“24/7 Wall Street” posted a piece on January 13 entitled “The Ten Companies that Control the Death Industry.”  http://247wallst.com/2011/01/13/the-ten-companies-that-control-the-death... The first surprise was that Wal-Mart, Amazon and 800-Flowers were all in the top 10 influencers….Discounters that wouldn’t even have been on the radar screen a decade ago. The rest of the article was same ‘ol,  same’ol at first blush.  The order that they were listed was kind of random.  The interesting stuff comes if you re-order them by industry sector.

They posted revenues and earnings for each.    All companies listed were publically traded. I left Wal-Mart, 1-800 Flowers and Amazon.com out as irrelevant for this comparison---death related revenue is such a small fraction of their revenue.   Net Income as a percent of revenue (Return on Revenue- below listed as ROR) provides a fair benchmark for comparisons of the 7 remaining true industry players.  So here are the results when you “Sector” order them:

Sector:   Manufacturing                                                                 ROR

        Rock of Ages (Granite Memorials)                                            13.9%
        Hillenbrand (Batesville Casket)                                                  9.4%
        Matthews (Bronze Memorials)                                                    8.0%

Interesting that three of the top four Return on Revenues are suppliers.   They always complain about skinny margins at the wholesale level and talk about how much better the margins are at the retail level, but manufacturing leads the way.

Rock of Ages has always enjoyed this snobby culture that was all about only providing the finest quality granite for a 50% premium. They refuse to compete on the low end.  Seems to be working for them, huh?

Sector:    Consolidators – Funeral Home and Cemetery

        StoneMor Partners: (Mostly cemetery and some combos)            8.8%
        Stewart Enterprises: (Cemeteries and combos)                          7.2%
        Carriage Services: (Funeral homes and some cemeteries)          3.9%
        Service Corporation International: (Mature consolidator –
            Mostly funeral homes)                                                         2.4%

It appears that the oldest and largest (SCI) of the consolidators with the highest percentages of funeral homes achieves the lowest return. The newest of the consolidators (StoneMor) are exclusively cemetery and combo with only a handful of free standing funeral homes.  It is the highest achiever.

Stewart is middle-aged (as opposed to mature) and prospers from their formula of mostly large cemeteries, with large combination funeral homes on their properties and few free-standing funeral homes. Carriage is mostly free-standing funeral homes and middle-aged as well.

Point Being: Top two are cemetery dominated. Bottom two are funeral home dominated.

Conclusion:

The 1990’s is often called the decade of consolidation, and funeral home companies were high flying in terms of returns, multiples and purchase prices, with cemeteries and suppliers just trying to stay alive.  What a difference a decade makes, huh?   The Tortoise seems to have beaten the Hare.

You may now register online for the 2010 session of ICCFA University. Visit http://www.iccfa.com/education-events/iccfa-university/iccfa-university for complete details.

Last week I spent a very nice day doing some training.  What a wonderful, professional group of individuals in the group – no grumpy, fussing complaining people – no, not one.  It was fun, energizing, focused, and above all dedicated to discussions and knowledge about one major subject – serving families better.  It was refreshing, and did this old undertaker’s soul a world of good.

During the time that I had to teach I posed a question that I always ask any group I am working with:  “What do you think is the greatest threat and challenge facing funeral service today?”  I believe it is a good question to ask because the question basically cuts to the chase of what I believe seminars should be all about and eliminates any potential “Pollyanna” stuff which one often encounters in what is called group thinking.  I mean, really, anybody can deal with the good times, when things are going really well, that takes little talent. But are these times in funeral service/cemetery work good times and going really well???????

Here are some of the responses I received to my question:  casket stores, WalMart (of course nobody liked WalMart), cremation increase, lost casket sales, government regulations, poor recruitment efforts, changed people, changed demographics, changed value systems, funeral director wannabes butting in, aggressive sales techniques, and general malaise and apathy concerning detailed funeral service.  One courageous funeral professional even remarked that they thought one of the major problems funeral service was experiencing was preachers who did not know how to preach and hence ruined all the good work of the funeral home!

It was a great discussion and all the responses were valid I, thought anyway, to one degree or another. 

Privately, and I eventually shared this thought with the group, I have been haunted by an issue which just does not get discussed or explored much in professional circles, the almost silent issue of dwindling time.  In other words the erosion of the time that people spend these days in funeral and cemetery activities, in rites rituals and ceremonies, in leave-taking, in saying goodbye, in saying their final farewells.  This dwindling of time haunts me, and I believe we are already experiencing the consequences and they are not favorable.

When I was 14, my grandfather died in Southwestern Iowa.  He was 90 something, we really never knew how old he actually was, because he was born in Holland and never had a birth certificate.  He did not even have a Social Security number, and could not read or write English.  He smoked 20 cigars a day and had seven children.  I adored him.

Upon his death we called the trusty old Blust Bros. to come out to the farm to get his body.  What a nice way to describe an undertaker – trusty and old.  Later that day my grandmother and a few select family members, me included, picked out the casket in the showroom in the back of the furniture store.  Everything came to $800.  My grandfather had kind of prearranged his funeral without the help of the Blust Bros. by putting ten $100 bills in an envelope which was labeled “Funeral.”

My grandmother just handed Henry Blust the entire envelope and said “Take out of that what you will need.”  Mr. Blust counted out eight $100 bills and handed the rest back to my grandmother.  What a transaction – win/win in 1964!  Until the day she died my grandmother thought that Henry Blust was a saint from heaven because she received a “refund” on her husband’s funeral – two hundred dollars!   Trusty old undertaker Mr. Henry Blust did not take all her money – now there is a refreshing idea.

The first day at the viewing our horribly dysfunctional family gathered in the large room at the Blust Bros.  Some of these people basically hated each other and had not talked to each other for years even though they only lived maybe seven miles apart.  The Van Becks weren’t and are not today the Waltons. No one ever said “Good night, Todd Boy” to me.

That first day, seeing my grandfather, we all cried for six hours.

The next day new people started showing up.  There were some tears for some, but basically we were all standing around getting all the most recent updates on the gossip concerning our family.  You know the drill – who is back drinking too much, who is cheating on their spouse, who got kicked out of high school, who just lost their driver’s license, who is still borrowing money. You know, gossip – our family seems to thrive on it.

The third day at the funeral home the place looked like we were having a party.  Food was everywhere, people were laughing, some still crying, but most were just talking about what a long and useful life my grandfather had lived, and it was concluded by everybody that this fact was a comfort and blessing.

On the fourth day we had a funeral for him at 2 p.m. (that is when Protestants went to heaven in our little community) and buried him in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Hancock, Iowa.  After the funeral we all returned to the basement of the church, where the church ladies as usual had prepared a funeral feast.  Trust me, folks, Iowa church ladies know how to put on a funeral feast – nothing better not even at the Tavern on the Green in New York City.

Here are a few more particulars. The casket was a cloth covered wood, and looked real nice.  The outer box at the cemetery was made of wood which was an old railroad shipping case.  There were some nice flowers.  The preacher did a nice job.  It was a nice funeral, a nice experience, and in three days our entire family had moved from crying and weeping to celebrating. BUT IT TOOK THREE DAYS – IT TOOK TIME.

From a funeral service perspective, here are some particulars. First off the Blust Bros. building was used for three full days. The lights were on, the air conditioners were running full blast, the taped music was playing, the register book was out, the public was showing up by the tens of hundreds, the Blust Bros. were on the floor of the funeral home and not sitting in a coffee lounge watching a soap opera or Bob Barker giving away a new car.  They had embalmed my grandfather and he looked great.  They had dressed him and he looked really spiffy.  They had NOT put on too much cosmetics.  The funeral coach was not new, but it was shiny and clean, and the Blust Bros. were dressed impeccably. 

Here is a private thought.  I pangs me to drive by a funeral home at night and see that the entire place is dark – nothing is happening – nobody is going in or out, and I know that inside the building there are five deceased persons.  That bothers me. 

Looking back at my grandfather’s funeral, it was full of meaning, it was full of memories, it was full of emotion, and it was full of life.  It was definitely worth $800.

BUT IT TOOK TIME.

I have told this experience to thousands of funeral and cemetery professionals across North America and when I tell this story everyone gets a peaceful smile and pensive look on their faces.  I ask them “Do you think this was a valuable experience?”  They all nod in the affirmative – yes, indeed.

Last week when I was doing my seminar I flew into my old hometown Cincinnati, “The Queen City.”  I miss Cincinnati terribly.  I was getting my rental car and looked at the morning issue of the local newspaper and started reading the obituaries.  Here is one that caught my attention and sent chills down my spine.  “Calling hours at the mortuary starting at 11:00 a.m.; funeral will begin at Noon.”

One hour!  One hour!  One hour!  Now in these times, add to this immediate cremation, immediate burials, private graveside services, private services, services at the convenience of family. Well, here is a question:  If we have gone from memorializing our dead for three days of time say 35 years ago, down to 3 – 5 hours of time today, what will be the time that people use for funerals in the year 2020?  Three days down to three hours!  Dwindling ...

Dwindling, dwindling, and dwindling!  Fewer people attending funerals, less time being spent memorializing our dead – dwindling.  

I personally believe that dwindling time is the greatest threat to the future of the funeral.  Without time or without our making the precious little time we have to serve a family absolutely the most meaningful that it can be I believe we will continue to see the natural erosion of the funeral experience.  Funerals need time they always have and always will.

To this end I believe that just simple awareness on our parts of this silent issue is tantamount to our improving this situation.  Our awareness of this silent issue of dwindling time will stimulate professionals in funeral service and cemetery work to adapt, and adopt the new and improved methods which are being promoted everyplace and everyday to serve families to the best of our abilities within the time constraints that modern life and times are imposing upon us.  

We can and do have an influence on the decisions that our families make.  

Anyway that is one old undertaker’s opinion. TVB

Protecting your funeral home or cemetery from lawsuits and bad publicity isn't just a legal and public relations issue, it's an ethical one. Creating an ethical workplace is not an indefinable goal; there are specific steps you can and should take to make sure you and your employees are behaving ethically to each other, to other businesses and to the customers whose trust we need.

(Editor's note: This article is excerpted from a workshop at the ICFA 2004 Convention & Exposition in Nashville.)

Today in the business world in general there seems to be a problem with a lack of ethics. We've all read about corporate wrongdoing, improper trading practices on Wall Street and, within our own profession, the Tri-State Crematory scandal.

In our profession, we rely on our families' trust, and in the current business climate we have to work to keep it. As managers, we believe an ethical organization can be created.

Successful leaders need to see that having an ethical system in place is important for the long-term success of the company, and that like most other systems, the pieces are interrelated—it's not good enough to have one piece, you really need a complete system.

You need to identify the ethical values important to you, and you need to communicate them to your staff. You yourself need to live by those values and hold the people who work for you accountable for doing the same.

You need to have ways to reward, recognize and celebrate ethical behavior when it happens. You need to have guidelines in place so people know what to do, whom to go to and how to get help if they are unsure about how to deal with something.

As a profession, we continue to base a majority of our sales compensation on commission and that can make it difficult, when you are rewarding only productivity (paying people according to how much they sell), to also stress the importance of ethics and the long-term health of your company. Think about that when you evaluate your compensation package, when you hire and train salespeople.

Finally, you need to monitor and audit constantly, because you can't just trust blindly.

Examples from the Field
In addressing this topic, we need to include a disclaimer: We know we're not perfect; we're not setting ourselves up as the epitome of ethical behavior. But this is a topic we are passionate about, one we try to address in our own organizations.

Three examples from our own workplaces:

• Toson Hentges: We have been doing random drug testing at our company, and not long ago one of the employees selected refused to take the test. He was a fairly valuable sales counselor, and I tried to convince him to take the test, but he refused. I gave him an ultimatum: Take the drug test or go to drug counseling. He quit. I was very upset, because, as I said, he was a valuable counselor and I didn't want him to leave, but I did not make an exception for him.

• Thompson: Years ago, when I hadn't been at Mountain View very long, I happened to learn that a body we had received from the medical examiner's office had been buried without the viscera being replaced in the abdominal cavity. I was appalled—this was part of the body that hadn't gone in the ground. I called the family, told them what had happened, apologized and asked what we could do to try to make it better.

To my great amazement, they said they were shocked that I was honest enough to tell them about our mistake, since there was no way they could have known if I hadn't. We talked about the situation and they were satisfied with the solution we reached, which was to commit the additional remains to the ground in a vault above the casket.

Over the years, I've had to deal with other difficult situations, some harder than that one, and I have yet to be disappointed by a family's reaction. My staff knows that when we make a mistake, I'm going to call the family. I make it clear to our staff that this is how we handle things. I've made that a kind of mantra that I keep in the back of my mind: "We have to be willing to tell families when we make it a mistake." I don't ever want to lose their trust.

• Thompson: In the category of "rules apply to everyone," I had a problem with one of our sales counselors, who had a tendency to "forget" that we have a lead protection system. This counselor got a call from a friend and, without checking the lead protection system, wrote up a funeral plan worth several thousand dollars for this person, who was an active lead for another counselor. The customer called to tell me she would cancel the contract unless her friend got the commission, but I felt it was important for my sales counselors to trust what I tell them. We returned the customer's money, and I think it will be a very long time before that sales counselor ignores our lead protection system again.

Avoiding Frog Stew
People who end up doing unethical things don't necessarily start out as bad people, as people whose goal is to cause trouble for your cemetery or funeral home. It often starts out very small. Maybe someone takes a little bit of money, gets away with it and from there, the situation snowballs.

We call this "boiled frog syndrome," or "frog stew." When you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, its reaction is to jump back out, and it survives. But if you put a frog in a pot of room-temperature water and then gradually bring the water to a boil, the frog doesn't sense the temperature change, doesn't hop out and gets boiled to death. The same thing can happen with people and ethics. Ethical behavior slowly gets away from us and before we know it-frog stew.

How do you go about ensuring ethical behavior within your company? You have to develop an ethical system, just as you have a financial system and a marketing system. After all, the presence of ethical behavior is just as intrinsic to long-term organizational success as effective communication, good planning or proper financial management. Once that system is in place, it must be supported by the company leaders and management practices. It can't be put in place and neglected; it must be supported all the time.

The first step is to identify the ethical values you want upheld, make them crystal clear and make sure they address everyone. Don't think only about how your employees interact with customers; think about how they interact with each other, with vendors and with the community at large.
Don't make assumptions. You may think that all of your employees know that it's not OK to go out to real fancy dinners with a vendor on a regular basis and refuse to see any other vendor with a similar product, but maybe some of them don't know. You need to make sure the values you want upheld are well communicated:

• Get your management team to write down your ethical values. It forces you to be specific, and it forces you to be accountable as managers. If you're going to put something out there for employees to follow, it's important that the managers do so.

• Make sure they're widely disseminated. I think all of us have had the experience of walking into a business where they have a section of a wall beautifully decorated with a picture of the founder, and maybe a list of the trustees and a copy of their mission and values statement. But if that plaque on the wall is the only place your values statement appears, you are a company looking for trouble.

You need to talk about your ethical values in the employee newsletters, in e-mails at company meetings, during performance reviews. You need to be talking about it all the time. Otherwise, next thing you know people are taking longer and longer lunch hours. After all, who's going to notice? And then maybe a sales counselor decides to cover the down payment in order to make a sale. After all, won't the boss just be happy about the sale? It's very easy to talk yourself into moving just one step away from OK, and pretty soon you're several steps away and then-frog stew.

• Talk about your ethical values when you're interviewing job applicants. Remember, it's a two-way process: You're evaluating candidates and they are evaluating your company. It's only fair that you tell people what your expectations are and that you make sure they know you take these ethical standards seriously as a company.

• Talk about ethics all the time. To quote Gary O' Sullivan: "Talk about it till you puke."

Embedding Values in Your Company's Infrastructure
• Consider ethics in hiring. Evaluate how well job candidates seem to fit in with your values. When someone is hired, include another discussion of values in the orientation process.

• Make sure your company's leaders and managers live the values they are preaching to employees. As a supervisor, you need to act like you're being watched, because you are. Every day, every action, your employees are watching you. Are you doing what you tell them they are supposed to do?

In doing research for this presentation, we read about a consultant working for a large Fortune 500 company. He was talking to the head of human resources, who was really upset because so many people in his department were cheating on their expense reports. "We're supposed to be setting the example for the whole company," he said, "and my department's one of the worst. I can't figure this out."

