One of the great things about being retired and not working everyday is the time that I have to do things.  One of the things I do is mentor young business people — some where I have an investment in the company. . . and some where I just give advice when I am asked.

One of the things that I tell aspiring young business people is that even if you have invented a great widget or have a service that people will break down the door to get to, is that without “perseverance” — regardless of whatever business you are in, you will not make it.  In virtually all businesses there is a time, and sometimes several times, that perseverance to just keep going is needed, before you can turn that business into a profitable going concern.

Today, I am going to introduce you to Mark Hubbard from this article in New Hampshire Magazine.  Mark is one of those people who started out as a young man with a service that has morphed into a individually owned small company named Dignified Cemetery Services.  Mark started out 40 years ago with one shovel and a strong back with the desire to make some income digging graves as needed.

Today, Dignified Cemetery Services operates 12 trucks and is also in the monument and vault business.  Good for Mark. . . that is the American Dream!!

A couple of interesting takes and facts that I took from the article included:

• The grave needs to get done regardless of impediments because the gravedigger has a firm deadline
• Hubbard believes he once set a world-record for digging a full-sized grave by hand when he had perfect conditions.  He completed the task in 50 minutes.
• Hubbard remembers the first grave he dug.  As he stood there and admired it, the grave gave way and he fell in.  He has learned never to stand on the edge of an open grave.
• Hubbard is always looking for good gravediggers.  Qualifications include, according to Hubbard, “small head, big back, ability to draw a rectangle and a strong understanding of how a shovel works”.

Funeral Director Daily take:  I’ve always said that those that work in the cemeteries are the unsung heroes of funeral service.  Most people have no idea that somebody has had to painstakingly mark the grave in the correct location and then somebody else has to go out and dig the grave so that the vault can be placed in it.  I sometimes think that grieving families just think that happens by magic and don’t understand that their funeral director has started the process rolling.

I just happened to go out to our local non-profit cemetery late last Saturday afternoon- the day before Easter.  My father died 42 years ago on Easter Saturday and I was out to visit him.

While there I noticed a backhoe filling in a grave so I went over and it was my friend, Kyle, whose family has done the hard work of digging graves in our community for two generations.  When I started I worked with Kyle’s father.  They have been incredibly reliable.  So, on Saturday Kyle and I visited with how the “business” has changed for him.  Still a lot of graves to dig, but over half of them now are pretty small to accommodate only something as large as an urn.  And, as he said, “They still take the same time– a trip out to dig and another trip out to cover up”.

As for the unsung hero part — Kyle reminded me that he is very busy the first week in May going around to the 20 or so cemeteries he covers in our county and spreading grass seed on all of the graves he has dug over the winter non-growing season.  When families stop out to plant flowers or just visit their relative’s grave for Memorial Day, they will not even have thought about how that beautiful green grass grew there. . . but, it is there thanks to all the unsung heroes like Kyle!!

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