often there weren’t enough funds in the CSC bank account to cover the weekly replenishment, and I had to withdraw the money from my personal account. Sometimes I had to choose between paying my mortgage and paying for dry ice. And with each dollar spent on dry ice, we were a dollar further away from a permanent solution.
Thus began my weekly ritual of transporting the dry ice across Los Angeles to Joseph’s mortuary, which I would perform for the next two years. I usually left around ten or eleven o’clock in the morning to avoid the worst of the traffic during my fifty-mile trek on the Ventura Freeway between my home in Woodland Hills and the Rennaker Mortuary in Buena Park. The ninety-minute trip could extend to three hours, the dry ice slowly subliming in my backseat. The cold permeated the seats and froze the upholstery on my Porsche Speedster; eventually the leather seats looked like black prunes.
One Saturday I was sitting in traffic, watching the dry ice slowly disappear in my rearview mirror. I wanted action, and yet all I seemed to be doing was sitting, waiting, and accomplishing nothing more than my friends lying in stasis. In an effort to move, to do something, I pulled my car over to the freeway shoulder and buried my face in my hands. “Am I crazy?” I said aloud. “What the hell am I doing? This is madness.” My breathing grew shallow and fast as I fought the temptation to take the dry ice from the backseat and shuck it off the overpass. It would be an ending.
I balled my hands into fists so tight that my nails cut into the fleshy part of my palms and tried to calm myself. I repeated memorable lines from Professor Ettinger’s book, from his appearances, and from our conversations. I made a mental checklist of all the supporting documentation about cryonics and convinced myself again of its logic. I looked out the window and marveled at a weed growing from the narrowest imaginable crack in the dry asphalt. “Yes, this is logical,” I resolved. “But it’s also crazy. Life is crazy. And life always finds a way.” I shrugged, resigned once again to my fate of these weekly sojourns of dry-ice replenishment and feeling confident that these were messy but necessary steps toward our goal of future reanimation.
At the mortuary I pulled up to the garage and unloaded the dry ice. Marie’s container was kept below a wide shelf on rollers so it could be pulled out. I removed the lid and placed the dry ice around her sides, which gave me the opportunity to visually inspect her condition every week. I wanted to make sure she was still solidly frozen and she didn’t have skin burns from the dry ice. Her face and features looked identical to when we had our last conversation. There was no deterioration or alteration; not even her blue pantsuit seemed changed. Once satisfied, I covered her with the remaining dry ice, starting with her face and then working down to her feet. Finally I replaced the lid and rolled her container back into place. The procedure usually took about forty-five minutes.
I dreaded trying to find Joseph at the mortuary. I wandered around the facility calling for him, but I inevitably located him in the embalming room. Many times I’d gone there and found Joseph standing over a body on the operating table. In those moments, the macabre reality of death came upon me. Sometimes the corpse was cut open, the intestines lying on the table.
I hoped that with all my efforts, embalming would be reduced. That practice seemed horrendously wasteful—it only temporarily preserved the appearance of life, while we wanted to preserve life itself.
When remembering the history of the cryonics movement in which I was privileged to participate, I could not forget a frail, tiny lady named Helen Kline—the woman who hosted our first California cryonics meetings. While in the final stages of lung cancer, Helen read The Prospect of Immortality. She was a motivating force from the beginning. Although only in her mid- to late fifties, she was quite frail. During the meetings in her home, she often excused herself with her frequent coughing fits.
One time she asked me to accompany her to the grocery store. When we arrived at the market, she
kept her arm hooked in mine and paraded around the store instead of actually shopping. I noticed all her friends staring and whispering about me. I realized I wasn’t providing assistance but rather arm candy. Playing the role she wanted, I strutted with her, hoping to provide the most memorable impression on behalf of this indomitable lady.
On May 14, 1968, I received a call from her sister at Los Angeles General Hospital. “I’m Maryann, Helen’s sister. She asked me to phone you several days ago, and I’m sorry it took me so long. She’s in a coma now, and her doctors say her condition is deteriorating fast.”