It didn't take the consultant long to find out that the department head, who traveled all the time and was entitled to fly first class, was trading in his first-class tickets and pocketing the difference. So it really was no surprise, for example, that his employees were charging the company for meals they could have had but didn't.

Your staff looks to you to set the tone, to set the example. You need to realize that the little things count.

Thompson: As an example, one day I caught myself doing something I shouldn't have. There was someone I didn't want to talk to, and instead of telling the switchboard operator to say I was unavailable, I told her, "Just say I'm not here." That wasn't true, and by asking her to lie, I was saying to my employee that under certain circumstances it's OK to lie.

Now, how long do you think it's going to take before that employee starts thinking to herself, "Well if it's OK to lie there, then here's another situation where it might be OK to lie. Cindy's not here to ask, but it was OK over there, so I'll do it over here." And if you've got 10 or 20 or 50 employees, that could multiply exponentially. You can't be there all the time, so how are you going to know when they do this?

You have to show zero tolerance for ethical violations. Decisions shouldn't depend on how productive an employee is. As in the case of the valuable sales counselor who refused to take a drug test, you have to make your decisions in terms of the values you have established.

• Avoid establishing internal conflicts. Make sure your company's reward systems and performance appraisals are congruent with your ethical values.

If you are telling employees, "We love our customers and it's important for you to spend a lot of time with every family—we want you to take all the time it takes," but then all they get rewarded on is the numbers, you've created a problem.

Maybe you've got someone who isn't quite as productive as some of your other sales counselors, but their customers love them. They get the best referrals because their families trust them. Are they not valuable? We say they are valuable to your company, but if you say, "We value people who value our customers" on the one hand and on the other hand, base payment just on numbers, you're putting employees in a no-win situation. (We don't mean to say that people who care about their families don't get the numbers; we're exaggerating to make a point.)

• Watch for and address external conflicts. The funeral and cemetery profession may not be as open to them as some other businesses, but we should be proactive.

Thompson: We have someone at our cemetery who works with outside construction companies who are doing projects nearby and want to bring us excess dirt from job sites. We make it very clear that the choice of which companies are allowed to do this is not a matter of slipping our employee some money.

Building an Ethical Toolbox
Your company has to build for each of your employees their own ethical toolbox, because they're not going to be able to call you every time and say, "I'm not sure what to do." You need to build their skills and abilities.

Awareness, skills and values are needed for an ethical toolbox.

Awareness means you need to raise the issue of ethical dilemmas to your staff. They need to learn to be aware that ethical behavior is something you want them to be careful about. Build their awareness so that when something is going on that's not quite kosher, they'll realize it.  

Next, you need to make sure that they have the skills to deal with any questions or problems that come up, or that there are resources at your company they can turn to. You can put systems in place to help your employees when they are faced with an ethical dilemma. One company we read about had an 800 line for people to call when they thought they had come across unethical behavior.

And third, you need to make sure that employees perceive ethical behavior as something they need to practice to be successful at your company.

If you have awareness without skills, for example, you've got a problem. An employee might say to himself, "I don't think that's really cool, he's giving all the business to his brother-in-law," but if your company hasn't told employees what to do in a case like that—there's no 800 number to call, there's no one on staff designated to tell—the employee is kind of stuck.

You want your employees to realize what your ethical values are, to be aware of problems and to have the ability (skills) to do something about them so that when they become aware of a problem or are faced with an ethical dilemma of their own, they will act.

In doing our research, we ran across a page from the Enron code of ethics, distributed in 2000, which wasn't that long ago. Let's look at a few excerpts:

"Moral as well as legal obligations will be fulfilled openly, promptly and in a manner which will reflect pride in the company's name.... Employees will maintain the confidentiality of the company's sensitive proprietary information and will not use such information for their personal benefit…... Relations with the company's many publics—customers, stockholders, government, employees, suppliers, press and bankers—will be conducted in honesty, candor and fairness."

These statements probably look familiar to a lot of us. You may have something very similar in your own company's employee manual. We all know what happened with Enron: They ended up serving frog stew. So simply putting a code of ethics in place is not good enough.

Enron probably handed this out to every employee, maybe had all of them sign an acknowledgement form. But it looks like they never followed up. We need to educate our employees about ethical behavior all the time, on a daily basis.

Who made up the rule that funeral services will be at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. weekdays?
For whom is that convenient, other than the funeral home and cemetery staff?
With some planning and willing employees, you can offer families services seven days a week, including evenings, without overtime charges or a staff mutiny.

One night as I was on my way to buy medicine for my daughter, who had a fever of 102 degrees, I thought to myself. "Boy, kids always seem to get sick at night. It's a good thing this place is open at 11 p.m."

As I continued driving, I started thinking about something my boss, Bob Gordon Sr., CCFE, and I had talked about after an ICFA meeting in Las Vegas. At the meeting, Ernie Heffner of Heffner Funeral Homes & Crematory in Pennsylvania had described a program he called the Twilight Service.

If a pharmacy can be open at night for the convenience of families, why can't a funeral home do the same? Sure, we're available when needed to handle a first call, but why don't we make it easy for families to schedule services in the evening or on weekends instead of during the work week, during regular work hours?

As we thought about how we could offer families this service without charging for overtime, we decided it was mainly a scheduling problem. We further realized that our employees would have to buy into the idea for it to be possible. Our office staff would be affected, since we would be keeping the office open on weekends. And when families wanted to follow an evening funeral service with a committal service in our cemetery, the grounds department would also be affected.

Flex Time and Three-Day Weekends
We began by creating three teams, each of which included a funeral director as unit manager, two family service counselors, one or two office staff members and one or two grounds crew members.

We then set up three different weekly schedules, which each team would rotate through.

• Schedule 1: Work Sunday and Monday; off Tuesday and Wednesday; work Thursday through Saturday.

• Schedule 2: Work Sunday through Thursday; off Friday and Saturday.

• Schedule 3: Off Sunday; work Monday through Wednesday, off Thursday; work Friday and Saturday.
As you can see, between weeks 2 and 3 the team members get a three-day weekend. This "bonus" every third week provides some payback or incentive for employees to go along with the system.

This is not to say that everyone immediately embraced the concept. There were the usual threats of mutiny that any change of this type tends to generate, but in the end most people realized it would provide a real service to the community. We also provided employees who went along with the program a bonus for each twilight service held.

A few people chose not to participate, and that was OK; our staff is large enough to provide enough people to handle the special shifts without 100 percent buy-in. We eventually worked out all the bugs and created a Twilight Service program that offers services and interments seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., with no overtime charge to families.

Because of the 12-hour coverage, employee commitment to the program was essential, since it meant they were working a flexible schedule designed for the convenience of families. If staff has an interment scheduled for 7 p.m., they'll be coming to work at 11 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. so that they can stay late without overtime cost to be passed on to the family.

In addition to having the personnel in place, we needed to get our cemetery ready for services that might take place after dark through the addition of the following pieces of equipment:
•    generator,
•    halogen lights,
•    backhoe with lights and
•    tractor and trailer with lights.

Telling the Community
Once we were ready to offer twilight services, the next step was to let the community know. We created brochures which we placed on our arrangement tables and we placed television and newspaper advertisements.

We started marketing the new Twilight Service on a Monday. On Tuesday, I sat down with a family to make at-need arrangements. The widow, daughter and son-in-law of the deceased were there together. As we discussed the time for the service, the son-in-law said that Saturday would be fine, but that he was going through a year-end review at work and would not be able to leave his job until 4 p.m., so he would not be able to make it.

His wife and mother-in-law began to agree that he would simply have to miss the service when I spoke up to explain our new evening service option. They couldn't believe their ears, but happily agreed to schedule the service at 7 p.m. Saturday at no extra charge.

Saturday evening, the deceased's grandson closed his eulogy with a prayer and then raised his head just in time to see the sun setting behind the mountains that provide a scenic backdrop to our facilities. "Though my family and Eternal Hills planned this service for this evening," he said, "it is quite obvious that God has ordained it."

Since that first successful service, Eternal Hills has held many more Twilight Services. We are the only funeral home and cemetery in our area willing to accommodate families in this way, and the community seems to appreciate it. Seeing how families respond to our willingness to provide this service gives our employees a boost worth at least as much as the bonuses we give them.

From the brochure Eternal Hills uses to explain and promote its Twilight Service (the information is also posted on Eternal Hills' Web site):

-    Introducing the new Twilight Service. At last, funeral services when everyone can attend ... at no extra cost!
-    A Twilight Service is any service scheduled between the hours of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. and conducted at our facilities. It may be selected with either burial or cremation arrangements.
-    Evening visitations and services make a real difference! Many employers only allow leave from work to attend services for the closest of family without the loss of wages. The Twilight Service allows everyone to attend and celebrate the life of that special person without financial penalty or disruption of work.
-    Are only certain services available for Twilight Services? No. All of our 20 value-priced packages or any of our services are available for the Twilight Service seven days a week without additional charges.
-    We encourage you to share your thoughts and ideas with us so that we can arrange a meaningful service. We pay close attention to details.

THE MEANING OF FUNERAL SERVICE

How has the work of funeral directors and cemeterians changed?
What sorts of challenges do funeral service professionals face in the future? Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks' symposium on the American way of death focused on these issues.

Three renowned scholars recently examined the American way of death at a symposium hosted by Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks in Southern California. The symposium, organized by the Forest Lawn Museum, brought together experts in the fields of history, urban planning and religion to discuss cemetery history, funeral rituals and changing attitudes toward death in the United States.

Speaking in the newly renovated Hall of Liberty at Hollywood Hills Memorial Park, David Sloane, Stephen Prothero and Gary Laderman offered historical overviews of the cultural and religious foundations of cemeteries and funeral homes, as well as insights into current and future trends that could affect funeral and cemetery services.

More than 50 people attended the symposium, including members of the funeral profession, the Neptune Society, museum professionals, historians, university students and the general public. Forest Lawn Memorial Parks offered this program as part of its continuing effort to help the community celebrate life's meaningful moments.

The Forest Lawn Museum offers a year-round calendar of free events designed to enrich, inspire and educate the community through programs about history, culture and religion.

The three scholars approached the subject from different angles and sometimes differing viewpoints.  This article offers a summary of each of the presentations.

Cemeteries: The Challenge to Stay Relevant
By: David Sloane
 
Cemeteries today face a significant challenge: Staying relevant in a rapidly changing society.

One aspect of this challenge is the growing ethnic diversity in America. As new immigrant communities embrace traditional cemeteries, they also are asking them to incorporate modifications that reflect their own beliefs, values and ways of expressing grief. By accommodating these differences, traditional cemeteries can strengthen their service to new communities.

Yet another aspect of the challenge for traditional cemeteries is a renewed sentimentality that has reshaped both public and private memorialization. By recognizing different styles of memorial expression and experimenting with new styles, cemeteries will be better equipped to serve a broader clientele.

A major example of non-traditional expression is Maya Lin's 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the starkly modem composition of which caused innovations in public memorialization in the United States. The ''Wall,'' designed not as an unchanging monument but as a moving composition to be understood as we move into and out of it, has become a living shrine owned by those who visit the site.

In similar fashion, the AIDS Memorial Quilt begun in 1987 now includes more than 44,000 panels and seems like a type of ever growing "fabric cemetery" that serves not only as a poignant memorial but also as a tool for prevention and education. It is the largest ongoing community arts project in the world, incorporating messages of remembrance, awareness and hope expressed in highly personal ways.

Rather than depending solely on traditional avenues of public relations, many new and older cemeteries are demonstrating resiliency in the face of change and challenge as they forge new relationship" with their communities.

The incorporation of "friends" groups and the addition of nature walks, historic tours, contemporary art exhibitions and public lecture programs represent renewed efforts to establish and sustain community interest in cemeteries. Roadside shrines, virtual cemeteries and video biographies are alternative modes by which Americans express themselves with regard to death, grief and memory. Through these innovations, American cemeteries are demonstrating flexibility and adaptability to changing times.

Coming from a family that for four generations has designed, landscaped and managed cemeteries in Ohio and New York, Sloane is uniquely positioned to explore the history of cemeteries in America. He holds a doctorate in American history and serves as an associate professor in the School of Policy, Planning and Development and holds a joint appointment in the Department of History at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1991, he published "The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History," which traces the transition from churchyards to urban cemeteries to suburban memorial parks and explores how the landscape of the cemetery is created and altered by economics and practical needs, by institutions and powerful ideas.

Rituals Do Matter
By: Gary Laderman

Within all human societies there are questions, indeed dilemmas, regarding death that require culturally relevant answers.

Why do we die and how do we make sense of it? What should be done with the body and who should handle it? How should the living relate to their dead? What meaning does death give to the living?

Far from shunning or fearing death, 20th century Americans have been obsessed by it and the material culture surrounding it. Popular culture both reflects this behavior and attempts to make sense of death in a manner that reveals the issue's complexity and its relationship to larger societal trends and events.

Rituals matter, and most cultures place a great deal of emphasis on the disposition of the body. For many people, such rituals ultimately have a bearing not only on the living but also on the post-mortem destiny of the deceased. Herein lies the value of the American funeral.

The story of disposition in the late 19th century reflects the rise and triumph of the funeral home and the funeral director. Most of the social and cultural transformations that resulted in the modern funeral profession were complete by the 1950s. Today, the anchor and focus of the profession remains the funeral home.

Within a larger cultural context, the rise of the funeral director and the funeral home parallels the rise of the hospital and the doctor. It is significant that both gained authority over the body, removing the care of the dead from friends and family and placing it in the hands of experts. In the same manner, the funeral director and funeral home also relegated priests, ministers and other religious figures to subordinate roles. However, despite what may be seen as an increasing secularization of death, American religious values associated with death are deeply rooted and remain strong.

Examples from 20th-century popular culture that document America's fascination with death and the religious meanings circulating in the rapidly changing century include Thorton Wilder's "Our Town"; the early animated films of Walt Disney such as "Bambi," "The Skeleton Dance" and "Fantasia"; contemporary animation, including "Finding Nemo" and "The Lion King"; horror films; rock and roll, hip hop and heavy metal music; and the high-profile funerals of Rudolph Valentino, whose body was displayed in a funeral home window, and John F. Kennedy.

Tracing the stereotype of the funeral director in popular culture before Jessica Mitford's "The American Way of Death" reveals that a negative image existed long before the publication of her 1963 book. There is the corrupt, exploitative undertaker in Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi," the damning depiction of the mortician in Thomas Wolfe's "Look Homeward Angel" and the friendly and ridiculed undertaker Digger O'Dell in the radio show "The Life of Reilly."

The true complexity of funeral directors is only beginning to appear in the public arena, with a fuller picture finally emerging in the eyes of the media through shows such as HBO's "Six Feet Under," in which the profession is portrayed as a respectable one that supports the community's deepest needs and wishes.

In the latter half of the 20th century, numerous events shaped the funeral industry and American attitudes toward death. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Vietnam War gave rise to questions about the meaning of and necessity for death in the service of our country, questions being raised again today. In the 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission's investigations into the funeral profession led to consumer empowerment. In the 1980s, AIDS brought a number of changes, including an interest in cremation in some cases because of the condition of the body.

Also during the past few decades, new immigration patterns have brought increased populations from East Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Central and Southern America. They bring with them different traditions and customs surrounding the handling of the dead that they want to see continued in their new country.

Laderman is an associate professor in the Department of Religion at Emory University, where he serves as director of the Graduate Division of Religion, is associate editor of "Journal of the American Academy of Religion," is on the editorial board for the electronic-only "Journal of Southern Religion" and directs the department's Pluralism Project, which studies and documents the growing religious diversity of the United States. He wrote "Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America" as a follow-up to "The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883." Most recently, he published the three-volume "Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity and Popular Expressions." 

Cremation: Why the Rate Has Risen -And Why It Isn't Higher
By: Stephen Prothero

How did cremation make the transition from being a radical idea to a practice that any American can comfortably choose?

Why has the cremation rate reached 27 percent in America and why is it not higher still, as in Great Britain (71 percent), Japan (98 percent) or Sweden (68 percent)?

Following a 1874 landmark article published first in Great Britain and immediately afterward in the United States, cremation gained widespread attention as a possible solution to urban epidemics. For the remainder of the 19th century, intellectuals, health practitioners, theologians, ministers and the general public debated the issue, either supporting cremation for public health reasons or opposing it based on traditional religious values.

