Cremation

Memorial spaceflight fails to reach orbit

By Funeral Director Daily / May 17, 2023 /

    In what was reminiscent of the 1986 Challenger explosion, you can see in this video embedded in this article, an explosion only seconds into launch that caused a suborbital rocket carrying the cremated remains of 120 humans destined for earth orbit, to disintegrate and fall to earth.  The rocket was launched by Up…

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Grief without the grave

By Funeral Director Daily / April 28, 2023 /

    There are approximately 3 million deaths in the United States each year.  As of 2023, about 40% of those deaths are interred as “Traditional Earth Burials”.  That leaves about 1.8 million deaths that are cremations, alkaline hydrolysis, green burials, or natural organic reduction forms of disposition.   In almost all of the three…

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Cremation — already the “New Tradition”

By Funeral Director Daily / January 30, 2023 /

  It’s no secret that as a percentage of dispositions, cremation continues to grow.  This article from Forbes entitled “Cremation is gaining popularity as funeral costs rise”  gives that indication and their thoughts on why that is so.   Forbes states in the article that over the last 15 years the United States cremation rate…

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More Jewish families opting for cremation

By Funeral Director Daily / January 19, 2023 /

  I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m certainly not an expert on the subject of faith preference and burial customs because the community that I served was, I’m guessing, at least 95% Christian of those that practiced faith.   However, I know some of the history since as before Vatican II in…

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CANA announces “First-of-its-Kind” credential for Cremation Specialist

By Funeral Director Daily / December 1, 2022 /
CANACremationClass

The Cremation Association of North America (CANA) has developed an all new program to train cremation specialists.  The first class begins in January 2023 and registration begins today.  The following is complete information from CANA: By 2033, cremation is predicted to be the preferred form of disposition in every state. Too many businesses see this…

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Are funeral directors losing their “clout”?

By Funeral Director Daily / November 30, 2022 /

There was a time when if you needed information on a task or a service you went direct to the source to find the information needed.  Remember, when your watch didn’t work you would take it to the local jeweler to diagnose the issue. . . . Or if the electronic device you just purchased…

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The niches keep coming

By Funeral Director Daily / September 30, 2022 /

As long as I’ve written this blog I’ve predicted that death care – that is dispositions for the dead human body – will eventually become increasingly a collection of “niche” businesses.  That is, compared to what we have gotten used to seeing. . .a funeral home that takes care of your every need in the…

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SCI settles “Deceptive sales” lawsuit for $209 million

By Funeral Director Daily / September 20, 2022 /

Service Corporation International (SCI) has agreed to provide up to $209 million in refunds to settle a federal class-action lawsuit alleging it deceived 87,000 Florida customers who purchased its prepaid plans according to this article from last week from Yahoo News. According to the article SCI Direct (formerly called Neptune Society Management Corporation) was named…

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Messenger acquires Thumbies; thoughts on the “new memorialization”

By Funeral Director Daily / September 13, 2022 /

In this news release from Messenger News you can read about the Messenger Company and its acquisition of the Thumbies Fingerprint Keepsakes business.  The release states that “the new addition to the Messenger family of companies will allow the Messenger team of sales representatives to offer the complete line of Thumbies jewelry in their portfolio…

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The consumer choice for cremation is not always financial

By Funeral Director Daily / August 31, 2022 /

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…

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