Cemetery

Turning golf courses into cemeteries. . .here’s a city that wants to do just that

By Funeral Director Daily / November 13, 2025 /

  Golf courses, in this day and age, are incredibly expensive to build.  It’s not only the land acquisition costs but you have the costs involved in shaping the fairways and the greens, building a clubhouse and equipment garages, and, of course, the holding costs while the landscape grows into a playable course.   I…

Read More

Socialism in NYC and Death Care

By Funeral Director Daily / November 12, 2025 /

  The election of Democrat Socialist Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of the city that many refer to as the “World’s Financial Center” has brought about questions on what might change.  Most of those questions deal with financial issues such as taxes and benefits.   From the perspective of Death Care and funerals my thought process…

Read More

Consumers do change habits

By Funeral Director Daily / November 7, 2025 /

  Service Corporation International Chairman and CEO Thomas Ryan made some interesting comments in his opening statements in last week’s SCI Earnings Call.  And, I wonder when looking at the long-range perspective if these comments portend an increasingly successful future for cemeteries and less of that future for traditional funeral homes.   Here’s some of…

Read More

Green cemetery case ending up in Federal Court

By Funeral Director Daily / October 30, 2025 /

  According to Gemini AI, “(the number of) articles can indicate short-term reactions, they can also foretell longer-term trends by reflecting shifts in public and business attention and sentiment”.  And, if you read the number of articles that I do while researching for Funeral Director Daily, you would probably believe, as I do, that there…

Read More

Dead people don’t pay taxes

By Funeral Director Daily / October 21, 2025 /

    In early October North America’s largest purveyor of Death Care services, Service Corporation International (SCI), received an approved zoning ruling to build Funeraria del Angel, a funeral home and cemetery in San Antonio, Texas.  You can read about the development in this article from the San Antonio Report titled “Against a school district’s…

Read More

Are we in the midst of a paradigm shift, from “Services selection” to “Memorialization selection”, by the consumer

By Funeral Director Daily / October 16, 2025 /

    As things seem to do in my life, circumstances came together this week to have me reflect on changes in the Death Care profession/industry.  First of all, here’s three items that came together to make me think about changes in our businesses.   I attended the funeral of a long-time member of my…

Read More

Hollywood Forever’s “High-Rise” mausoleum and “Premium” products may be the future of cemeteries

By Funeral Director Daily / October 14, 2025 /

  This information (with photos) from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery announces the opening of their recently completed Gower Mausoleum.  Here’s a paragraph from the cemetery’s recent announcement:   “Hollywood Forever is honored to announce the opening of the Gower Mausoleum, a new architectural landmark in Los Angeles and the tallest mausoleum in the United States.…

Read More

Park Lawn adds Memorial Gardens in Taos

By Funeral Director Daily / October 6, 2025 /

  According to this press release from Park Lawn Corporation, the funeral home and cemetery consolidator added what they call their Taos Memorial Gardens adjacent to their existing DeVargas Funeral Home in Taos, New Mexico.   In a prepared statement from the press release Park Lawn Corporation Chief Executive Officer Jennifer W. Hay made this…

Read More

Green Burials. . . . . .The Resistance

By Funeral Director Daily / September 25, 2025 /

    Minnesota funeral director Scott Mueller is a proponent of “Green Burials”.  Mueller makes a comment in this recent article from the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin titled “As interest in green burials grows, so does some opposition”.  Mueller’s comment is this, “As long as people have walked this earth, we’ve had green burials.  Every cemetery…

Read More

Airlines, cemeteries dealing with “Wide-bodies”

By Funeral Director Daily / September 3, 2025 /

    Just last week according to this article from Newsweek “Southwest Airlines announced that it was ending a policy that allowed plus-size travelers to book an extra seat without extra costs. Under the new rules, passengers must buy two seats if they cannot fit on one, but refunds may be considered if the flight…

Read More