Addendum: Bateson didn't exist, but fear of premature burial did!

The facts show that George Bateson and his belfry were an invention of novelist Michael Crichton. Yet he certainly did not invent the fear of premature burial − a long-standing anxiety, documented by Poe and many other sources.

Not only that, but the fear persisted. Several secondary sources and personal recollections mention that Eleanor Roosevelt had a lifelong fear of being accidentally buried alive. Indeed, it is reported that she left instructions to have her veins cut prior to burial, to be absolutely certain she was dead and could not revive after burial.

I should note that most of these sources fail to cite the story to primary documents. (The recollections of friends and acquaintances are a primary source of a sort, but are not always reliable − particularly when recorded long after the fact.)

Roosevelt’s story vividly illustrates the power and persistence of this apparently age-old fear − the very fact that made Crichton’s invented story so deceptively plausible. But in keeping with the cautionary example of the Bateson story, I was not comfortable posting this addendum without documentary proof.

Thanks to Dara Baker, archivist at the FDR Presidential Library & Museum, I have now received that proof. Eleanor left burial instructions, dated June 21, 1955, when she was 70 years old. (The document survives as an unsigned copy in the papers of her youngest son, John Roosevelt.)

The text asks her executors to arrange a simple funeral and a simple coffin. But the very first line instructs “any doctor in charge to open veins to be sure I am dead.”

A scan of the document appears below, courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library.