“Thanks so much for calling,” I replied. As I had learned too well with Marie Sweet, advance knowledge and preparation were vital. “Are you aware that Helen is a major figure in cryonics? She has signed all the necessary documents to have her body frozen at death.”
“I am aware of the legal papers.”
Her curt tone worried me, so I rushed to Helen’s bedside.
When I arrived at the hospital, I could see Helen was near the end. Her skin was a shocking blue-gray, and she was flanked by countless machines. Nurses hurried in and out of the room to check her monitors. Maryann was holding Helen’s hand; she was about sixty, with a heap of gray hair stacked high on her head.
Since I wasn’t sure if Helen could hear us, I asked Maryann to follow me into the hallway. “Has your sister made any financial arrangements for cryonics suspension?”
She held up her hand. “There’s no need to discuss this. I have no money, and neither does Helen. While you were on your way here, she regained consciousness and told me she changed her mind and does not want her body frozen. She wants to be cremated.”
Her statement ignited a slow burn in my gut. “Really?” I replied. “Are you telling me that very coincidentally, as I was rushing down here to make arrangements to place her in suspended animation, she miraculously came out of a coma just long enough to tell you that she had changed her mind and wanted to be cremated, then conveniently went back into her coma?”
She sheepishly answered, “Well, yes.”
I did not want to further upset the woman, but I couldn’t allow her to interfere with Helen’s wishes. Firmly yet gently I told her, “I think it would be wise for you to back off, unless you want a lawsuit you couldn’t possibly win.”
I was bluffing. Cryonics was controversial, and a good outcome wasn’t guaranteed, regardless of Helen’s wishes. Besides, once Helen was declared clinically dead, any legal delay would be devastating to a successful perfusion.
Fortunately, Maryann backed down; she didn’t want a fight any more than I did.
I quickly began preparations for Helen’s perfusion at the moment she was declared dead. I told the hospital staff that the CSC was a cryobiological research organization, Helen was a medical donor, and she needed to be covered in ice so that we could accept her donation. To my relief, they cooperated. When Joseph Klockgether arrived at the hospital to retrieve Helen’s body, she was already packed in ice and waiting at the loading dock.
Joseph brought her to his mortuary and performed the perfusion. He then placed Helen in the temporary storage container with Marie Sweet and covered her with dry ice. The entire process from death to temporary storage took about seven hours. Thanks to the cooperation from the hospital and Joe’s swift action, Helen Kline was frozen under the best conditions.
I thought of a movie I had seen recently, Planet of the Apes. While Charlton Heston was portraying a suspended NASA astronaut hurtling toward a distant planet, mimicking what we hoped to accomplish, I was busy freezing Helen Kline and struggling to make this science-fiction notion into reality.
The CSC members unanimously agreed that we should try to give Helen a chance at long-term suspension. We had our second frozen hero, but we had yet to take on our first paying patient.
When remembering the early history of cryonics, it is impossible to ignore this frail little woman. While in the final stages of lung cancer, Helen overcame her pain and suffering and found the strength to organize the first California cryonics meeting. I am forever indebted to her.
I met Russ Stanley at that first meeting of California cryonicists in Helen’s home. He was a tall, slender older-looking gentleman with an obnoxious Cheshire cat grin, but quite athletic. He swam laps in his aboveground pool every day, even on the coldest winter morning.
Every day for the next two years, he called and talked to me for hours if I couldn’t find a way to escape. It seemed he ate, drank, and slept cryonics. If there was anything about cryonics going on, anywhere in the country, he knew about it.
He had accumulated every newsletter and article ever published on cryonics, enough to stuff a full-size file cabinet. His genuine enthusiasm was infectious, and he often provided great little pearls of new information.
On September 6, 1968, I was in San Francisco organizing a new cryonics society. During the meeting, Paul Porcasi, the CSC secretary, phoned me that Russ had suffered a heart attack and been taken to the Santa Fe Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he had been pronounced dead.
