New Loewen Group movie drives readership
It’s the middle of the month when Funeral Director Daily recaps our top read stories of the past 30 days. This month we have proved that our search engine presence is alive and well as a story that originally ran in 2018 was the top read story of the month.
Of course it was driven by the news that the Hollywood movie based on the story of power funeral home consolidator The Loewen Group was coming to the big screen come October. Not only did our short story on that news provide a link to the 2018 article but those movie or funeral home aficionados searching for information online were directed to Funeral Director Daily’s story running up quite a bit of readership.
In any regard, here’s our Top 5 Read stories of the month in case you missed them.
- Flashback to the Loewen case.
- Loewen movie “The Burial” finally has a release date.
- Acquisitions: Two companies, two countries, two continents. . . and more.
- Convincing a “Traditionalist” of the need to change.
- Are funeral homes “Underestimating” the value of convenience to our consumers.
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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”
I hope the ‘Burial” movie gives Jerry O’Keefe all the respect he deserves, not only as a funeral director but also a very savvy and excellent business owner. His firm, Bradford-O’Keefe funeral homes was a management client of mine for several years, late ’80’s–mid ’90’s.
I was a witness in the Loewen trial testifying on business values, restraint of, and monopoly issues.
For the 4-5 year period up to the trial I watched Jerry—always a perfect gentleman—get bullied and kicked around by Ray Loewen. The account you had that described the background situation was very accurate. For at least 3 years Jerry attempted to get Ray Loewen to play by the rules of contracts and all that went with it.
All Jerry got in return was a series of crazy proposals from Loewen and finally he decided to make sure he–Jerry—would get the compensation for all the financial damage he had been subjected to.
Jerry had a great personal history. He was a highly decorated WWII Naval fighter pilot with lots of kills to his credit in the Pacific.
Willy Gary was retained by Jerry just a few weeks prior to trial. When he had me on the stand, he led me step-by-step on business valuations, as well as explaining the financial damage Jerry had been subject to as Loewen broke one existing contract after another.
All of Loewen’s attorneys appeared quite inept. I was on the stand with Gary for over two hours—-and did not experience any cross-examination.
A a person, Ray Loewen was basically a Low-Life who could have had
a great business. Being a genuine Bully with Greed and no resect for the
other guy finally caught up with him.
Too bad no one seems to be able to find Ray for an update interview