I attended a somber event last Sunday that at least in part reminded me, among other things, that funerals and memorial services matter to people. And, they are one of the events in a person’s life that can rekindle passionate memories. Last Sunday I attended the church service at tiny East Moe Lutheran Church in rural Garfield, Minnesota. . . a rural farm community about 8 miles from where I live. It is an area of gravel roads and farm […]
Malibu, California was incorporated into a city in 1991 and that led to a moratorium on new development that included, among other things, hotels. So, Malibu has famously become known as a very tough place to get a hotel room. Back in 2015, however, a group known as Green Acres, LLC, began a push to put a cemetery on a 27.8 acre site that was once proposed for a hotel. Recently that group has again been in the news, as […]
Over the years I’ve heard from many consumers that their choice for a cremation disposition had nothing to do with price. Even though I heard that often, and believed the people that told me that, as a funeral professional it was always hard to fathom when it seemed that everywhere you turned you saw cremations advertised using “price point” philosophy. By “price point” philosophy I mean billboards, newspaper, or yellow page advertising by those in the cremation business stating “Complete […]
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 that first interment about over 400,000 of America’s finest and their eligible dependents have found their eternal resting place in Arlington National Cemetery — including […]
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 larger churches in nearby cities. However, not many of those closed rural churches, like the one featured in this story, have an AR-15 in the […]
As we age it is interesting how things from the past can be brought back to memory. It’s the season of political primaries and an article from the Ohio University Scripps College of Communication triggered a memory of mine back to the Summer of 1968. First of all, the article from Ohio University was in honor of alumnus Paul Fusco who photographed the Robert F. Kennedy funeral train. You can see the article here. The memory for me brings back […]
We’ve written about the problem before in this forum. “The problem” being the lack of revenue for historic city and association cemeteries since the country’s cremation rate increased to a majority of dispositions. The increase in cremations has decreased cemetery sales in full body burial lots and interment fees. . . .as a matter of fact, many cemeteries are worried about being able to pay the upkeep bills just to keep the cemeteries open. In California, as you can see […]
The Prudential Company has the “Rock of Gibraltar” logo as an iconic brand differentiator. As a matter of fact the brand logo is one of the oldest and most recognizable in the world. . . . .first appearing for Prudential in 1896 when the company stated, “Prudential has the strength of Gibraltar”. . . . . According to the company’s website, the rock is an icon of “strength, stability, expertise, and innovation.” If you are in the cemetery or funeral […]
Ohio Senate Bill 224 will make over a dozen changes to the state’s funeral and burial laws according to this article from Cleveland.com. The bill will do such mundane things as increasing the price to reactivate a funeral director’s license and it will also establish a more formal process for families to collect money from funeral providers if a customer signed a pre-planned funeral contract, but the family never used that particular facility. One thing it won’t do, however, is […]
Every day when I search for articles that relate to our profession I see multiple articles that deal with “Green Burial”. And, if you follow trends, you will know that the rule is that before trends are adopted in common use, they grow in media articles as people are learning about them. So, I see a lot of articles about “Green Burial”, but I have yet to see, at least in my area, an uptick in the practice. Back in […]