The hospital staff ignored the documentation Russ carried on him, which gave specific instructions to cool his body with ice at the moment of his death and to contact the CSC immediately. Instead they contacted Rosario, a man I had met at Russ’s house, who was listed as next of kin. Rosario thought cryonics was ridiculous, but he respected Russ’s wishes and fulfilled them the best he could.
Paul was a nervous wreck. The hospital refused to cool Russ’s body without consent from the attending physician—an infuriating stance, because brain damage began shortly after death. Rapid cooling slowed the deterioration and, in theory, preserved the memory of the patient. I adored Russ and wanted to give him the best chance for a full recovery.
I used my most authoritative tone, hoping to spur him into action: “Paul, contact Joseph Klockgether and ask him to meet you at the hospital. The hospital needs to release his body to Joseph. Also, bring along all Russ’s donation papers—they’re on file in my office.”
“Should I also bring the CSC’s articles of incorporation?” he asked.
I felt powerless so far from Los Angeles. I replied, “Bring them, but don’t go flashing them around.”
Hospitals at that time were skittish of freezing bodies for later reanimation, but they were receptive to anatomical donations for medical research. If he approached the staff as a research organization, he had a better chance of receiving their assistance.
They finally cooperated. Joseph took possession of Russ’s body, covered him with ice, and brought him to the mortuary. After the perfusion, his body was placed alongside Marie Sweet and Helen Kline. A total of six hours had elapsed between the time of Russ’s death and the start of his perfusion. Like Marie’s perfusion, the intervening time made this an imperfect operation. If Russ ever opened his eyes, he would likely have memory loss, but his suspension was still considered viable.
The day I returned from San Francisco, I contacted Rosario Coco. Russ had made Rosario executor of his estate, and I was anxious to learn the financial arrangements for his suspension. I knew Russ had impeccable records and documentation; no individual was more prepared for cryonic suspension. However, there was still the enormously important matter of financial arrangements.
Russ had told me he had a substantial bank balance. Although it didn’t cost more to keep him in temporary storage with Marie and Helen, we couldn’t sustain them forever—we desperately needed funding for a permanent storage facility. Russ knew our needs, knew our limitations, and surely had left sufficient funds to finally accomplish the task.
Russ had described Rosario as his “sweetheart from way back.” That was no real surprise to me—I had suspected Russ was gay when he introduced me to Rosario at the first meeting. To me the man looked like an owl. Rosario had big rings around his eyes and a tiny beak of a nose. He was small, with wavy gray hair and a cu
rt personality. I knew that Russ had trusted this man and thought the world of him.
In his will, Russ bequeathed ten thousand dollars to the CSC, payable in two five-thousand-dollar installments. I was stunned, as I had anticipated at least double that amount to accomplish Russ’s suspension and perpetual storage. I delicately grilled his friend about the funds to pay for Russ’s suspension. He brusquely retorted, “That’s all I know.”
Obviously Rosario wanted to dismiss us, but he was executor, and I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I asked, “Was this a donation to the CSC, or were we expected to freeze and store him perpetually for that amount?”
He said, “I have no idea,” then abruptly ended the conversation with “Good-bye.”
I stared at the telephone receiver until my backside begged me to get out of the stiff wooden office chair. Once again I found myself in the peculiar position of placing another patient in temporary storage when I knew the CSC couldn’t provide perpetual maintenance. Russ’s total purpose in his later life, at least during the years I knew him, was supporting the research of cryonics science. I was surprised to learn that one of the most fanatical and wealthy cryonics advocates had left only ten thousand dollars for his suspension. I knew Rosario was an honest man—Russ must’ve underestimated the necessary funds. I would have to invest the money he did provide wisely. It had to stretch a long way.
Chapter 6
The Vault
CSC’s membership had grown to nearly one hundred. Anticipating a deluge of cryonics requests, we set up a for-profit corporation to design, develop, and provide cryogenic hardware equipment for CSC’s future needs. Marshall Neel was the president of this company, Cryonic Interment, since he had been our business brain. He was a refreshing counterweight that kept me—the passionate, optimistic dreamer—grounded. I loved his objectivity and realism; he’d often say “Change wives, change problems.”