By the end of the 19th century the practice of cremation was widespread enough that more crematoriums were being built. During this time, the handling of cremations moved from the non-profit to the profit sector, from the control of intellectuals and ideologues promoting it on principle to the purview of profit-driven business people equipped with economic strategies.

From 1945 to 1963, the growth in cremation remained flat, with the rate hovering around 4 percent. Two events in the 1960s the publication of Jessica Mitford's "The American Way of Death," which among other things promoted cremation, and the end to the Catholic Church's ban on cremation caused the cremation rate to start rising again.

The 1970s saw further growth, as direct cremation businesses developed new business models for efficiently and inexpensively making cremation available to more people, notably in the West, where cremation rates today range from 47 percent to 60 percent. The 1980s and 1990s brought cultural values such as environmentalism and simplicity into the mainstream with the aging of the baby boomers, further increasing the cremation rate. Cremation has also benefited from today's "customization" culture, in which Americans are increasingly intent on expressing their individuality, with a need to put a personal stamp on everything, including funeral rituals.

Cremation rates in the United States remain lower relative to many other countries for a couple of reasons. First, neither federal nor state laws mandate a type of disposition—the free market reigns and personal choice prevails. Second, the American public remains strongly religious. Data documents lower cremation rates in states where traditional and evangelical religions remain strong.

Cost is not the reason for the cremation boom, since data show the wealthiest people are the most likely to choose cremation, while the poorest are more likely to spend more on traditional funerals. Burial choices are not typically made for financial reasons.

More important to the cremation boom is a change in the theology of everyday life that has become increasingly evident over the past 20 years. American religious thought is migrating toward a gnostic view of the self, viewing the soul as external from rather than one with the body. Under this view, sited memorialization—which is not universal—may be seen as unnecessary. This offers a challenge to traditional funeral and cemetery practices.

Prothero is chairman of the Department of Religion at Boston University, where he teaches a popular course called "Death and Immortality." He is co-editor of "Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History" author of "The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott" and co-author of the Encyclopedia of American Religious History. His 2001 book "Purified by Fire" is the first historical study of cremation in the United States.

Growing up in the business provides legions of second-, third- and nth-generation funeral directors and cemeterians with childhood anecdotes to tell that aren't exactly run of the mill.
It also provides important lessons about work and life.

Have you ever been on a date and been asked, "So, how was work today?" Most people have, and normally it's not a big deal. But what about when your answer is something along the lines of, "Well, the fire department showed up because they thought the crematory smoke was a house fire. We were already stressed out because someone forgot to order the vault for a service, plus my finger got smashed under a casket while we were making an entombment in the mausoleum. So, do you like French onion soup?"

If my date laughed, I'd know there was some potential for a relationship. If she looked at me like I had three heads, or if she got up to go to the bathroom and never came back, I'd understand.

Growing up in my household meant that many things that were routine for me were, at best, strange to others. But that's something I learned to accept and even came to appreciate as I grew older. After all, my experiences helped to shape who I am today.

A family tradition
Our family's involvement in cemetery work goes back six generations. My ancestors have managed various cemeteries in Ohio and Indiana since the mid-1800s. My father, Gene Buckingham, retired in October from a 42-year career in the cemetery business, the past 22 spent as executive director of Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum in Dayton, Ohio.

I'd always protested any predictions that I would continue the death care tradition. Yet here I am, working for Batesville Casket Co., and I couldn't be more content, working in the field that served as the backdrop for my youth, and the one I know best. This is a time-honored profession, full of good people and great experiences, which for me go back to my very earliest days.

Anyone who runs a cemetery or funeral home knows that work often follows you home, and sometimes even is home. My first two homes were in cemeteries.

I learned to ride a bike among gravestones a century old. My favorite preschool activity was riding in the dump truck doing section clean-up, or sitting in the backhoe to dig a grave. Well, OK, I had a little help working the levers. I remember watching the guys load the retorts in the crematory and waiting for the grounds crew to get the mowers out of the buildings each morning.

Not the typical childhood, but I wouldn't change a thing.

I began working at Woodland at the age of 14, and subsequently had the opportunity to work in every capacity within the organization, including administrative, sales and marketing, public relations, accounting and grounds operations. I'll admit there were days when I would rather have been doing anything else, but no matter what the task, I realized it was part of serving a higher purpose.

My dad always said the most rewarding aspect of this business is helping people make it through a difficult time, and I know no one who was better at it than he was.

I guess when your life's work is dedicated to being compassionate and accommodating, it becomes second nature. It takes not only dedication but also strong character to do the job and do it well, and I was fortunate to have such an excellent example to follow.

There is much to be said for someone who goes to work every day, selling something that no one wants to buy to those who are shocked, sad and angry that a loved one has been taken away.

I suppose it's that view of what we do that leads many people to believe our work must be sad and depressing. But in actuality, working at woodland was anything but.

After working 14-hour days every day for a month to get ready for Memorial Day, Dad always hosted a party for the staff.

It was a blast.

We worked until lunchtime, then set up a tent, enjoyed catered food and competed in a horseshoe tournament. It was a way to let the staff know he appreciated all their hard work and dedication in getting the grounds ready for the cemetery's most important weekend of the year.

Fun and an education
It was a lot of fun working out on the grounds with the other guys. I got a broader education through talking to them than I would have received otherwise, plus I learned the true meaning and value of a good work ethic, something Dad took very seriously.

I guess most people would consider string-trimming 100,000 monuments and markers, mowing 200 acres, cleaning seven miles of roadways, selling memorials and calming upset families a nightmare. But for me, it was an opportunity to learn the ins and outs of a special line of work.

My friends were always amused to listen to our family talk about our day, especially around the dinner table. We had our share of characters on the crew, and we always had plenty of funny stories about who did this or who said that.

One night, we saw on the news a story about a man who had been killed during a fall while working on power lines. He had lived close by, and I said, "Oh, I heard about that. I wonder what happened to that guy?"

I didn't know the funeral home had delivered his body to our crematory the day before, and that we were returning the cremated remains that night. My brother did, and he answered my question. "He's right over there on the counter," followed almost immediately by, "Aren't we weird?"

But when you become accustomed to something, it doesn't seem weird at all. I, for one, felt more proud than weird. Certainly I'm proud of what my father accomplished during his tenure at Woodland, including the magnificent restoration of the Wright brothers' gravesite and the memorial service that followed; the burial and memorial dedication of Erma Bombeck; and the expansion, renovation and modernization of one of America's oldest and most beautiful cemeteries into the historical and horticultural treasure it is today.

My father achieved great things, and I'm proud to follow in his footsteps and contribute in any way I can to the profession that has taught me to appreciate today, remember yesterday, live for tomorrow and preplan my funeral.

I would take a moment to congratulate my father on his retirement, but he's planning to do cemetery and landscape consulting part-time, so he's not really retired.

And though things are different in our family now, some things never change. We still talk business. We still point out granite types and memorial designs to each other. We still pass cemeteries and comment on their maintenance and what we would've done differently.

And yes, we're still weird. At least some of my dates seem to think so.

Welcoming wedding parties
By: Tom Smith & Tom Pfeifer, Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum

WHAT: About 15 years ago, one of our employees asked permission to hold a family wedding at the cemetery. That was the start of what is now a wonderful service we provide to the community.

Today, not only can you be buried at Spring Grove, you can be married here, as well. We get requests for information about Spring Grove weddings almost daily. In fact, we project that next year we'll have more weddings than funeral services in our Norman Chapel.

Does this sound wacky? Well, it did to us, when we first decided to try allowing the public to use Spring Grove for weddings.

We wondered: ''Will people really do this—get married in a cemetery? Will the people who want to do it be a bit on the ghoulish side? Will they dress up in Halloween costumes? Will this backfire and leave us looking like a bunch of doofuses?"

Thank goodness, we worried for nothing. So far, the result has been so positive it's unbelievable.

WHY: The Norman Chapel is a beautiful 1880 building that's not used as much as it used to be for funeral or committal services—about 80 times a year. With the exception of some of the older, more traditional people, who prefer the Norman Chapel, families generally use the chapel at the Jon Deitloff Funeral Centre, which opened six years ago.

Booking weddings puts the historic chapel to good use and exposes people in the community who have never had occasion to use our interment services to our exceptional facilities and customer care.

Normally, the people who come to the cemetery are there on one of the worst days of their lives.

But if they came to a wedding, they've experienced something fun and unusual to tell friends and neighbors: "Wow, you wouldn't believe the webcam girls wedding I went to Saturday. It was at a cemetery—Spring Grove—and the whole thing was so neat!"

We had a sports figure get married here, and the PR from that event was unbelievable. Bengals players and local newscasters descended on us.

The exposure does lead to sales. Sometimes, within a week of a wedding service, we get a call that goes something like this: "My wife and I were at a wedding Saturday, and afterward we talked and agreed we ought to make burial plans, and we can't image being in a prettier place than Spring Grove."

HOW: The first thing you need to do is take a look at your buildings and grounds to see what the possibilities are. At Spring Grove, we offer wedding parties the following choices:

• The Norman Chapel, which accommodates 200 guests in a grand and formal location.

• The Lakeside Chapel, completed in 1991, which can handle up to 25 guests. The chapel overlooks Willow Lake. Couples may also choose to hold the ceremony in the chapel's outdoor plaza, by the Koi pond.

• The Garden Courtyard, located near the cemetery entrance, where a ceremony can be held outdoors, accommodating 1,000 people. Rugosa roses provide natural decorations. Spring Grove also allows the wedding party to set up a tent in a designated area. One couple set up a small gazebo for their wedding; we put up some chairs and a round system. (The Norman Chapel is made available in case of inclement weather.)

Note that one of the three locations we offer people is a scenic outdoor setting. Even if you don't have a chapel that can handle a wedding party, you might have a nice section of lawn bordered with flowers and attractive trees that would make a great place for an outdoor ceremony—not to mention wedding photos.

Picture this: Wedding photos taken at your cemetery
We don't charge the people who drive in to use our gardens as backdrops for their wedding photos. This is a service just about any cemetery should be able to provide. Think about all those couples telling their friends they had their beautiful wedding photos taken at your cemetery!

All you have to do is get the word out to the wedding photographers in your community. So. invite them to check out the places you think would work for photographs, and let them be the judge.

Couples often ask the photographer for ideas for wedding photos, and the photographer will be able to say, "Let me take you to the ABC Cemetery to their rose garden, or underneath the weeping cherries or to a spot in the back where there is unbelievable fall color."

On a Friday, Saturday or Sunday afternoon, it's not uncommon to see two or three limousine entourages waiting to use the premier wedding photography spots at the Grove.

We do charge people who hold the wedding at the cemetery. (We require a down payment to book a date and full payment before the ceremony.) To figure out a fair price, we checked around in our community to see what it costs to rent a Knights of Columbus hall or a large church comparable to the Norman Chapel.

We keep our price very reasonable, on the low end for comparable places, since we're looking at this as a way to get exposure, not as a moneymaker. (Though we certainly don't want to lose money.) We do make a little money, enough to take care of maintaining the building.
We charge much less for use of the Lakeside Chapel, since it's much smaller; though still beautiful. It has high, vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows, and overlooks scenic Willow Lake.

In our wedding policy handout, we suggest the Lakeside Chapel might be the right size for vow renewal ceremonies or second wedding celebrations. In one case, a couple was checking it out for a small second wedding. When the woman realized it was in the Lakeside Mausoleum, she said, "My Mom is buried in that building," and that was where she wanted the ceremony, where her mother was.

We've had one wedding in our waterfall area. We've got a request now to use the island area, which is very popular for photos, for a ceremony. We're checking to see if it's feasible.

If you don't have a chapel, see if any of the buildings you do have would be appropriate for a wedding ceremony. If you don't have anyplace for an indoor ceremony, you should have—or be able to create—a place for an outdoor ceremony, or at the very least for outdoor photos.

Staffing for weddings
For years, when we booked a wedding, we arranged for the security staff to help out. Someone from security was there anyway, so we just added a few things to their routine. They might have to change the time they closed the front gate and made the mail run in order to direct people to the chapel and tell them where to park.

Over time, as the number of weddings increased, the workload became too much to expect the security people to handle on top of their other duties, such as making rounds, checking the thermostat on the greenhouse, making sure the mausoleum door is locked and doing the mail run.

In order for people coming to Spring Grove for weddings to experience the "wow" factor we aim for in delivery of all our services, it was clear we needed to hire someone to handle weddings, so we decided to try to find a part-time wedding coordinator. We placed an ad in the paper and got several applications. The person we ended up hiring almost came in for the interview wearing a sign saying, "I'm the person for this job!"

She has personality plus and approaches the job with tremendous excitement, gusto, friendliness and customer-service thinking. She reassures the bride, that she'll do everything in her power to make sure nothing goes wrong on their special day.

We only schedule weddings on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays—which is when most people want to get married. Not everyone would want to work those hours, but our wedding coordinator is at home during the week with her young children, so a weekend-only job works out perfectly for her.

We trained her on troubleshooting and she's got a cell phone with her, so if she can't get a microphone to work or if the organ button is stuck or whatever, she can call Fife for help.

Having her there to help the wedding party with the setup makes such a difference, especially since she's so enthusiastic. It's not expensive, since she's a part-timer paid by the hour for the weddings she works, but the response from customers has been, ''Gosh, you people go overboard. If we go someplace else, they just open the door for us and say, ‘Hope your wedding goes well.’"

Security personnel still open the gates for guests, of course, and direct them to the parking lot. They are neatly dressed—blazer and tie are part of the wardrobe.

Getting a funeral chapel ready for a wedding celebration
We have couples fill out a form that detail, what they want. Do they want the cross left on the altar? (We have had people of many different faiths use the chapel.) Do they want the candles removed? Do they want chairs placed at the front of the chapel?

We use this information to get the room set up ahead of time. If we have two weddings back to back, which sometimes occurs on a Saturday or Sunday, we might have to change the setup between ceremonies. We have a cleaning team that works six days a week, sometimes seven, and covers the wedding setups when they are on the schedule.

The wedding coordinator attends the rehearsal and checks to see if there are any last-minute details that weren't covered by the form. Maybe the minister wants a small cloth-covered table to put the rings on.

Though we offer a lovely setting and the services of the security guard to direct traffic and the wedding coordinator to help out at the service, Spring Grove of course does not offer "one-stop wedding planning." We make our limitations clear in the material we hand out to couples. Among the things they need to know so that there will be no misunderstandings:

•    We do not have dressing facilities.
•    We do not provide valet parking (though couples can certainly hire their own valet).
•    We do not allow food, beverages or alcohol.
•    We do not allow smoking inside the buildings.
•    We do not allow the throwing of rice, birdseed, confetti or anything else.
•    We do not have musicians, photographers or ministers on staff, but we do provide a referral list on request.

People also must observe time limits on their usage of the chapel, particularly when two weddings are booked for the same day. This is not unusual, though, in the wedding world.

We didn't start booking two a day until we talked to a wedding guru. We were befuddled about whether it could be done, dreaming up all kinds of problems with doing it, but she straightened us out and assured us that many churches hold two weddings the same day.

The wedding guru suggested we have two time slots: 12:30-3:30 p.m. and 4:30- 7:30 p.m. We use those on Saturdays, and earlier ones (9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2:30- 5:30 p.m.) on Sundays. The hour between weddings gives our cleaning team time to scurry around and pick up rose petals and run the vacuum and get set up for the next group.

What about scheduling conflicts with funerals? What if someone wants to use a chapel for a funeral or memorial service and we've already booked a wedding? After all, weddings are booked months in advance, while funeral and memorial services are last-minute arrangements.

We did think about this when we started promoting our wedding business, and finally came to the conclusion that not having weddings doesn't mean there won't be scheduling conflicts. If Funeral A is scheduled for 11 a.m. and a funeral director asks to schedule Funeral B at 11 a.m., we simply say the chapel is already booked. The principle is the same.

We didn't think we'd have people saying, "Gee, you're letting a wedding take precedence over a funeral?..." and in fact no funeral director has said that or anything else negative about the fact that we have weddings at the cemetery.

Getting the wedding word out
When people are looking for a wedding location, they're not normally going to check out cemeteries. How do you let potential customers know that you've got a great site (or sites) for their ceremony?

1. Choose the right person to work with weddings. Whether it's a staff person or someone from outside you hire to do the work, make sure the person has a burning desire to make sure each and every wedding is special for that couple.

