Funeral Director Daily

Who drives the choices?

By Funeral Director Daily / May 7, 2019 /

I spent three days last week in Las Vegas with about 150 other people from the death care profession.  The group is a wide mix of people, with all of us having the death care industry in common.  Some are small funeral home owner/operators like me, some are CEOs of the largest public death care…

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Looking back to the men who rode

By Funeral Director Daily / May 6, 2019 /

I’m a life-long Lutheran and have attended the same church since I was born.  As a matter of fact, my great-grandfather, where the roots for our funeral home business come from as he started out as a cabinet maker who then built coffins to order – is one of six men listed on the charter…

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New York cemetery moves caskets without notification, State investigating

By Funeral Director Daily / May 3, 2019 /

Today we bring you this story that broke earlier this week out of West Seneca, New York.  It deals with the movement of about 220 buried caskets from one part of a cemetery to another part of that same cemetery.  You can see a story and news video about this from WKBW of Buffalo here.…

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Park Lawn Corporation moves into St. Louis market

By Funeral Director Daily / May 2, 2019 /

In a press release out of Park Lawn Corporation headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, today, the company announced that it had acquired the assets of two-location funeral business John L. Ziegenhein & Sons Undertaking, Inc.  According to the press release that you can read here, the Ziegenhein Funeral Homes were acquired for a purchase price of…

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Carriage Services 1st Quarter — Total Revenue Drops

By Funeral Director Daily / May 2, 2019 /

Houston based funeral home and cemetery consolidator and operator Carriage Services reported its 1st Quarter 2019 results yesterday.  Their report somewhat parroted industry leader Service Corporation International’s report from a week ago in that “Same Unit” revenues dropped.  In Carriage’s case, however, even with new acquisition revenue added in, their 2019 revenues of $69.1 million…

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Is there hidden value in crematory physical plants?

By Funeral Director Daily / May 1, 2019 /

I read an interesting article the other day published by Reuters out of Tokyo, Japan.  It piqued my interest because I have seen in the recent past and believe going forward that new crematory facilities will continue to be a challenge to get built in locations across North America. My belief stems from the fact…

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SCI reports 1st Qtr. . . Comparable Unit funeral sales drop 5.5%

By Funeral Director Daily / April 30, 2019 /

North America’s largest funeral home and cemetery operator, Service Corporation International, reported 1st Quarter 2019 results last week and you can see their press release on those results here. The company’s CEO, Tom Ryan, issued the following statement in the report.  “We are encouraged as we start of 2019 on par with prior year earnings…

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Cemetery volunteers file lawsuit against billboard company

By Funeral Director Daily / April 29, 2019 /

Washington Park Cemetery sits in suburban St. Louis, Missouri.  It is a cemetery that opened in 1920 and has not accepted new burials for almost three decades according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Wanda Brandon is among a group of volunteers who tend to the cemetery.  She has filed a lawsuit against…

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TGI. . . . .Friday!!

By Funeral Director Daily / April 26, 2019 /

Over the last week I’ve read several articles from around the world that describe different aspects of funeral directing, working as a mortician, or operating a funeral home and the people that do those tasks.  Without much editorializing on my part I am just going to present the articles for you to read. This article…

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An unsung hero in the funeral trade

By Funeral Director Daily / April 25, 2019 /

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.…

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