Cemetery

Cremations, and now tariffs creating headwinds for monument dealers

By Funeral Director Daily / December 16, 2025 /

  American monument dealers have become accustomed to dealing with the rising cremation rates in the country and the dwindling sales opportunities for cemetery monuments that fact brings.   But now, according to this recent article from CNBC titled “An industry focused on death faces an existential crisis”, family-owned monument dealers have seen United States…

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The Green Funeral movement is alive in New York City

By Funeral Director Daily / December 11, 2025 /

  Amy Cunningham is a friend of mine.  She was a writer/editor who has become a funeral director and she has teased me that I was a funeral director who has became a writer/editor with Funeral Director Daily.   This second career for Ms. Cunningham has brought her to the forefront of a growing movement…

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Opinion: The Jewish Faith and Cremation

By Funeral Director Daily / December 10, 2025 /

  I grew up in the very homogeneous community of Alexandria, Minnesota.  From this Wikipedia article you can see that the city at the time of my growing up had a population of a little over 6,000.  Today, according to the same Wikipedia article the community’s “metropolitan area” – those that live, work, and/or attend…

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Missing body causing problems between family and cemetery

By Funeral Director Daily / December 3, 2025 /

    According to details in this article from CBC Canada Royal Air Force glider pilot veteran Gordon Patrick was buried at the Green Acres Cemetery outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba, following his death in 1973.  For whatever reason, probably at least partially because he was estranged from his daughter, Elizabeth Patrick, who lived in Great…

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62 Years ago this week. . . . the story of the Kennedy casket

By Funeral Director Daily / November 26, 2025 /

  Imagine it is lunch time at the funeral home you work at when you get a call from the hospital two miles away that you need to immediately bring the best casket you have to the hospital.  And, by the way, it is for the President of the United States.   That’s the call…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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