We're always reminding ourselves that we have funerals every day, but the family involved does not and the same holds true for weddings. You need an effervescent person who can attend to details while smiling and conveying an upbeat attitude to the couple.

2. Put your locations, policies and prices down in writing. We have a packet of material we give out that includes:
•    a list of facilities and how many people they seat;
•    a brochure providing more details about our Norman Chapel and our most popular venues for photographs;
•    a floor plan of the Norman Chapel, listing aisle width, foyer size, pews, etc.
•    our wedding policies, including costs, scheduling and rules; and
•    a ceremony reservation form.

3. Put it on your Web site. Spring Grove's home page lists weddings along with preplanning, grief support, activities, service schedule, etc. The wedding section includes a copy of the wedding policies, descriptions and photos of the locations where weddings and wedding photography generally take place and a wedding album slideshow of photos provided by local photographers. Check out the slideshow and you'll want to get married—or renew your vows—at Spring Grove, too!
4. Create a DVD presentation. We've gotten pictures of weddings from photographers (which we also use on our Web site slide show, with proper credit, of course), and we have our own photos of our grounds and facilities. We created a nice DVD with some music, photos and information about using Spring Grove for your wedding and/or wedding photographs. We've had a couple of people book weddings on the basis of the DVD without ever seeing the cemetery in person.

5. Contact wedding photographers in your area. Invite them to check out your garden spots and let them know if you're available for ceremonies as well. Also, information to wedding planners.

6. Participate in bridal expos. In Cincinnati, we have something called Bridalrama at the convention center every year. People go to check out the exhibitors and shop for a photographer, a DJ, a caterer, a facility-anything and everything they need for their wedding.

We checked it out one year and decided Spring Grove needed to exhibit, so we took our DVD and set it up on a viewer. People see the fabulous photos and they stop at the booth and ask questions, and we even give them a copy of the DVD if they want to take it home to show their parents or simply to mull it over.

Even if your city or town doesn't have a bridal show, the local newspaper probably prints a special bridal section every year. Take out an ad.

Though a wedding is a happy occasion and a burial is a sad one, we don't see any conflict in having both take place at Spring Grove. Everything is handled tastefully. Recently we had a wedding going on in the Norman Chapel at the same time a funeral service was being held about 100 yards away, at the Garden Mausoleum. It was kind of nice, to have people starting a new life together just as the end of another life was being observed. It's all a part of the cycle of life.

Adapted from a presentation at the 2005 ICFA Annual Convention

We all know the importance of media relations in our profession, but we don't all know how to handle it. No matter what the size of your business, some simple tools and techniques can allow you to effectively tell your story and deal proactively with the media.

Those of us in the deathcare profession can no longer afford to have the marketplace tell our story for us. It is our responsibility to become evangelists for funeral homes and cemeteries by working on a program of press releases and greater media contact.

Media relations, a subset of public relations, is what is involved in your efforts to build and maintain a relationship with the media in your community. Building the relationship is the first step, but maintaining it is just as important if you want your efforts to have a lasting effect.

"Media" is usually associated with television and newspapers but also extends to other areas, including the Internet, magazines and radio. There are 30 million Web sites out there today, 17,000 specialized magazines, 10,000 radio stations and 35,000 interviews being conducted daily in America.

What does this mean for the funeral and cemetery profession? It gives us endless opportunities to connect with the public and get our stories known.

Over half of Americans get their news from television, which has increased its news time slots to give viewers more options. Hard news (usually negative) is the story: who, what, when and where. Feature news (usually positive) is the how or why.

Feature news is now growing rapidly as reporters are faced with more time to fill. Both newspapers and television stations often try to localize stories, focusing on a person or business in their readership or viewing area. Make yourself known to your local reporters by suggesting ideas for feature stories and alerting them to hard news stories of which they may not be aware.

Developing a press kit and press release
The first step in dealing proactively with the media is to create an effective media relations program. The basic media materials that should go in your press kit are a company background sheet, fax sheet, business cards, a company brochure and a letter of introduction.

When preparing a press release:
• Keep it brief (no more than a page long) and factual. If the media think there is a story, they will give you a call and come out with their photographer and reporter.

• Be objective. Your press release should be about something important to the media and the public.

• Avoid speaking in lingo. When talking about opening and closing fees, explain what those fees cover. Instead of saying GPL, talk about the general price list. Keep your release in consumer language.

• Create a compelling headline. Think of a catchy and unique headline that will grab the reporter's attention right from the start.

• Use an inverted pyramid. Cram as much as you can at the top of your press release, especially the important information. Often as a reporter or editor is putting a story or segment together, time is short and the last paragraphs are cut. Have a point, and get to it quickly.

• Keep information local. Cater the release and cover letter to your particular community and the publication or station to which you're sending it.

• Send in the press release early. If you wait until the last minute, they may not have enough time to put a segment together or to meet deadlines.

Topics for a press release
Be creative; this list is just a beginning:
•    New programs or services at your business
•    Expansions or additions that have been added to your facility
•    People you have hired or promoted recently
•    Open houses
•    Grief counseling or pre-planning

If you are trying to pitch a story beyond a simple press release, you may be pitching a feature story. Be sure to present the content of the story in the cover letter, explaining why it is important and should be given consideration. Also list materials that you have available such as charts, graphs and photos. Try to make it as easy for the news staff as possible by offering an interview or a tour.

Our profession deals with human and personal lives, so make it a human interest story. Do not give a PR line; rather, let the story do that for you by talking in the media's terms.

Dealing with negative stories
When faced with a negative situation, think creatively to find the positive. One example of this is a funeral director who called up a local radio station after the story about caskets being sold at Costco first surfaced. He took what could have been a negative story about people buying caskets at Costco and put a more positive slant on it by talking about personalization, which is still a buzz word for consumers.

In a radio interview he said that people are generally happy with the current casket selection process. "Directly marketing caskets does not seem to be successful," he said. ''Those places go out of business quickly. People don't go to Costco to buy caskets. How much personalization is available in a catalogue for Costco? A salesperson cannot offer the time or the resources needed to personalize the experience."

As you move forward in building your relationship with the media, remember to be accessible so that reporters know they can reach you. Once you establish a relationship, it can develop into an ongoing stream of publicity opportunities.

When making the first call, offer to stop by to say hello, and drop off the media kit at that time. Once you make a promise to give a reporter access to someone or something, deliver on that promise. If you tell them you will give them an interview or a tour of your grounds, do it.

Preparing for an interview
Finally, here are some tools and techniques for effective news interviews:
•    Be prepared. Do your homework.  Know what kinds of questions this reporter typically asks and prepare responses ahead of time.
•    Be honest. In the age of the Internet, reporters quickly find out if you are lying.
•    Be helpful. Go out of your way to provide information that will help reporters do a story. They are always looking for other sources and other angles, so always have another funeral director in your area ready to be interviewed. You may also suggest they contact a trade association such as the ICFA.
•    Avoid saying "no comment," because it is perceived as an admission of guilt.
•    Avoid yes or no answers to awkward questions. If you are asked a tough question, especially one that is phrased awkwardly, rephrase the question back to the reporter instead of saying just "yes" or "no."
•    Remember the videographer. The person with the camera in his or her hand is just as important as the person holding the microphone or pen. The person who really is going to make you look good is the one behind the camera, so if you offer the reporter a soft drink or coffee, do the same for the videographer.

Dealing proactively with the media is beneficial to you, your business and the profession as a whole. The more we strive to get our message out there, the better the public perception will be of our profession.

Never forget, it's a small world, getting smaller every day, so take nothing for granted. Take every opportunity to tell your own story, so that the marketplace doesn't tell it for you.

Adapted from a presentation at the 2005 ICFA Annual Convention

A conflict has arisen between the deathcare profession and the consumer.
It is a battle between tradition and change, with one side tied to "the way we've always done it" and the other consistently rejecting it.
You need to understand the dramatic changes that have taken place and what they mean for funeral and cemetery services. Your livelihood is at stake.

Society has gone through drastic changes over recent years, affecting the way businesses run and consumers buy. The type of change of which I speak is not a gradual change; it is the dramatic change that occurs in a business and stretches that business like a rubber band to the point where it can never go back to the way it was. At that point, that business, society or institution has been changed forever.

Stretching the rubber band creates a new way of thinking, or what we call a generic strategic breakthrough. Two conditions must exit simultaneously for this type of change to occur.

First, there has to be a change in the way something is done or in the product that is used to do it. Secondly, there must be a change in the environment. For an innovation to be accepted into the marketplace, the market has to be ready for it.

An example that illustrates this phenomenon is the creation of food supermarkets in the 1920s and '30s. During the Great Depression two men noticed an old warehouse in New Jersey selling wholesale products. They took this idea back to Columbus, Ohio, where they started the first supermarket in the United States, called "The Big Bear."

This store still exists today as an affiliate of IGA. The store got its name after a bear that was trained to walk down the aisles of the store taking cans off shelves and placing them in a shopping basket. The idea was that if a bear can do it, anyone can.

For the time period, the creation of Big Bear was a generic strategic breakthrough because once the idea of a supermarket was born; businesses were never the same again. For the supermarket innovation to be successful, there were two external conditions that had to exist: refrigeration and automobiles. Before the 1920s, the idea of a supermarket might have existed in someone’s head, but the environment did not allow it to flourish.

Before refrigeration, people did not have the means to store perishable food, nor effective transportation to bring it home from the store. After the 1920s the icebox allowed every family to have refrigeration, and private vehicles eliminated the need for delivery trucks. Without refrigeration and private vehicles, the idea would never have succeeded.

Today, the traditional supermarket is under siege. People are now rejecting the old supermarket in favor of stores such as Wal-Mart where everything is under one roof.
Innovation and changing consumer expectations are the elements that drive change. The purpose of a business is to create a satisfied customer, so it is the company's responsibility to adapt to the trends and ideas of the marketplace. If a business ignores these trends, it cannot survive.

How consumers buy today
The first step to adapting your business to the evolving market is to understand who your consumers are and how they buy. Wal-Mart has become the largest corporation that ever existed in the world, each year bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars in sales.

The principal motivating factor that brings people to Wal-Mart is not its service (or lack of) or even its price, it is convenience. The people who choose to shop at Wal-Mart do not expect front door service, nor do they want it. They come because they can find everything they need in one store.

More and more, the consumer preference is leaning toward self-serve businesses. Consumers no longer want to be bothered while they shop. They like to know that someone is there if they have questions, but they do not need someone following them around the store asking if they can help. In fact, women's universal response to the question, "Can I help you?" is "No thanks, I'm just looking."

People have adapted to the "I'm just looking" mentality, because stores are now set up to make it easy for consumers to find what they are looking for on their own.

What do food chains such as McDonalds, Subway, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell have in common? They offer consistent and predictable service. People like walking into stores and making their own decisions.

Fast food restaurants have evolved from single brands into multi-brands, which I refer to as "KenTaco Hut." This is where you have Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Exxon gas under one roof. These complexes have spread all across the country, strategically placed right off of freeway exits. KenTaco Huts are good for the gas stations because they get some of the people who normally pay at the pump back into their stores.

Fast food restaurants are constantly adapting their menus to meet the changing demands of consumers and the latest diet trends. Subway, which used to talk about fat, has evolved its entire menu to focus on carbohydrates. Hardee's offers a burger without a bun.

McDonald's has created a happy meal for adults including a salad, a bottle of water, and a pedometer so that after you eat your salad and drink your water you can walk and measure how far you have gone.

Has the price list for your cemetery or funeral home evolved in the same way that these food businesses have?

Funeral service stuck in the past
Our offers just have not changed much. What would your offer be today if you knew that everyone walking through your door was going to spend $20,000? Although they are not spending that much now, maybe they would if we let them.

This has nothing to do with money. If you are ready to sell your products, people will be ready to buy, but you need to have these products and services available. We have to be better prepared to allow our consumer to say yes to something bigger and better.

Our profession is stuck back in 1962. It is the only profession that has not evolved
to meet the changing needs of the consumer. The same consumers who have been brought up on Wal-Mart, Home Depot and McDonald's are the consumers who walk into our funeral homes or cemetery offices.

We take those people and immediately assume it is a good idea to teach them a new way to shop. We make them sit silently across the table from us and listen as we tell them how and what they should buy.

People do not buy like this anywhere else in the world except possibly a timeshare sale. Do you like being compared to that? Research has consistently shown that people are not happy with the funeral selection process. The response to you is positive, but the response to our process is embarrassing.

The most difficult paradox for us to understand as a profession is that people like not being waited on. We grew up with the notion that personal service meant personal attention and lots of it.

Now the definition of personal service is changing to a point where, ironically, one-on-one service across a table is actually considered impersonal. People prefer to be let loose and look on their own.

So how can we help our businesses to evolve and better meet the needs of consumers? First of all, we need industrial strength training of employees.

We are the only profession I have ever seen that will allow people to work for us who we know are screwing up. They may be nice people, but they do not belong face-to-face with your customers.

Too often we have the attitude, "Well, he's never wrecked a hearse, and he's worked here 27 years, so he's got to be a nice guy." You have to remember that he is the one in the selection room with your families.
No other business does that. Other businesses go to great lengths to make sure their employees understand the company strategy. Their employees also know that if they mess up, they can lose their job.

What about cemeteries?
Some of us cemeterians still have books of rules as if we are in such high demand that we can make all our future neighbors accede to our requirements. If they don't, we will not even let them through the gates. I am not sure that any of our cemeteries are in a strong enough position to be so demanding.

Even if your cemetery is the only one in town, if your demands get too far out of line, families can just turn away. What are they turning away to? Cremation. Our entire profession can literally go up in smoke.

People thinking about cremation generally do not think about cemeteries. A cemetery's value proposition is the one most challenged by cremation because it is the least recognized.

Our mobile society itself is putting your cemetery offer under siege. An example is a woman who wishes she had kept her parents' urn with her because she lives in Florida and they are in a niche in Pennsylvania.
 
Our challenge as a profession is to find out who we are and what we are about. Are people venerating the memory or are they venerating the remains?

The only way to find out what people really want is to set up interviews conducted by an independent source (someone other than you) and ask them for their thoughts. Afterward, you need to follow up on their responses and make the necessary changes.

To change our image, we must change what we do
There are not a lot of positive things being said about our profession, and it is not going away until we change our system. We can no longer afford to be just "not bad" to offset the negativity about us in the marketplace.

In 1963, Jessica Mitford wrote a book called "The American Way of Death" which impacted us all and led to the implementation of the 1984 FTC rule. Between 50,000 and 100,000 copies of her book were sold.

Today, over 15 million people each week watch the television show "Six Feet Under," and like it or not, these viewers are comparing the selling process in the show with your process.

We also are compared to others in our profession. We are judged and convicted by the sins of others, by the least among us. The responsibility for change is not on the people screwing it up, it is on you. It is on those of us who know better and are passionate enough about the business to want to make a difference.
We need to start innovating and leading by example. Bring people with you to meetings or show them relevant articles. Take any opportunity to be a leader and go to those people in your neighborhood to share what you have learned. Without you, they may never hear it.

Think of the most memorable funeral you directed or were a part of and identify the elements that made it so memorable. Figure out a way to make your funerals memorable on a daily basis, because ultimately that is what will drive people to you.

If we don't do it, someone outside of our profession is going to do it for us.

This is your consumer and your business to win or lose, and I believe that we all have the power necessary to make this business last far into the future.

How does a cemetery balance the need to keep the grounds safe and attractive with sensitivity to families whose heartbreak over the loss of a child leads to excessive grave decorations? This Australian cemetery tackled the problem by keeping families involved and informed throughout the process of redoing its children's areas.

The loss of life is rarely easy for a family. This situation is even more traumatic when a child dies before the parents.

The children's area of the cemetery often elicits the greatest emotional response from community group tours and other visitors to the cemetery.

Confronted by windmills, ornaments and the sight of a mother sitting at a baby's grave, visitors are reminded how lucky they have been and, at times, of a loss they may have experienced.

Highly emotional reactions among both general cemetery visitors and the actual friends and relatives of those interred at The Necropolis Springvale in Clayton, Victoria, Australia, were far more likely before we reestablished our children's area. In the past, they were often aghast seeing the variety of ornaments, weathered soft toys, irregular fences and trinkets placed on and around graves.

As in all things, what appeals to one family can be quite disturbing for another. These feelings were often reflected in comments made and confrontations with our staff.

This placed our employees who regularly interacted with the young mothers and fathers, siblings and the grandparents of the baby in a precarious position.

