I recently came across a couple of surveys of of American workers and their career satisfaction and thoughts of career changes. One thing is certain. . .we are not in the 1960’s when young people were told to “get a good job, hold on to it, and retire with a pension”. We now know that individuals who follow that course of action will be few compared to those that probably work in multiple occupations during the course of their careers. […]
There is no doubt that 2020 has been a different year in so many ways. Even a hundred years from now it will be remembered as the COVID-19 pandemic year. And, in many ways, it has been a very rough year for funeral service. This radio and print report that you can read and/or listen to here from Houston Public Media tells the story of Houston based funeral director Manuel Guerra. Guerra tells of working for his employer and at […]
Over the last few days and weeks we have seen a surge in COVID related deaths in areas that had not necessarily had a surge in them yet. Over the course of the past ten months we have seen peaks and valleys in different localities during the course of this pandemic. We’ve also seen recent articles on how funeral homes are handling the surge in cases as they sometimes multiply to 3, 4, or even five times their normal rates […]
As we move into the weekend we bring you some reading material including an article on how the indigent funeral program in Ohio has more requests than usual because of a combination of not only COVID-19 deaths, but an uptick in opioid deaths as well. We also bring you a video and news story out of Buffalo that tells of a crematory about to re-open after paying a fine and being temporarily shut down by the New York State Department […]
Today’s is one of those articles that I enjoy writing. . . pure speculation on my part and if I am wrong with my thought process no one really knows until later in the year when this article has been all but forgotten. Funeral Director Daily is taking today to take a speculative look into 2021 and the different realms of death care and what we see happening with each. From traditional funeral homes, to aspiring national providers of direct […]
Louisiana funeral director George Charlet has summed up the cautions surrounding this year of COVID-19 deaths when he was faced with the idea of his mother going to a funeral. He commented on that idea by saying, “I just kind of wish people used more caution and took advantage of writing a condolence letter. It’s a weird place for me to be. It’s counterintuitive to my livelihood.” I think that is the paradox many of us in the funeral profession […]
The Associated Press recently reported in this article that the United States will, for the first time ever, pass the 3 million mark in actual deaths recorded in a single calendar year. And, in what is not a surprise to anybody in the country in this COVID-19 year, the number of deaths will be an approximately 15% increase in the number of deaths from 2019. While those numbers don’t surprise anybody there is a lot to learn from this article […]
With the Christmas holiday coming up this weekend Funeral Director Daily will not be publishing on Thursday or Friday of this week. As usual, there is plenty in our industry to tell you about, but with the limited days and multiple stories we thought we would just use this afternoon to give you some teasers on articles that you may look up yourself. First of all, we bring you this information from Adidas. . even though there is no article […]
My father died 43 years ago. I was a teenager. He was 58 years old and a prominent business man in his small community. I have no photos of the large event that was his visitation and funeral. I’ve got a newspaper article and two images inside my head. . . one image is that of our pastor in the pulpit overlooking a filled church sanctuary. The other image I have is of looking out from the back seat of […]
Probably more so than I can ever remember, funeral directors, funeral homes, and the North American funeral is being written about in 2020. And, in general, the topics seem to be all related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems to me that the topics are funeral homes being extremely busy, families dealing with death without being present, or the technology wave coming increasingly rapid to a historically slow changing profession. And, it seems that these three topics all are woven […]
