This article will be published on Friday morning because I figure it won’t be real business like, but it will be something that the reader can carry into the weekend. Lots of people talk about PK’s – Preacher’s Kids – but there is another group of us who grew up in a funeral home or near a funeral home and sometimes were expected to toe the line even more properly than PK’s because we were Funeral Director’s Kids (FDK’s). . […]
I woke up this morning (Monday as I write this) to see the Dow Jones Industrial average futures up over 5% on the news that Pfizer has had tremendous success with its Covid-19 vaccination drug trials. It’s a rainy day in Minnesota so I did my daily run on the treadmill watching Jim Cramer on CNBC talk about this event. Cramer commented that even with Pfizer’s announcement of its trial success so far, all we have over yesterday is increased […]
I started to read this linked article from Fort Wayne Business that you can access here with the thought of including another story on a locally owned small town funeral home investing in their community by building new facilities to serve the people of that community. The article deals with owners Miles and Tarah Wilson building a new funeral home in Huntertown, Indiana, and the headline of the article states “Huntertown community welcomes Sheets and Childs Funeral Home”. My thought […]
This article from the Daily Chronicle tells how Recompose founder Katrina Spade has been working since 2014 to bring Natural Organic Reduction (NOR) to an acceptable and legal process of human disposition. She not only had to prove the science behind what many call “human composting” but had to find a legislative body to approve the method in a state. Since that time a Washington State University scientist has used the remains of six terminally ill patients to prove the […]
When I researched and wrote a story about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg being buried at Arlington National Cemetery little did I know it would lead to a Three-part series with Funeral Director Daily. However, the story triggered some memories in my life on what I knew about Arlington and, in today’s article, how I as a small town funeral director personally arranged burials there. I hope I’m not boring you with these stories. As a small town funeral director, in […]
We gave a little history on Arlington National Cemetery in yesterday’s edition of Funeral Director Daily. As a follow-up to that I promised a little more today. I had always heard that the eligibility requirements for interment in Arlington National Cemetery were more stringent than in the other Veteran’s National Cemeteries scattered across the country. . . and they are. I had also heard that former World Heavyweight boxing champion, Joe Louis, was interred in Arlington National Cemetery without satisfying […]
Late last week when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s body was being removed from Statutory Hall at the United States Capitol I heard that her body would be interred this week at Arlington National Cemetery. As a person who loves the history, majesty, and ceremony that is Arlington National Cemetery, I wondered a little about the eligibility criteria for such a burial. Turns out, according to this article, membership on the United States Supreme Court, even with no military […]
Today I am going to take one day and depart from my usual news and commentary on the death care profession to tell a little about my position on the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota – the 12 person public board that governs the University. I do so because as you read this article I will be attending my first “in person” board meeting as well as stepping foot on campus for the first time since February […]
It is somewhat unbelievable to me how fast we have moved from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but here we are. Among the American debate, many schools are opening, the election is soon here, and the one constant is that those in the funeral profession continue to give comfort and guidance to those in need. Today’s edition brings you three features including plans by Service Corporation International to greatly expand its New Orleans based accounting operations, a funeral home owner […]
As you may know, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set out to investigate the pricing practices of the death care industry in that country in March of 2019. They now have concluded the investigation with some findings but also indicated that “further change in the sector is necessary but some of the remedies we were considering could not safely be introduced in the middle of a national emergency (The COVID-19 pandemic)”. They further stated, “Our proposals will […]