Staff are expected to enforce policy in relation to what can and cannot be left at a grave, yet they also feel the full brunt of emotional outbursts. This occurs when something arguably is not quite right, has gone missing, has been removed or where trinkets on a neighboring grave spill onto an adjoining site.

Understandably, staff were reluctant to strictly enforce memorialization policy in these circumstances, despite its clarity.

A growing problem
At The Necropolis Springvale, the lawn grave, interment fee and plaque were all provided at a significantly subsidized fee. The lawn grave ornamentation policy clearly stated that only fresh flowers and a plaque flush with lawn was acceptable.

Over the last decade. staff increasingly turned a blind eye, allowing recent interments to be commemorated during the initial months of visitation with a variety of miscellaneous ornaments, windmills, wind chimes, etc. This compassionate response to a family's perceived needs in turn created a more serious problem.

It appeared families started trying to outdo each other. Picket fences were erected (often encroaching onto neighboring graves), pebble mix and concrete were poured as grave markers, sunflowers and bumblebees on wooden posts were inserted next to plaques, and teddy bears were attached to adjoining trees.  Maintenance of the graves and plaques became impossible for staff, and we had created a "catch 22."

Some families wanted the area cleaned up. Others indicated they had chosen it because they liked what they saw. Like all cemeteries, we also faced a myriad of public liability and occupational health and safety issues and had no choice but to confront the situation.

Planning a new policy
With strategic guidance from professional counselors, we communicated directly with families. We surveyed and listened to their needs, held focus groups and explained our situation.

Anticipating it would be easier to implement change if families had a visual impression of what we were trying to achieve, we engaged Paul Laycock and Florence Jaquet Landscape Architects to assist with the design. They created artists' impressions of what the area would look like if we stripped everything, then completely reestablished the site.

Some families and sections of the media were opposed to the redevelopment. Fortunately, the bulk of the community acknowledged that our identification of the risks was realistic. They also appreciated the expense, time and effort involved in our consultative process.

It became clear that families had very straightforward needs. They wanted:
•    to feel secure and safe when visiting their own space;
•    areas in which to leave personalized memorabilia;
•    the surroundings to be colorful;
•    us to implement rules clarifying exactly what was permitted; and
•    consistent enforcement to avoid this situation happening again.

Implementing the agreed upon solution involved:
•    temporarily removing plaques and granite bases;
•    disposing of memorabilia that families had not collected;
•    installing memorial beds and edging at the head of the graves to provide an area for plaques and mementos;
•    completely freeing the lawn grave surface of any memorabilia;
•    providing plantings of annuals within the bed, effectively providing soft demarcation between graves;
•    repositioning the plaques in new positions within the bed;
•    permanently displaying the ornamentation rules in the area;
•    management empowering staff to enforce the new rules fairly and consistently; and
•    consistently adopting the approach that if deposited memorabilia is outside the rules, it goes straight in the bin.

The feedback from families and funeral directors alike has been outstanding. The area looks better, is easier to maintain and creates a more appropriate environment for remembering and moving forward.

The plane started down the runway at about 6:30 p.m., leaving Epply Airfield in Omaha for the two-and-a-half-hour flight back to my world. I had spent a long weekend visiting my hometown in Iowa to celebrate by father's 80-something birthday.

Iowa in October is a tray of sensations brazenly forced on you. The climate is changing in dramatic ways, the greens of the summer turning quickly into the gold and browns of harvest season, and everywhere one travels, the ancient activity of bringing in the crops is present. Morning, noon and night, the farmers go back and forth across the field, with their impressive machines and take from Mother Earth more than enough foodstuffs to feed the world.

Growing up in the agrarian world is much like being a member of a Masonic Lodge—if you are an outsider, the entire proceedings are a secret and a mystery. I have never encountered a city person who understood the secret handshake of the farmer.

On my visits to my home state, I always take the time to drive through the countryside. I visit certain places which hold memories for me alone; no one else cares about or knows of these places, and that is OK, for to explain their significance takes way too much time, and is really nobody's business except mine.

These spots are mine, and no one can pollute them or change them or destroy them. Thus my visits back home to Iowa are not just a duty call on family, or a business trip or even a reunion, today they are primarily a spiritual renewal. They are an occasion to jump-start my attitude, to renew the very visceral makeup of my DNA by sights, sounds and sensations from 1,001 stimuli.

I am always sad when I leave, for I never can totally shake off haunting feelings of "would of, could of, should of” about my life. Questions such as: What if I had...? Why did I do that? Why didn't I do this? Should I have done this? Shouldn't I have said that? It is always an unsettling feeling when the plane takes off, leaving the ground on which I first set foot and which also helped set the foundation of my life.

* * * * *

June 1970 was a great time in my life, a brief period when everything seemed to come together. It was great! I had graduated from Avoca High School the month before, I had a gorgeous girlfriend who lived in Omaha and I was working for the prestigious Heafey & Heafey Mortuary at 3522 Farnam St., on what was then called "mortuary row."  Everything was wonderful, so wonderful that my boss allowed me to borrow the lead car to take my "city chick" out on the town in downtown Omaha.

I had my life all planned out. I was going to enroll in college, then go on to mortuary school in Boston. Eventually, I was going to own my own chain of funeral homes in southwestern Iowa. As I saw things back then, the sky was the limit.

Was I ever happy to leave high school behind! I was a terrible student, and as far as I could tell, only two teachers in my whole high school career liked me. The rest viewed me as a complete loser. When I walked across the stage in the old high school gym to get my diploma, my first reaction was surprise that I'd gotten it. Then, looking out at the crowd of teachers, I thought, "Thank God I am rid of them. They never took the time to get to know me and understand me." I had a real pity-fest, which I enjoyed then and still enjoy today.

While I was standing in line waiting to get my diploma, I was talking to a fellow student by the name of Tom Sewing. Tom and I always stood next to each other, because in high school they followed a penal-type system under which students were always lined up alphabetically, even in fire drills, and there were no T's or U's in our school.

Tom and I were chums all through our time in school together. Tom's parents were formally connected to the community of Underwood, Iowa, but at this time his father worked a farm southwest of our town; they were mighty fine people. Tom had a beautiful little sister, two years younger, named Renae. I used to do odd jobs for the old man who owned the farm where the Sewings lived, and when I had completed my farm work I would go to visit the Sewings. I really liked them all, for they seemed to always laugh at my stupid stories and jokes, and they let me play their small electronic organ. I made terrible mistakes in playing, but the Sewings always clapped and told me how great I was.

Tom Sewing was the envy of the entire Avoca High School. He didn't have a girlfriend; he didn't have money; he didn't have great athletic power; he didn't have an acne-free face. But he had something else much, much better—a car! Tom Sewing had a Barracuda, an honest-to-God 1960-something Barracuda, and he drove that machine with top-notch skill and speed. He could spin the wheels and burn rubber; he could pop the clutch and he could whip that machine around and turn it on a dime.

Students lined up to get rides. I meekly suggested that he charge a 25-cent fee to the poor kids and a 50-cent fee to the rich kids for a ride in his impressive car. I also, out of the goodness of my heart, offered to help him by collecting the money, for which I wanted only a paltry 60 percent share for marketing and financial handling charges. Tom firmly declined my offer, and happily our friendship survived his rejection.

His sister Renae was a sweetheart. She had a beautiful smile, was a talented student and excelled in athletics. I could tease her and she was always a good sport. She liked to ride on the back of Tom's other vehicle, a motorcycle. The two of them would fly like the wind on the back roads of southwestern Iowa. Tom liked to go fast. What 18-year-old doesn't?

* * * * *
My father's birthday dinner was held on a Saturday night at Johnny's Cafe, an Omaha landmark our family has patronized for many years. Sunday after the party, my brother flew back to Houston, and I was scheduled to stay one more day and fly back to Atlanta on Monday afternoon. About five o'clock Sunday afternoon, I decided to drive around and visit some boyhood places so I could refresh my spirit before leaving the next day.

I planned to drive into Council Bluffs and then to continue into Omaha for my memory tour, followed by dinner. As I was driving alone down Highway 61, I entered the town of Underwood. It was about 5:30 p.m. and the sun was setting, the colors of the sky were spectacular and the farmers were still working in the fields. Suddenly a feeling came over me which I have learned to pay attention to over the years. The feeling is always the same, one of great peace, sadness, reverence and yearning for something, all simultaneous. I felt the emotions overwhelm me.

I wish I could remember the exact date of the phone call, but I cannot. I am confident, however that my girlfriend in Omaha called me in the late afternoon. I was working and living at the Heafey & Heafey Mortuary and was in my apartment above the carriage house when I answered the phone. ''Todd?'' "Yes." "It's Patty." "Yes, I know; what's up?" "I don't know how to tell you this." "What? What's wrong?" "Todd, Oh, it's terrible news. Tom Sewing and his sister were killed this afternoon in an accident."

I stood stunned, no one else there but me. "Both of them?" "Yes." "Are you sure?" "Yes, my Aunt Georgia just called and said that I should let you know before you saw it on the news." "Both? Are you sure?" I asked again.

I distinctly remember that it was a beautiful June day, because Heafey's had conducted a funeral that morning for a priest out at the Dowd Chapel on the Boy's Town campus and Msgr. Wegner had commented on the beauty of the day. When Patty called, I had just finished washing the funeral coach because we had another large funeral service the next morning.

Tom and Renae also must have thought it a beautiful day, and of course it was summer. Tom had just graduated, and Renae was off for the summer. As best as I was ever able to piece the story together, Tom and his little sister took off on the motorcycle sometime before noon. They were traveling up a town road in Minden, Iowa, and were just crossing Interstate 80 when a truck pulled out in front of them. The collision was horrendous; my two young friends were taken to the Council Bluffs hospital, but the trip proved futile and in time both were pronounced dead.

The next several days were full of activity. I was asked to assist in conducting the funeral and had the honor of driving the funeral coach in which Renae’s body rested. The funeral was held in the sanctuary of Trinity Lutheran Church simply because it was the largest religious building in our town. The school gym was larger and available, but the Sewings were religious people, so to church we went.

Tom and Renae Sewing were buried side by side in the Sewing plot, where at least two generations of the family rested in the H.D. Fisher Cemetery outside of Underwood. I left the cemetery at around 5:30 p.m. with an empty funeral coach, drove back to Avoca, parked the vehicle at the local funeral home, and then drove into Omaha that evening to see college friends and drown my sorrows. Since that day 35 years ago, I had not set foot in the H. D. Fisher Cemetery.

* * * * *

Now, as I inched the car down the main street of Underwood, I could see the evergreen trees which mark the H. D. Fisher cemetery to the west. I turned the car to the right and started down a gravel road, then stopped at an intersection. A woman jogged past me, sweating. I smiled and waved; she just waved. I have never seen a happy jogger in my life. I turned to the left and went up and down two hills and finally stopped at the top of the third hill.

I got out of the car and stood there for a moment. It reminded me of playing "King of the Mountain" as a child. I could see for miles and miles. The farmers were working the land to the right and left. One farmer drove by on his John Deere, waving. Everybody in Iowa waves at each other. I waved back. The farmer's expression told me he knew that I was not some tourist. The farmer, I could tell, knew I had a connection to the place.

A warm autumn breeze was my companion as I entered the cemetery gates. It did not take long to locate Tom and Renae's graves. They share one gray granite upright marker with different dates of birth but the same date of death. I stood by their graves, and I felt like I was floating. I studied the stone carefully and a thought began to radiate through me, mind, body and soul. "God almighty, is life a precious gift!" Again and again, "God almighty, is life a precious gift!"

The year 1970 was chiseled twice on that headstone. Nineteen-seventy, 35 years ago. I began to take stock of my life, feeling humbled and grateful, in the presence of the earthly symbol of my dear friends' brief lives, that I have been alive for the past 35 years. What a blessing!

I felt puny and embarrassed to recall my reactions and responses to certain episodes in my life that I thought were unfair or unwarranted and which caused me stress and unhappiness. I felt ashamed to recall times in my life when I was not able to appreciate or be thankful for everything life threw at me.

For the truth is, all the times I thought life was picking on me, I was living, breathing, experiencing—while my young friends Tom and Renae were all this time lying in their graves. I looked out at the farmers and thought about how many crops had been planted, how many seasons had changed the scenery in the cemetery where my young friends' bodies have lain all this time, while I have been blessed and fortunate to be present, to contribute, to try make a difference in this crazy world.

I thought about all my failures and successes. Someone else got my gorgeous girlfriend from Omaha. Someone else in Omaha got the chain of funeral homes I had planned in southwestern Iowa. Someone, it seems, has always done better than I.

But I have a wonderful son; I have a great career which I never could have imagined; I have many friends and associates worldwide. I have a great church home; I have my health. I have traveled the world over. I came from really good people; I have a great education. I have lived life and my parents have not had to see their children buried. There is nothing more difficult than for parents to bury their children. A wise rabbi from Boston, Earl Grollman, once told me that when your parents die you have lost your past, when your spouse dies you have lost your present, but when your children die you have lost your future.

Standing in front of Thomas and Renae Sewing's gravestone in Underwood, I was humbled to the core, and said a prayer of thanksgiving for my good fortunes in life. It was a great comfort to let this experience in a cemetery soak into the core of my spirit. It's odd that I have often thought about the Sewings the past 35 years, yet it wasn't until I entered the cemetery gates to visit the gentle pastoral scene of their resting place on top of a country hill in western Iowa that the Holy Spirit moved me to a reawakening, a genuine appreciation of the precious gift of life.

Tom and Renae's physical lives ended in youth. They never experienced the joys of parenthood, the pride of a career or even college. They also never experienced the torments and toils of aging, the frustrations of seeing health pass and energy wane. Both Tom and Renae were bright and quick and had big hearts. They were both growing into adults capable of seeking truth and creating beauty. But on one June day, death was upon them in an instant and no one could stop the Grim Reaper. It seems he is everywhere. As a funeral director I have learned a few lessons about life. Here is one of them:

Death wins.

* * * * *
As I walked back to the car, I saw one of the farmers fiddling with his tractor. I stopped and asked how the crops were looking this year. "It's another bumper crop!" he responded with a great big grin. I said to him, "It must be great to see life grow and blossom year after year." He responded, "Yea, I guess it's the Lord's work."

I was now standing in the middle of the road. I looked to the left, toward Tom and Renae's gravestone, and then to the right, to my new farmer friend, who was working the land in order to create new life in the spring. At that moment I remembered visiting the Sewings on their farm and seeing the light stream across the corn fields.  I remember playing with Tom and Renae; they were so joyous, running madly over the lawn in front of the farmhouse, laughing, yelling and panting for breath. What energy, what spirit and what happiness! What did we then care about death?

As I walked back to the car, I looked over one last time at my farmer friend. Ah, yes, the work of the Lord; no truer words have ever been spoken. I drove back to the highway. It was time for a nice cocktail or two or three and a wonderful Omaha steak.

As I drove, I was not thinking explicitly about Tom and Renae in the ground or about my farmer friend across the road, harvesting the old and planning for new life in the spring. But a strange connection struck my fancy as I thought of the insects which make their homes both in graveyards and fields. I thought how in the midst of life and death, in the midst of creation and destruction, the simple murmur of insects calling to their mates creates a powerful life force. We see this same Godgiven force in human beings when lovers call to their mates through clasped hands and touching lips.

As the sun finally set below the magnificent panorama of the western Iowa sky, and as the diligent farmers kept up their work, I thought that the other lesson this funeral director has learned is this: Life wins.

Quave Cemetery was completely under water during Hurricane Katrina.
An ICFA member has helped restore the municipal cemetery and re-entomb those whose resting places were disturbed.

The Quave Cemetery in D'Iberville, Mississippi, is one of the oldest in the community. With headstones dating back to the early 1800s, this municipal cemetery is the resting place of several generations of local families.

 
When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, an estimated 10 feet of water covered even the tallest structures in Quave Cemetery. The damage was immense, including five mausoleums completely destroyed and others substantially damaged. The city of D'Iberville, already stretched for resources, would need help.

Noting that the mausoleums installed by Don and Faith Magallanes' Fortress Mausoleums were undamaged, the city approached them for help.

The Magallaneses' home and office are in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast, so they had witnessed firsthand the devastation wrought by Katrina.

"Everyone was affected," Don said. "If you didn't lose your house, you were taking people in who did. It was chaos for a while."

