@cobalt, the husband had, has plenty of coin for any kind of funeral short of a "Micheal Jackson" type. He refused to pay for the funeral, basically wanted the "County" to do a "Colonel Sinders Special (that's where the county cremates her as a Jane Doe, "street-or-homeless person" at tax-payer expense)" which outraged the friends of his Kingdom Hall. This brother was furious he married a "broken women (menally ill)", he is very screwed up in the head too.
Her kids were not part of the Organization ("unbaptized-publishers" who fell away from the Truth)therefore he felt uncomfortable allowing them (unwholesome association) to pick up her clothes, trinkets, knick-nacks of purely "sentimental value"
If I had $750,000 in CDs, and I allowed the Kingdom Hall elders who are poor materially to pay for this expense, I am a piece of shit! What a good hearted congregation to take over her expenses when they don't have the "means" her husband had/has. There is alot of good with Witnessses as human beings, compassion and altruism when they are able to push "the rule-makers" back and listen to their consciences.
This is the hardest part of walking away from the Organization, for many of our friends is they still enjoy socializing with decent people. The "husband" still is going in field service and preaching the "Good News", and think's the congregation should have paid for his wife's funeral, if they did not like the "County Option".
He's a selfish bastard from all accounts, sidenote(most of his friends in the kingdom hall decided he was not good assocation, so it's costed him for being a "skate".). Reading past accounts of people's stories of "defraying cost in Field Service", many of you here never received consistent donations from the "free-loading mooches" who sat in your "new-field-service-cars" Tusday-Saturday while you paid for Petro and "wear and tear" on your cars, vans or trucks. He was one of those people who enjoyed sitting in your cars, while you paid for gas week-after-week.