Today is the 4th of July — the day that America celebrates its independence of becoming its own self-governing country.  For me it evokes thoughts of freedom, independence, ingenuity, self-governance, and patriotism.  It also brings out the thought process of working to improve one’s self. . . .building yourself up or inventing some process to move ahead in the world.

 

As I’ve often done, I’m thinking today about the day my 25-year old great-grandfather, John Anderson, left the Swedish shore in 1872 with his 21-year old wife and one-year old child.  “What was he thinking as the boat took off from the dock?”  I’ve often asked myself that question and wondered about his sense of adventure, his sense of security, and more.

 

He arrived in America and Minnesota later in the same year. Being trained as a cabinet maker he set up shop building cabinets and furniture on the Minnesota frontier. . . .this time period was only ten years removed from the famous Dakota wars in southern Minnesota.  At some point in time somebody came to him at his cabinet shop and asked if he could build a casket for a deceased member of the community.  Again, at some point in time he realized that he could add income to his business by building these caskets and death care became part of our family’s work.

 

Services, such as embalming, must have been added to our business in the late 19th century because in 1908 my grandfather, Carl Anderson, entered the first class for embalming at the University of Minnesota.  A business was built  – it was no longer just a “made to order” casket shop for when a death occurred.

 

What is more American than that?  Striking out on your own filling a niche when customers asked and then growing that “niche” to be able to profit from services that your neighbors needed and wanted.

 

The funeral home business has evolved such as when John A. Hillenbrand, founder of Batesville Casket in 1884, realized that he could mass manufacture caskets so people like my grandfather could operate the “services” side of the business.  And, embalming chemical and supply companies were built to offer finer products to these new funeral merchants.

 

And the businesses moved forward. . . Robert Waltrip, founder of Service Corporation International which at this time has almost 2,000 death care locations, acquired and pioneered multiple facility funeral businesses, and later, funeral companies used the public markets to issue stock and go public offering shares in Death Care businesses to the public realm.  Even today we see entrepreneurs, such as Katrina Spade and her Recompose company, rising up and building alternatives for consumers in the profession with hopes of becoming another American success story.

 

I will be on our family pontoon today on our local lakes and that, in itself, shows how business evolves in America. . . . If my great-grandfather wanted to enjoy the lakes of our Minnesota community during his lifetime he would have only had a hand-made canoe with oars.

 

The 4th of July reminds me that America truly is a land of opportunity. . . .and those of us in the funeral profession have seen that first hand from idea to business risk, to success.  And for many of us, that success has spanned generations. . . .I, for one, am eternally grateful for the risks and hard work that those who went before me endured.

 

I continue to realize on this 4th of July that those risks, that hard work, and that endurance to success is a part of the American experience. . . .May it continue. . .and . . .

 

. . . May God continue to bless the United States of America.

 

Related —  Bucktrout Funeral Home of Williamsburg, Virginia.  Thought by many to be the oldest funeral home in America – founded in 1759.

 

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