After hearing about the situation in D'Iberville, Don and Faith were delighted at the opportunity to contribute in some way to the coast's rebuilding efforts.

They agreed to donate several of their company's mausoleums and install them, as well as to perform needed repair work on damaged mausoleums.

"There is a lot of heritage in that cemetery important to the community," Faith said. "We really wanted to help restore it."

Over the course of a week, five new Fortress units were installed in the historic cemetery to replace ruined mausoleums, and mausoleums that were damaged, but not irreparably so, were repaired.

Returning to rest
On June 2, eleven caskets were returned to their original resting places during a re-entombment ceremony. Many local residents and officials were present, including several relatives of those being re-entombed. Members of the D’Iberville City Fire Department provided escorts for the caskets as they were brought to the mausoleums.

The event got plenty of coverage in the local and regional media, including television stations and newspapers.

On this already special day, Don Magallanes was in for a surprise. He had grown up within two miles of the cemetery, and as he worked on site during the week he recognized many of the names on the memorials as those of family members. As the caskets arrived for the ceremony and the names of those to be re-entombed were called out, Don immediately recognized one as a family member.

"I actually re-entombed my great aunt, Maggie Diaz," he said. "My mother always told me about my Great-Aunt Maggie, but I never realized until then she was in this cemetery."

The project was a joint effort between the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the City of D'Iberville. D'Iberville Fire Captain Jay Williams, who coordinated the project, indicated he was thrilled with the results. ''Don delivered everything he said he would and made the process an easy one for the city."

(Left to right) Cheryl Seabolt, burial information specialist; Joy Handgis, family sales advisor; Nancy Weil, aftercare director; and Jeffrey Reed, VP of sales and marketing at Mount Calvary Cemetery.

Sent in by Nancy Weil:

The Mount Calvary Cemetery staff in Buffalo, NY, took a moment to clown around on the job to benefit The Red Nose Institute. The Red Nose Institute sends red foam noses to U.S. troops deployed anywhere overseas. The noses are meant to be shared with others who might need a smile. Some of the noses are given to the children in the communities where the troops are stationed, while others are used by the military personnel themselves

While more serious needs and concerns are part of everyday life for our troops, the Red Nose Institute believes that the tiny bit of fun and silliness that these noses might bring covers an area that isn't addressed quite as much on an everyday basis-their mental health. After all, laughter is the best medicine, and silliness is good for everyone, even those in harm's way.

When Mount Calvary Cemetery Certified Laughter Leader and Aftercare Director Nancy Weil learned of the project, she knew that they had to participate. “Our cemetery supports many different veterans’ causes,” said Weil, “and this was a great way to show our gratitude and add some fun to a soldier’s day.” Through their staff’s efforts, three hundred clown noses will now find their way to faces of people they will never meet. And that is nothing to laugh at.

For more information about how you can be a part of this project, visit: www.TheRedNoseInstitute.com.

Looking for a good place for a walk? Try your local cemetery.

With Virginia enjoying balmy weather the past few days, more people have been getting their exercise with a brisk walk around town or country. One of the safest and prettiest places to walk is through a cemetery. Though the paved roads aren't lined with sidewalks, the few cars you encounter are traveling very slowly.

The small cemetery just a few blocks from my house is called Riverview, but really should be called Mountainview. If you know what to look for, you can see the plain the Shenandoah River snakes across, but not the actual river—unless there's some serious flooding going on. But from its location atop a small hill, the cemetery does provide an unobstructed view of lovely Massanutten Mountain, as well as part of the town and surrounding countryside.

A pretty place to rest in peace, or to walk in peace.

Developed in 1998 by the Government and Legal Affairs Task Force of the
International Cemetery and Funeral Association
 

BACKGROUND

Cemetery authorities offering predeveloped interment spaces for sale to the public should provide assurances that the future development and completion of the contracted- for interment spaces will occur.

The costs associated with developing land for burial purposes are significantly less than the costs that may be incurred to construct a mausoleum, columbarium, or below-ground crypts. The type of predeveloped interment space, whether a grave space or a mausoleum crypt, should be taken into consideration when determining mechanisms to guarantee completion.

PRINCIPLES

• Prior to the sale of a predeveloped grave space for ground burial, the cemetery authority should have available developed grave spaces that are comparable in value to the predeveloped grave spaces being sold until such time as development is completed.
• Prior to the sale of a predeveloped mausoleum crypt, niche, or below-ground crypt, the cemetery authority should utilize one of the three following methods to ensure completion of the contracted-for interment spaces:
  
  1. Post a completion bond. The face value of the completion bond should be based on the total projected cost to develop the interment spaces; or
  2. Establish a separate predeveloped interment space trust fund funded from a portion of the proceeds from the sale of each predeveloped interment space, in an amount sufficient to cover the total projected cost to develop the interment spaces. The amounts due the predeveloped interment space trust fund should be desposited within a reasonable time after receipt. The cemetery authority should be entitled to withdraw from the predeveloped interment space trust fund amounts equivalent to the cost-of-labor performed and the mateials delivered by certifying such construction costs to the trustee. Once the predeveloped interment spaces have been fully constructed, the cemetery authority should certify completion to the trustee and be entitled to withdraw all funds, including income, from the predeveloped interment space trust fund; or
  3. Have a available comparable developed inventory for the total number of predeveloped interment spaces until such time as construction is completed
• These requirements discussed above should not apply to interment spaces that are developed or constructed prior to being offered for sale.
• The purchase agreement for a predeveloped interment space should contain an explanation of how the buyer's interests will be protected by compliance with the predeveloped interment space law.
• In addition to the buyer's right of rescission under existing state and federal law, the purchase agreement for a predeveloped interment space should of explain whether and under what terms the purchase agreement may be cancelled after the initial right rescission period.
• The purchase agreement should contain a specified time period to commence and complete construction from the date of the first sale of a predeveloped interment space.
• Extension for commencing or completing construction of predeveloped interment spaces should be granted by the regulatory authority for circumstances beyond the control of the cemetery authority which cause a delay.
• The purchase agreement should explain the buyer's remedies if the predeveloped interment space is not completed within the allotted time period.
• In the event that the predeveloped interment space is not completed prior to need and the buyer has made full payment, the purchase agreement should state that the cemetery authority will provide the buyer with a choice of:

• A replacement developed interment space, at least equal in value and location to the predeveloped interment space, to the extent available; or
• Temporary interment until such time as the contracted-for predeveloped interment space is completed, when the human remains would be disinterred and reinterred at no additional charge.

• Sales of predeveloped interment spaces should be subject to regulatory authority oversight with a periodic filing requirement.

Developed in 1998 by the Government and Legal Affairs Task Force of the
International Cemetery and Funeral Association
 

BACKGROUND

The site of a cemetery should be dedicated for cemetery purposes and a legal description of the property should be filed with the appropriate governmental entity. There should be a statutory process to ensure dedication procedures protect the interests of interment right owners.

PRINCIPLES

Developed in 1998 by the Government and Legal Affairs Task Force of the
International Cemetery and Funeral Association
 

BACKGROUND

The dedication of a new cemetery creates a permanent addition to the community. The extent of the design and planning, financing and long-term maintenance arrangements by those who own or control a cemetery, identified herein as the "cemetery authority," will determine whether the cemetery is ultimately an asset or detriment to the community. Regardless of whether a particular cemetery is operated as for profit or nonprofit, religious or non-sectarian, municipal or fraternal, each cemetery must literally be prepared to service what it sells forever.

The cemetery authority should meet minimum capitalization requirements and establish an endowment care trust fund to provide financial stability for the newly-created cemetery.

PRINCIPLES

1. The person intending to conduct business as a cemetery authority and establish a new cemetery should make application to the regulatory authority that has jurisdiction over cemeteries. The application process should include the following:
   
   1. Legal documents pertaining to the property and creation of the legal entity to conduct the business of a cemetery;
   2. Proof of deposits showing that the initial requirements for capitalization and the endowment care trust fund have been satisfied; and
   3. Documentation to demonstrate the ability to establish a new cemetery, financial stability, and prior business experience.
2. The site selected for the cemetery should be free and clear of financial encumbrances, conform with local zoning ordinances, and be formally dedicated for cemetery purposes. Interments should be restricted exclusively to human remains. A legal description of the property, including a map or plat of the site, subdivided into gardens or sections, should be filed with the appropriate entity.
    
3. Prior to commencing sales, the cemetery authority should be required to develop an area suitable for interment of human remains. The cemetery authority also should have made improvements to the property, that include an on-site office to conduct business and a road permitting access to the office and to all property for which the immediate sale of interment spaces is proposed.
    
4. A cemetery authority engaging in the sale of predeveloped interment spaces should have specified time periods from the date of the first sale for commencing and completing construction.
    
5. The initial amount contributed to the endowment care trust fund may be offset by withholding subsequent deposits from the sale of interment spaces until the initial deposit amount is recovered.
    
6. Permission to establish a new cemetery could be withheld by the regulatory authority if any director, officer, or manager affiliated with the cemetery authority has been convicted previously of fraudulent activities.
    
7. When the requisite documentation is provided to the regulatory authority, the regulatory authority should not unreasonably withhold permission for the establishment of a new cemetery.
    
8. The permission granted for establishing a new cemetery shall expire if basic operation of the cemetery does not begin within a specified time period.
    
9. Permission to establish a cemetery should not be transferable or assignable. A cemetery authority may only develop or operate the new cemetery at the location which is authorized under the application to the regulatory authority.

Developed in 1998 by the Government and Legal Affairs Task Force of the
International Cemetery and Funeral Association
 

BACKGROUND

Zoning ordinances are developed and enforced under the local jurisdiction of cities, counties, towns, and villages. As a result, zoning requirements for cemetery usage can vary significantly from one local jurisdiction to another and courts will generally enforce such regulations unless they are clearly unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious.

A number of zoning ordinances do not consider the diverse functions of cemetery acreage for mausoleum, crematory, flower shop, retail monument company, columbarium, mortuary, or chapel facilities. As a result, land dedicated and zoned for cemetery uses should be granted permits for clearly related functions such as the inurnment of cremated remains or the entombment of casketed human remains in a mausoleum crypt. Some zoning ordinances consider mausoleum usage separate and distinct from cemetery usage, requiring a special use permit or approval as a nonconforming use in order to proceed with construction. In addition, many jurisdictions have not enacted building standards for cemetery-related structures or inappropriately extend to mausoleums construction standards developed for other types of buildings.

PRINCIPLES

1. Zoning ordinances regulating cemetery development should be geared, as a matter of policy, to maximize the efficient use of acreage for the interment of human remains and related services. Cemetery construction approval should not be unreasonably withheld where the local population demographics indicate the need for a cemetery or where the resulting construction will stimulate competition among existing cemeteries in the area and provide purchasers with a wider variety of options for making their plans for final disposition.
    
2. Cemetery zoning ordinances should permit all types of cemetery-related land usages. Also, public occupancy standards, such as parking, fire sprinklers, and rest room facilities, should not apply to structures, such as a mausoleum or a columbarium.
    
3. Mausoleum and columbarium construction should be encouraged in order to maximize the use of interment acreage. Zoning ordinances should unambiguously state that mausoleum and columbarium usage is consistent with cemetery usage. Zoning ordinances should not require special use or nonconforming use permits for mausoleum construction and other cemetery-related structures on acreage dedicated for cemetery operation.
    
4. Construction standards should be consistent with the purpose and uses of the particular structure. For example, mausoleum construction standards should include appropriate drainage and venting requirements for mausoleum crypts. Adapting construction standards developed for other types of structures should be avoided because such standards tend to address issues irrelevant to mausoleum construction and ignore issues of special concern to the cemetery authority and its purchasers.

Developed in 1998 by the Government and Legal Affairs Task Force of the
International Cemetery and Funeral Association
 

BACKGROUND

Many older cemeteries have used their undeveloped acreage and are exhausting their inventory of unsold interment spaces. Yet large numbers of interment spaces which were sold in previous decades remain unused and apparently abandoned by the interment right owners. The concept of permitting the cemetery authority to reclaim abandoned interment rights has the potential to maximize the cemetery's use of its acreage, ensuring that property dedicated for burial purposes will be utilized instead of becoming wasted space. Further, this procedure creates a new source of income for the endowment care fund, which benefits and protects all interment right holders, their families, and the community.

PRINCIPLES

1. There shall be a presumption of ownership in favor of the person, or the successor-in-interest of such person, in whose name an interment right is listed as the owner in the records of the cemetery office, and who holds an instrument of conveyance from the cemetery authority of the exclusive right to inter human remains in a particular interment space in the cemetery.
    
2. A sold but unused interment right can be reclaimed by the cemetery authority, subject to specified procedures for giving due notice by mail and through publication. These procedures may be initiated when there has been no contact from the interment right owner for a stated period of non-use from the date of sale or from the date of last contact. However, in the case where a memorial has been installed on an interment space, the interment right is not eligible for reclamation.
    
3. Prior to the reclamation of an interment right, the cemetery authority should contact the owner of record by registered mail. Should a response be received from the owner of record or successor-in-interest, the records of the cemetery authority should be amended accordingly, if necessary, and the interment right could not be reclaimed. If the registered letter is undeliverable, or if no response is received within a prescribed time period after mailing, the cemetery authority should then attempt to contact the owner of record by publication.
    
4. A notice should be published in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the cemetery is located and also in the county of the last known address of the owner of record indicating that the interment right will be reclaimed by the cemetery authority if no response is received within a certain time period. Further, a notice should be posted in a conspicuous place within the cemetery authority's office and on the interment space attesting to its intent to reclaim the unused interment right.
    
5. Within a specified time period, should no response be received to these notices on behalf of the owner of record or the successor-in-interest, the unused interment right would revert back to the cemetery authority for resale.
    
6. The cemetery authority may include in its publication procedures a listing of multiple interment rights owned by different parties.
    
7. The proceeds derived from the sale of a reclaimed interment right should be apportioned between the endowment care trust fund and the cemetery authority's operating account, for the benefit of the operation and maintenance of the cemetery.
    
8. Within a specified time period after the cemetery authority has reclaimed the interment right, a person, who proves to the cemetery authority that he or she is the owner or successor-in-interest of such interment right, should be granted a replacement interment right at no charge, approximate in value and location to the one reclaimed, to the extent available.

Developed in 1998 by the Government and Legal Affairs Task Force of the
International Cemetery and Funeral Association
 

BACKGROUND

A cemetery endowment care trust fund is designed to ensure that income will always be available for the continued maintenance and upkeep of the cemetery, even when all the interment spaces are sold. The cemetery authority should not be permitted to withdraw the principal of the endowment care trust fund, but receives the income earned by the principal to offset maintenance expenses.

The trustee's duties and responsibilities concerning an endowment care trust fund should be detailed in the trust instrument. The investment management of assets held in the trust should be governed by the "Prudent Investor Rule," under the "Uniform Prudent Investor Act," which was developed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, to set general standards for trustees; to allow trustees flexibility in choosing investments; to specify that their work is to be judged on the basis of the performance of all their investments; and to allow them to delegate investment decisions.

PRINCIPLES

1. Income from the endowment care trust fund may be used for any administration and upkeep of the cemetery including, but not limited to, maintenance, repair, and replacement of landscaped areas, memorials, roads, walkways, walls, irrigation systems, buildings, and related overhead. It is the responsibility of the cemetery authority to determine the priorities for spending income from the endowment care trust fund.
    
2. Although a cemetery authority may subsidize the cost of maintaining the cemetery from current income, it should have no obligation to provide more care and maintenance than may be provided by the income from the endowment care trust fund.
    
3. Each cemetery authority should determine the proper level of funding for the endowment care trust fund to produce the income necessary for providing an adequate level of maintenance for that cemetery. There should be a statutory minimum established for the endowment care trust fund contribution. Special care contributions should be fully trusted at the amount received for that purpose.
    
4. The cemetery authority may be allowed to require contributions from memorial buyers to the endowment care trust fund, the income of which should be used for memorial care. These contributions should be assessed in a uniform and non-discriminatory manner regardless of which entity sells or installs the memorial.
    
5. Only the income of the endowment care trust fund should be paid toward the care of the cemetery. Income such as dividends, interest, and rents, as well as a portion of the capital gains, may be distributed after the deduction of expenses. All costs incurred with respect to the operation of the endowment care trust fund should be paid from the endowment care trust fund including, but not limited to, trustee fees, investment advisory fees, income taxes, administration, accounting, audit, regulatory fees, and surety bonds.
    
