Raising the Dead With a Video Assist : Legacy: A company called Forever Enterprises helps people make digital autobiographies to provide their survivors with happy memories. After all, says one customer, ‘Dead people aren’t much fun.’

Lester and Dorothy Schafer took the high-tech route in planning their funeral. They digitalized themselves for a “scrapbook” to be scanned by survivors at the cemetery where they plan to be buried.

“I think funerals are bad. They are sad,” Dorothy Schafer says. “With this, they will remember us in a different way.”

Using the resources of Forever Enterprises, the couple produced an interactive autobiography to be accessible via computers at the Bellerive Heritage Gardens cemetery after their deaths.

Mourners simply touch the computer screen and follow audio directions. A few touches can lead to images, audio and video. The Schafers say, and the company insists, these will help ease their family’s pain.

“When you see somebody who didn’t know their mom and dad made the biography, it’s the most valuable thing they ever could have,” says Brent Cassity, head of the St. Louis-based company.

Forever Enterprises began creating the digital biographies they call Forever Memorials in 1997. Since then, seven cemeteries in Missouri, California and New Jersey--including two owned by the company--have installed the computers.

“You can watch one and feel like you know the family,” Pam Gehrs, director of family services at Bellerive, says. “This is one of the things that the families express . . . how glad they are that they did this.”

Prices range from $600 for a digitalized set of portraits to $5,000 for a complete biography of video images and audio. They either can be autobiographical or created by survivors from tapes and images of the deceased.

The Schafers--Dorothy is 85 and Lester is nearly 84--are in pretty good health, though “we widdle and waddle a bit,” Dorothy says.

They created their story to introduce their children and grandchildren to their earlier, more active, years. Why? “Dead people aren’t much fun,” she says. “They can’t do anything.”

The couple narrated each photo --from Dorothy in her mother’s wedding dress to both riding an elephant at Forest Park. For instance, Lester Schafer described himself as such “a cute little devil” that “all the girls used to want to pick me up.” That was 1918, when he was nearly 2.

The last photo is of Dorothy and Lester sitting outdoors. “Have fun with what your mom and dad said,” Dorothy advises her children on tape. Then she turned to share a kiss. “We will be waiting for you. Where else could you go?”

Their children, she says, will consider this foolish. “It was silly,” she concedes, “but it was fun.”

Brent Cassity and his younger brother, Tyler, were inspired by an audiotape of their grandmother. “She’d been gone for three years,” Brent Cassity says. “But it was amazing to hear the inflection of her voice, her tone. It just sort of fades into your memory.”

Mortuaries scoffed at the idea, so the Cassitys bought a funeral home in 1988--then bought nine more. They sold them last year but retained ownership of the Bellerive cemetery, which they have used to test Forever Memorials.

During the years they owned the funeral homes, they created more than 8,000 video biographies of their clients. “We want the cemetery to become a library,” the elder brother says.

All of the biographies prior to 1998 were created on videotape. A few years ago, the two realized that with age the tapes turn blurry and grainy. So they took their idea high-tech and created digital biographies. They say they also plan to put them on the Internet.

The Cassitys’ most famous collection is near the Hollywood (Calif.) Memorial Park Cemetery, where many screen legends are buried. In 1998 the brothers bought the cemetery for $375,000 at a bankruptcy auction. They hope to add 60,000 grave sites.

They also plan to create biographies of Hollywood heavyweights like Rudolph Valentino and Jayne Mansfield, who are buried there.

But biographies are not just for celebrities. “Everyone who is notable will get their biography on A&E;,” Brent Cassity says. “We’re here to make sure everyone else gets a biography.”