Jessica "Decca" Mitford, English author, activist and one of the Mitford sisters, dies at 78 British-born American radical and "muckraking" writer.
Her bestseller, 'The American Way of Death', led to reforms of the American funeral industry.
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Name variations: Decca. Born Jessica Lucy Mitford in Batsford Mansion, Gloucestershire, England, on September 11, 1917; died on July 23, 1996, at her home in Oakland, California; sixth of the seven children of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Lord Redesdale, and Sydney Bowles, six of whom were girls;
Emigrated to America (1939); naturalized (1944); left Communist Party (1958); had success with The American Way of Death (1962).