6. A cemetery authority investing the endowment care trust fund in equities may set aside a portion of the capital gains as a reserve for investment losses and a reserve for future maintenance, repair, or restoration of the cemetery or embellishments in the cemetery. The reserve for maintenance should not exceed a specified percentage of the total endowment care trust fund. The cemetery may withdraw funds from the maintenance reserve as needed for the care of the cemetery.
    
7. A cemetery authority, or person designated by the cemetery authority, should be responsible for the performance of care and maintenance of the cemetery it owns and for services relating to the opening and closing of any interment space located in the cemetery.
    
8. Endowment care trust funds should be subject to an annual filing requirement. The cemetery authority should report to the regulatory authority amounts collected during the year, investments, income and expenses, and amounts paid to the cemetery authority for endowment care. Penalties should be imposed on the cemetery authority for failure to file in a timely manner.
    
9. Verification of the activities of the endowment care trust fund should be performed through periodic examination by the regulatory authority or the cemetery authority could submit an independent auditor's opinion.
    
10. Upon transfer of ownership of a cemetery, the selling party should certify that amounts allocated for the endowment care trust fund have been collected and deposited as required in the endowment care trust fund. If a deficiency is reported, the buying party should develop a plan for corrective action. The buying party should have no liability for endowment care trust fund shortages in reliance upon the selling party's certification of past compliance. Accordingly, the selling party should retain liability for any deficiencies in the endowment care trust fund that occurred during its period of ownership.
     
11. The cemetery authority should be allowed to adopt rules and regulations for the care and maintenance of the cemetery.
     
12. The "Prudent Investor Rule" should be adopted to govern how endowment care trust funds should be managed and invested.
     
13. The trustee, designated by the cemetery authority, should be a person, state or national bank, trust company, or federally insured savings and loan association, authorized to transact business in the state. The cemetery authority should have the ability to change the trustee.
     
14. The trustee should have the authority to commingle individual endowment care trust fund accounts into a master trust, maintaining separate records of corresponding allocations and divisions of assets, liabilities, income, and expenses.
     
15. An endowment care trust fund should not be invested in assets that are owned by the cemetery authority, nor in assets that are owned, directly or indirectly, by any directors, officers, employees, or relatives having beneficial interest in the cemetery authority.

Philadelphians are quite proud of their tradition that it takes three generations to make a true Philadelphian, while one may become a New Yorker over night.

The same principle applies to old line Cemeteries. You cannot transform them into a Modern Cemetery by simply waving a wand and declaring that in the New Addition no upright monuments will be allowed. Edgar Guest, one of my fellow Detroiters, wrote quite a poem, entitled: "It takes a heap of living to make a house a home." In this poem he described the joys, the tribulations and heartaches that make our fireside a sacred, comforting place. It takes a lot of planning, a lot of inspiration, a lot of perspiration, a lot of capitalization to transform a City of the Dead into a Burial Estate designed for the living as well as for the dead.

Forest Hills Cemetery was established in the Northeast corner of Philadelphia 42 years ago. During its span of existence it has passed through the hands of many owners, individuals, corporations, syndicates and selling organizations. Each of the owners and each of the selling organizations had different ideas in the building and selling of cemetery property. Fortunately for the Forest Hills of today none of these ill ¬conceived ideas are irreparable. Fortunate too, are we in the fact that we have not inherited a tombstone thicket, for all during the years care and discretion has been exercised in the type and style of the monuments erected therein. Our greatest heritage is the wonderful, natural beauty of Forest Hills, for you can travel the country over, and nowhere will you find a burial ground with more beautiful rolling hills or wooded areas. That natural beauty, with the possibilities of enhancing it with manmade beauty, is the reason why I am now in Philadelphia. Nowhere have I seen greater possibilities for a sales engineer to work hand in hand with landscaping engineers to create a modern cemetery that will rank with the country's finest, when these improvements are carried out.

The subject assigned to me has been a difficult one to prepare. If I were speaking to you on a matter of sales theory, I could speak freely and earnestly. However, I must speak to you in the light of my actual experience, and relate the work that I performed day after day during the five months I have been engaged in this new endeavor. Naturally in such a short space of time, miracles cannot be wrought, and I am going to handle this talk as if it were addressed to each of you as an individual, and not to an audience of hundreds of cemetery experts gathered from all over the North American Continent. I am going to picture you as if you were individually seated at my desk in Philadelphia and that you and I, are swapping our common experiences in the operation of our sales departments and of our cemeteries. I have done this in the past with many of you here, and you and I have sat across our respective desks in many States in this country. When you and I talked to each other indi¬vidually, it did not sound like braggadocio, but from our conversation we each gathered points of information to help us in our future endeavors.

In the experiences I am to relate to you, you will find no startling innovations, no cure-all solutions to our many problems. During the past 10 years in which I have been engaged in this fascinating work of manu¬facturing and merchandising modern cemetery property, I have, come across many sales ideas. A lot of these ideas were very, very bad - a few of them were good. The only way in which I, have ever been able to separate the wheat from the chaff, was to take all of these ideas apart, piece by piece, to see whether or not they were feasible. This cannot be done by sitting behind a mahogany desk - it must be done in the field, face to face with the prospect or the lot owner, or, if you please, your Board of Directors ... In these 10 years, therefore, I learned which ideas have worked, and which should be discarded. In my present connection I have tried to use these ideas that clicked, not experimenting again with the ideas which had failed to produce results. So draw up your chair a little bit closer to my desk and light a fresh cigarette, while I proceed to go into my story.

Fifteen years ago a new Memorial Park area was opened at Forest Hills, that is to say, it was called the Memorial Park area. The restrictions of the cemetery forbade the erection of upright monuments in that area ¬also forbade the installation of bronze memorials in the same area, allowing only stone or granite memorials, of any size or description, just so they were installed flush with the ground. The first step I took was to have our Board of Directors amend the By-laws of the cemetery, so that bronze memorials, installed flush with the ground, would be permitted in any section of the cemetery - monumental, as well as non-monumental. Our new letter heads describe it as Forest Hills Cemetery and Memorial Park. In other words, we immediately brought to the attention of the public that we have a complete line of Cemetery lots. The Ford dealer is fortunate in the fact that he has a complete line of automobiles, appealing to all pocket-books and all tastes - the Lincoln, the Zephyr, the Mercury, and three models of Fords. So it is with us - if a man wants a $10,000.00 monumental burial estate, we can take care of him. We do not have to spend time in selling him on a new idea and losing the sale if we are unsuccessful in selling that new idea. We have property that appeals to the great middle class, and also to the low income class, although we do not have any single graves for sale. Our plans call for the completion of a separate entrance to the Memorial Park area, so that one may enter there direct from the Main Highway without driving through the Monumental Sections.

We do not have an unlimited amount of money at our disposal with which to make some very necessary rehabilitations and improvements, so my immediate job was to make those improvements, not only where they were most needed, but also where they would show up to the best effect to let our large family of lot owners know that new life had come to their dormant, sleeping cemetery. During the past 10 years there had been no sales force whatsoever at Forest Hills, and although the interment business continued on a good even keel, increasing lack of funds had been felt from year to year, and naturally many jobs had been allowed to remain undone through the need of money with which to carry out those necessary repairs.

The first Sunday after my arrival, which incidentally was Easter Sunday, the visitors to the cemetery were surprised to see a beautiful pair of white swans gliding gracefully over our lake. They not only stopped a long time to admire these swans, but they remarked to themselves and to me that something new was happening here. That one expenditure of $45.00 for this pair of swans brought an amazing touch of life to a place in which no life had existed before. Several stretches of road were repaired at once, and the lot owners, as well as the prospects could get a graphic idea of how all of the roads throughout the cemetery would look when our improvement program is completed. The purchase of a funeral chapel tent drew many immediate favorable comments from funeral parties, and from funeral Directors themselves. Lower cost in Cemetery maintenance was secured immediately through the purchase and use of a 75" Power Mower, for the cutting of the lawns in the Memorial Park area, instead of by the 30-inch mowers which had been used previously. Another innovation which appealed to our lot owners and prospects alike was the free flower bed, with a beautiful enamel sign containing the inscription "These flowers are free for use on graves."

The first time I set out by myself to drive to the cemetery I had one deuce of a job finding it. I did not want to have to stop to ask for directions, but I was forced to do so. At the cemetery I had difficulty in distinguishing where certain sections were located, even though I had the map of the grounds before me. It was not long before a beautiful gold leaf raised letter entrance sign was erected at Forest Hills. Small metal signs were placed on each side of our burial sections, these signs bearing the name of that particular section. Small arrow directional signs were placed at all important road intersections leading to our cemetery.

The cemetery administration building looked worse than a Country Store at Simkins Corner. It was dingy and shabby, inside and out. I had often heard of the miracle a few coats of paint could create, and I saw this happen before my very eyes. The interior of the office with this light paint, with its bright linoleum on the floors and the Venetian blinds on the windows, has become a place of which we are all proud instead of apologetic as heretofore. The shining whiteness of the exterior has brought our cemetery forcibly to the attention of the motorist who use the highway, and the railroad passengers of the New York line of the Reading Railway, which passes before our Administration Building door.

For a great many years, the only City office of the Cemetery was a small bookkeeping office in the center of town. I immediately moved our Executive office to a modern daylight, office building located 4 miles north of the City Hall, but 4, miles nearer to our cemetery. We are now located at a main transfer point of many trolley and bus lines, as well as the Broad Street Subway line. This makes it much easier for our lot owners to drop into the office personally to make their monthly payments. It makes it more accessible for our salesmen also, as m this location they have unlimited parking facilities on wide streets, and the office is closer to their fields of operations.

I have just mentioned here about our salesmen. That is one big job I had to do, and still have to do for that matter. Not having had a sales force here for ten years I had to start from scratch, building up sales material and getting sales pictures for our kits, which in itself was no easy thing to do, as the winter continued late in Philadelphia this year, and I had to wait until the trees began to have at least a sign of foliage upon them.

I did not wait until this sales material had been completed to start hiring salesmen. In fact, I ran an Ad for salesmen even before my new office had been redecorated completely. This first Ad brought in so many applicants, that I was forced to buy and install the salesroom furniture within 24 hours, as I had to start conducting a sales school immediately. Twenty men answered that advertisement in a City which I had been told by several that the cemetery business had been exploited to death, and that salesmen would run from the sight of a cemetery Ad. I had been told moreover, that it would be impossible to hire any new men if they were not given an advance or drawing account. That these two statements were fallacies is proven by the fact that out of the 20 men who answered this Cemetery Ad, 15 became salesmen for us. Not a one of these men has ever been given a cent in advances or, drawing accounts. Some of you may be interested in knowing just how this Ad read. In our City, the Philadelphia Inquirer insists that the nature of employment and manner of remuneration therefore must be specifically mentioned in the Ad. I quote for you this advertisement:

SALESMEN OVER 35:
GRAY HAIRS ARE AN ASSET HERE.

Analyze these advantages enjoyed exclusively by our new Sales Force!

(1) We furnish BONA-FIDE LEADS. No canvassing necessary.
(2) Prestige of 42 years continuous service to Philadelphians, thousands of owners.
(3) Superior quality and beauty.
(4) Prices today but a fraction of value. You will sell on rising market.
(5) Extensive improvement program just starting.
(6) Over one million Philadelphians do not own. They should buy NOW, before need arises.
(7) Experience not required. You will be given intelligent training and cooperation in 1940 cemetery merchandising.
(8) Unlimited earnings thru generous commissions and advancement possibilities for lifetime career.
(9) No dull seasons. No samples to carry. No credit turn-downs.
(10) Sales force just starting. Get in on ground floor.

Your appearance, personality, and character must be in keeping with the dignity of our proposition. Apply Monday only to:

FOREST HILLS CEMETERY
Beury Building
3701 N. Broad Street

I think the reason that it has been an easy matter for us to hire good men on a straight commission basis, is the fact that our proposition creates enthusiasm in their minds and in their efforts. It has always been said that “Anticipation is greater than realization” and we are fortunate that we are just at the start of our improvement program instead of having to sell a cemetery that is completely finished. Enthusiasm is always a vital factor in selling any commodity, and it is especially true of Cemetery Property, where you can draw such a splendid word picture of the beauty that is there and the beauty that is to come, the romance and sentiment of a cemetery that is designed for the living.

Here is a true story of what happened to one of our salesmen, in the first week of our sales force's existence: An 89 year old Aunt of his died and he was at a local funeral establishment waiting for the funeral serv¬ices to start. In his conversation with the funeral director he told him, in great detail, of his new connection at Forest Hills, and just what Forest Hills was going to do in the way of improvements. He evidently did a good job in selling this funeral director on Forest Hills. There were only ¬two cars besides the hearse and as the funeral procession got under way, our salesman noted the fact that it passed by the highway where it should have turned off, to go to the cemetery where the interment services were to be held. Instead, the procession continued right out to Forest Hills, and pulled up beside an open grave there which had been made ready for another interment service. It was then, and only .then, that the funeral director realized that his mind had been filled so full of Forest Hills, that he had driven there instead of to the other cemetery. It was fortunate for his reputation that the funeral party consisted only of the immediate family of the Forest Hills salesman.

On the books of the company are the names of over 5000 lot owners, representing over 4000 burials. During the period of years which had elapsed since these owners had purchased, many had moved away; in many cases the complete families had died out. During all those years I do not think they ever received a general mailing from the company on any subject whatsoever. Naturally, I wanted to acquaint them with the detailed plans which we were to carry out for their benefit, as well as to let them know about the new management. With this idea in mind, I engaged Homer Rodeheaver to come to Philadelphia to conduct a Lot Owners Meeting on May 25, in one of our large down town auditoriums. I sent a general mailing out to these 5000 names announcing the Homer Rodeheaver Meeting, and over half of these letters were returned to us as undeliverable. This mailing, however, was the means of our securing many new addresses for our records. I used the Post office plan, Form No. 3547, which applies to multi-mailing of 3rd class mail matter. The envelope which was mailed on 1½¢ postage bore this inscription: "Return postage guaranteed: Postmaster: If addressee has moved and new ad¬dress is known, notify sender on Form 3547, postage for which is guaranteed." By this method the Postmaster returned to us a post card containing the new address. On the 2500 or so letters which were re¬turned as undeliverable, we continued our checking further thru the funeral directors, asking them to advise the present address of survivors if it were known to them. In this way we received the correct address of many of these families. Unfortunately, we still have many names on our books which we cannot locate, and I am praying and hoping that some day. In the future, a new City Directory will be issued in Philadel¬phia. None has been issued in the last 5 years, and so far, no one has any definite idea if one will ever be issued again. We of course have used the telephone directory to trace the phone subscribers.

The Homer Rodeheaver Meeting attracted over 600 lot owners on a rainy Saturday evening which was the only date on which I could book Homer. It created genuine enthusiasm. Quite a few Funeral Directors were also present that evening, as they too had been sent an invitation for this meeting. The lot owners were told that night of our plans for improvements and rehabilitation, and they were also told that they were expected to help in the sale of lots, as the more lots that were sold would mean more improvements would be made. It was pointed out to them that three - parties would benefit from every lot that was sold to their friends and relatives:

First: The lot owners themselves would greatly benefit, as the value of their lots would increase according to the additional money spent in the cemetery with the additional beauty and desirability thus created.

Second: The cemetery would benefit as their own unsold property would greatly increase in value, due to these improvements.

Third: Their friends or relatives would benefit by an immediate purchase as they would be in position to buy at ground floor prices, as these prices would continue to advance, as the improvements proceeded from time to time.

Our salesmen are following up the families representing the 4000 burials at the Park by means of the Historical Record, with which most of you are familiar. On every one of these calls the salesman is supposed to conduct a miniature Homer Rodeheaver Meeting, pointing out the many improvements from which they will benefit as lot owners, and also calling to their attention the other parties who will benefit from additional sales to their friends and relatives. Such a method is followed in our contacts with visitors to the cemetery, and also to those who attend interment services. It is quite interesting to note the results obtained by the various types of salesmen in following up these Historical Records. Some of them become ideal census takers. They turn in a complete Historical Record of the deceased in flawless handwriting, with every question fully answered thereon. Some of them in listing the surviving relatives of the deceased are too timid or negligent to ask as to whether or not those surviving relatives own cemetery property themselves. Other salesmen by their sympathetic listening, by their enthusiastic presentation of our plans for beautification, are very successful in securing the wholehearted cooperation of our owners and their actual physical aid in helping them to sell property to the Uncle Johns and Brother Harrys listed by them on these records.

