Funeral Director Daily

Park Lawn makes acquisition, enters the state of Virginia

By Funeral Director Daily / July 11, 2022 /

This press release issued last week by Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) will tell you of their acquisition of Farris Funeral Service, Inc. and Affiliated Service Group, Inc. (collectively known as “Farris”).  The businesses acquired include one stand-alone funeral home and one on-site funeral home and cemetery located in Abingdon, Virginia. Here’s what Park Lawn Corporation…

A killer among them

By Funeral Director Daily / July 8, 2022 /

Arlington National Cemetery is known as “hallowed ground”.  On May 13, 1864, the first burial of military personnel was completed there when Private William Christman was interred.  Just over a month later Arlington officially became a national cemetery on June 15, 1864, by order of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. In the 158 years since…

Death care startup, Bare, raises over $6 million in Series A funding

By Funeral Director Daily / July 7, 2022 /

Bare, the Australian death care start-up that was founded in 2019 and already has a staff of 42 and has served over 15,000 Australians to date announced in June that it had raised AUS $10 million (US $6.82 million) in a round of Series A funding to advance their growth journey. This article from Smart…

Premier Preneed adds training videos

By Funeral Director Daily / July 6, 2022 /

According to a press release from the company, Premier Preneed Marketing, a preneed marketing company that offers funeral homes throughout the United States a comprehensive product portfolio to meet both their financial objectives and marketing needs, has announced that the company has recently developed a series of training videos on the topic of preneed.  These…

Article: “Funeral industry trying to hold the line as costs soar”

By Funeral Director Daily / July 6, 2022 /

Over the holiday weekend Fox Business published the article referred to in our headline here.  It’s an article that is actually positive to the funeral industry but does tell of the fact that eventually, as costs rise, funeral costs to consumers will have to rise also. The article points out that even though the United…

NFDA puts blitz on Baltimore

By Funeral Director Daily / July 5, 2022 /

I recently received an e-mail from the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) informing me of the NFDA International Convention and Expo that will be taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, from October 9-12, 2022.  After two years of having to worry about Covid, I figured it is time to get it on my calendar and be…

Design studio Claesson Koivisto Rune completes “unusual assignment’ of urn

By Funeral Director Daily / July 5, 2022 /

Claesson Koivisto Rune design studio co-founder Marten Claesson made the following comment in this recent article from dezeen, “This is an unusual assignment for us.  The funeral homes of Sweden are dominated by a few chains and Systrarna Ocklind is a very rare independent funeral home.. . . .(they) are daring to offer an alternative,…

The 4th of July still stands for Freedom. . . an immigrant’s tale

By Funeral Director Daily / July 1, 2022 /

Our funeral home is celebrating its 150th year of business in 2022.  I thought the 4th of July weekend was a great time to tell you of our history and also that history of another American immigrant whose life has intersected with our family on numerous occasions.  And, that immigrant’s life has had a major…

Is this the future of small rural church cemeteries?

By Funeral Director Daily / June 30, 2022 /

If you don’t live in “flyover land” like I do, you are probably not even aware of the small rural churches that have been closed.  Churches built by the pioneer throngs when they settled in rural America seem to have have run their course as it is now easier for rural families to commute to…

Does America’s death culture foreshadow a divided nation?

By Funeral Director Daily / June 29, 2022 /

There’s a lot that America has been divided about lately. . . politics, Supreme Court rulings, reasons for inflation  — the list can go on and on.  The podcast Big Brains from the University of Chicago, which has the podcast transcript available on the link also, has an interview with anthropologist Shannon Lee Dawdy that…