I will not go into great detail about the beautiful Memorial Day program we had at Forest Hills. It is interesting to state, however, that in spite of great difficulties, this program turned out to be a great success. It was the first of May before I had an opportunity to even think or make plans for such a service here. No such service had ever been held at Forest Hills. In fact, there was not even a flag staff of any description, I started contacting the various veterans’ Posts adjacent to our cemetery, and I found that for years each post had been going to certain specified cemeteries in their area to hold their Memorial Day services. Everywhere I went I was greeted with the information that it was too late for their posts to change any plans; therefore, after starting at the bottom I decided to continue at the top. I introduced myself to the District Commander of the American Legion of our District and received an invitation from him to attend the monthly meeting of the Commanders of the 23 posts of that district; which was held the first week in May. At that Meeting I told these Commanders my story briefly, that I would like to have a Memorial Flag Staff dedicated on Memorial Day, and while I realized that their Posts could not attend this dedicatory service, that I would at least like to have their colors represented by volunteer delegates from each Post.

The next week I presented a similar invitation at the Monthly District Meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The result was that our first Memorial Day service had a good turnout from the 23 posts of the Legion, and the 16 Posts of the V.F.W., with many of the Commanders them¬selves attending. They were so inspired and pleased by the beauty of the site where we erected the Memorial Flag Staff, that it was decided then and there that Forest Hills would be the official cemetery for the entire District Memorial Day Joint services in the future. All of the Metropolitan and Community Newspapers gave publicity to this service, the first time in many years that the name of Forest Hills had been mentioned by any Newspaper other than in the obituary columns.

Due to the late spring it took a long time for me to secure suitable films in color, of the beauties of the Cemetery, Late in May we began our Moving Picture Travelogue Lectures in the Churches and Lodges, and as the fall season now opens we are booked extensively for the showings. As I have spoken to you before from this platform on Movie Lectures, you know how sold I am on them as an aid to sales, so it will not be necessary to go into this phase of sales promotion here. If you are not familiar with these Moving Picture Lectures I suggest that after the meeting you pay Roy Hatten $5.00 for a copy of the 1937 year book containing this information.

We have not as yet installed our amplified music but expect to do so in the near future. I perhaps should not mention this fact here at this meeting, as I imagine after this talk I will be besieged by the musical exhibitors at this convention. I, however, do state definitely here that while we have not as yet decided on what musical installation we will make, that you can bet it will be thru one of our exhibitors. The Chapel Tent and the Power Lawn Mower, which I mentioned earlier in this talk, were bought from exhibitors at our previous conventions, and I make it a strict rule to favor our exhibitors wherever and whenever possible. Again, I will not go into detail as to how we will secure prospects through our Sacred Concerts. The 1938 year book covers this subject thoroughly. And again, you may get a copy of that book from Roy for another five dollar bill. Perhaps after all, Roy's offer of $15.00 for a complete set of year books will be your best bet.

After our mailing list had been brought to date, we found that there were over 1000 unmarked graves. Thru Bill Williams' cooperation we immediately got out a letter to these 1000 families, advising them that bronze memorials could be installed anywhere in the cemetery, and giving them a sales talk on the use of bronze. Our salesmen in their daily calls with the Historical Records have the privilege of selling Bronze Memorials for which they receive a commission of 10%. While our salesmen are not Memorial salesmen, it does give them an opportunity to pick up' a little expense money through this incidental selling. These families will be systematically followed up, also, by future letters. Quite a few profit¬able orders have already been received for Bronze Memorials, but we have not scratched the surface as yet. In my previous connection at Michigan Memorial Park, it was quite a simple matter to sell bronze memorials, as they either I had to install bronze or nothing at all. Here we are competing with every monument and memorial dealer in the City, and we have to overcome a lot of prejudice that has already been built up in our lot owners' minds. We find that the more bronze memorials we install the easier it is for us to sell additional ones, so I feel that the hardest part of this particular job is already over. I do not want to go on record as favoring the installation of bronze against that of granite. I do want to go on record, however, in saying that by selling bronze we receive a selling profit ourselves, and do not have to be content with only an installation charge. Figure for yourselves a potential average profit of $25.00 each on 1000 unmarked graves and you will see that that total amounts to $25,000.00 possible profit for the cemetery. Multiply that by 400 burials a year and that will give you an additional future profit of $10,000.00 per year.

In this short space of time allotted to me, I could give you only a few of the highlights instituted since last spring. Inasmuch as there is not in this whole audience a possibility of selling one lot in Forest Hills, I am not going to attempt to tell you about the future plans we have in mind for our own particular cemetery. I do hope that if any of you pass through Philadelphia, or any way near Philadelphia, on your way home from this convention, or at any time in the future, that you will drop in my office, and we will then continue the discussion which you and I have had this morning. I know that you will be impressed with the beauty of Forest Hills when I show it to you then. I do not advise you to have any of your salesmen stop by to see it, as they might do what I did last March - move to Philadelphia and become a living part of the beauty that is Forest Hills.

From the publication:
“1940-1941 Cemetery Handbook & Buyers’ Guide”
ACOA 11th Annual Convention & Exposition
Hotel Statler, Buffalo, New York
September 8-11, 194

I was invited to appear on your program for a few minutes to talk on the subject of seeds. I can best introduce myself to say I have been interested in this subject of seeds for some twenty years, being connected with the Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, a state institution, where we are continually handling from 18,000 to 20,000 samples of seeds. Many of those are grass seeds.

Now to utilize these few minutes to best advantage, may I attempt to tell you about some of those things which are of interest to all of you.

I understand that you come from many states. Therefore, the kind of seeds used for your planting would not be the same as they are per¬haps here in the northeast or certainly in this state.

Now, having landscaped your grounds and everything is all in prepa¬ration, the proper fertilizer, the proper drainage, the proper composition, the proper soil, then comes the question of seeds, and I think I under¬stand the thing you are interested in most is the question of quality and where you are going to get them, and what kind.

Now I think first of all we have to understand and appreciate the fact that there are many kinds of seeds used for this particular purpose, and they are not grasses. Occasionally borer is used, particularly the new strain of permanent or often called "wild white clover." Perhaps I should add a little here and say that wild white clover or this permanent or perennial type of white clover when used with Kentucky Blue Grass is one. of the finest combinations that can be used for a general purpose landscape planting, because of the fact that the Kentucky Blue Grass, which is at home in all of the central and northeast is complemented by this wild white clover, which furnishes the nitrogen for the grass, thus making more or less of a permanent rotation. Therefore, you go not have the necessity of continually adding fertilizer or applying fertilizer after this turf has reached its maximum production, and you can always tell when the grass becomes lush, and that is the time to stop fertilizing.

Now then we ought, to understand that there are various strains and types of these grasses now being developed. In fact, Kentucky Blue Grass is being torn apart, so to speak, and possibly a little later there will be strains of Kentucky Blue Grass which now appears on the market as a standard commercial commodity. The same is true of the fescues. There are different types of fescue and you ought to understand what type and strain you are getting before you plant it on permanent valuable property, because they have different colors and they have different characteristics of the plant. For instance, the finest, which is probably the chewing strain of fescue, is quite different from the cheaper hard red or sheep's fescue, which you would not want in a valuable planting.

Now the same is true of the bent grasses. They are perhaps not used very much for cemetery work because they have to be treated differently, - fertilized, mown, and taken care of in a different manner from the taller growing Kentucky Blue Grass.

Now perhaps Kentucky Blue Grass is used more widely than any other kind of grass because it has that typical fine, dark green which blends with shrubbery, monuments, and things of that sort, whereas, if you used a mixture of grasses and included a slate green or one of those slatish green colors, which is typical of the fescues, you are introducing a little different color of grass.

So I think with those things in mind I must hasten on to tell you those things which I think should be of interest to all of you as to quality. I am not going to tell you where to buy your grass seed because there are many good sources, and likewise there are some sources which it is best to keep away from, according to the neutral unbiased test.

Now there is no mystery about grass seed. It can be defined as to variety, purity, viability, freedom from weeds and all those things can, be described, and if they are not described to you by the source from whom you secure the seed, then I would suggest you go where they will be described. In other words, go elsewhere. Those characteristics which are important can be described to you very carefully and very minutely so that you will know exactly what you have before you put it into the ground.

I would like to take the last few minutes to point out here something which will aid you in getting these various kinds of seed, regardless of what state you are in and have uniform typical descriptions.

The new Federal Seed Act, which controls the shipment of seed over state lines went into effect last February the 9th, so any shipment of seed made to you over a line should bear a tag bearing practically all this information. If it is shipped over a state line and does not bear this information, then it is an illegal shipment, if shipped to you as seed.

Now then, this tag or label or whatever happens to be on the bag of seed which comes over a state line - keep in mind state laws are a little different, although many of them follow the Uniform Seed Bill. The state laws are a little different and may not require all this information. Nevertheless, I wouldn't buy any kind of seed from anyone unless it is more or less fully described so you will know exactly what you are getting.

Now the kind of seed is given, for instance, Kentucky Blue Grass, and if there is, a variety of which there is not at the present time, if this were fescue, it would say "fescue", "red fescue" or "chewing fescue” or whatever kind you are getting.

Then we come to the next important point. That is purity and that should be given in percentage. I should point out first under the Federal Seed Act this tag will bear a code number so that you or an inspector or anyone interested can get that code off that bag and go through the history and record and find out where it came from, and if those facts are truthful. That is for the public protection.

In hurrying on here, it always tells you the percentage of other crop see present. For instance, in some stocks of Kentucky Blue Grass, although you don’t use them much for your particular purpose, there may be field contaminations of some other grasses and they are listed here under crop seed present.

Then the most important thing for a permanent planting is to look out for weed seeds. There are some kinds which are not important and there are other kinds which are important. If you are using a mixture, and in that mixture there is red top and it carries carroways a very com¬mon impurity to red top, you are going to have carroway in your planting and it is going to be almost permanent, because it is a deep-rooting weed, like many other kinds of weeds, so you want to know what weeds you are getting as well as what percentage. Now there may be a low percentage in terms of 0.20. It may look like a small amount, but that 0.20 may be introducing the kind of weeds which you did not want in a permanent planting.

Then the inert matter that consists usually of chaff and leafage or those things which cannot be cleaned from the shed and it also may contain things which are put in there to give it bulk or weight. Of course, that isn’t as common as it used to be because the purity will show that factor.

Now in many states there are certain weeds which are considered as obnoxious. It has to be stated. In many states buckhorn planting which is a bad weed for a permanent lawn or cemetery planting - the name and number per pound must be given on this tag. That is a thing for you to look out for. If you are in a state where buckhorn planting or any of these plantings are not obnoxious weeds, you can find out by consulting your state seed laboratory and many of the states have one which contains these particular weeds in which you are interested.

The next question of importance is that of germination, what the seed will do for you after you get it. That, too, is stated on these tags or labels and there again we have to remember that these very high-bred and well-bred grass seed types vary in their percentage so if you are buying Kentucky Blue Grass you can't always expect 90 percent germina¬tion or better, because it may be the best stocks of Kentucky Blue Grass for that year are maybe around 80 percent or 75 percent, so we have to keep those facts in mind.

The date tested - that tells you how recent the tests were made upon which this information was given.

Under the Federal Act the shipper or person to whom it is shipped - his name and address must appear on this tag or label. As I say, this has to be done under the Federal Act where shipments are made from a grower or a source to you over a state line. This information is not required when you buy seed from a source within your state, but then that state seed law operates and if it does not give this information which you ought to know land should know, then you will have to insist that it be given by the dealer or the source from whom you get the seed. As I say, if it is not given, I would be tempted to go elsewhere, so that you will know exactly what you secure or what you are going to plant before you put it in the ground, because then it is too late to take it back.

I think I have used my time, Mr. Chairman, and if there happens to be any questions I would be glad to answer them. I have seen some of these fine plantings on golf courses and lawns and cemeteries and I should say you ought to be very careful of the quality of seed you are putting on these expensive plantings.

From the publication:
“1940-1941 Cemetery Handbook & Buyers’ Guide”
ACOA 11th Annual Convention & Exposition
Hotel Statler, Buffalo, New York
September 8-11, 1940

I appreciate very much your courtesy in inviting me to say a few words, rather to read a paper, and I did prepare a paper, quite lengthy, and un¬interesting, but I have decided to chuck it, and instead will say just a few words because I don't want to take one minute from the time of Mr. Hinds. I really enjoy Mr. Hind’s talks and I know that you also enjoy them.

I come from a small town in the Middle West, Clinton, Iowa, and probably I am the smallest - not in avoirdupois - of course - repre¬sentative here of a small cemetery.

The subject given was "Down to Earth in the Cemeteries in Smaller Communities". The question for discussion was: "Why is it more difficult to operate a successful cemetery in a small community than in a larger one?" Now I will confess I know nothing about that. The only cemetery connection I have had is with the one we have in our little town.

The paper just read was very complete, and we have more to follow on the subject "why the small cemetery needs a national association". I am more interested in that subject. One thing has impressed me in all these meetings. The unity and cooperation of large and small; the un¬selfish cooperation and service which these larger cemeteries are giving by their presence here and letting us in, on all of their information and experience.

Our problems are exactly what yours are, probably with some varia¬tions in our several communities. Nevertheless every small cemetery in this country should be represented here. They need the National Asso¬ciation.

May I leave just one thought from that first contact. These are times of stress and here we are talking about bookkeeping, about cooperation; state associations, interments and in great detail.

Our newspapers daily hint at great social changes to come. Uncertain¬ty and change is in the air. Some have said there is no room for the pioneer. I disagree. The members of this association are outstanding pioneers. Many frontiers must still be developed; many problems must yet be met and solved. Here is one of our greatest frontiers -the serious consideration of the distinguished task to properly and fittingly preserve the memory of our departed.

America will be preserved through all time in the glorious memory of its departed sons. Memory is a priceless possession. Our patriotic task is to give that memory perpetual care. I came here and found an associa¬tion of Patriotic Americans. That is the spirit I found everywhere, - from Memphis, Houston, Seattle, New York, and Clinton, Iowa, large and small, we are all here in unity on a new frontier, all denominations, mostly middle aged men, service men, older men, and women. I found our fundamental ideas all in unity. We are all Americans. Unity is one thing that will kill the fifth column in this country. We want to preserve and build these new frontiers in our beautiful cemeteries by this Association.

It is an inspiration to come here. I love that flag. I noticed it yester¬day and looked at it, and this morning when Mr. Hinds talked I just hoped that he would proceed with what I know he can say and do with inspiration. It is time now that we are thinking about some of these things. We are thinking about bookkeeping, but there is a greater thing behind all of that which is at stake.
In our little cemetery we have a Veteran's Section, and by the way, we sell it for the regular price. No places are given away because we can't afford to do that. My good friend, Thomas Bartow, the last sur¬vivor of the Grand Army of the Republic, passed away this last winter. He was an outstanding man in the community. He visited in my office frequently and recounted the stories of the Civil War. He chose our New Memorial Park. He is the only G.A.R. resting there. There are 700 or 800 sleeping in our old cemetery. He had lived a full life and he spoke to me many times about the flag, and I paid only passing atten¬tion to it. He talked about the ideas of unity in this country, about Americanism and patriotism. We buried him here. We put a large bronze plaque on his grave since he had left instructions with me that he wanted all the battles in which he participated to be on that plaque, from the Riot at Baltimore and every battle to the March down Pennsyl¬vania Avenue, and we put it all on there too.

The speaker at that dedication program of the plaque, which occurred the Sunday before Memorial Day, spoke about America. You know it is the American Cemetery Association. We are thinking about the American flag now. All of us assembled from all parts of this nation, and it is well that we do. America, the bulwark of Liberty. As the speaker at the dedication so aptly said: "America - wide as the world thy bene¬ficent fame; child of the earth's grandest struggle for liberty. Hope ever smiles at the sound of Thy name. Thou hast of soldiers whose hearts beat in loyalty, trained in the pride of their forefathers grand. Ask of the foe that has tested their bravery how they can fight for their own cherished land. Greater America, fearless America, thou hast thy millions of men at thy command. Thou hast of sailors whose warships of majesty plow through the seas of thy every behest. Deep is their cannons far echoing melody, chanting the liberty song of the west. Greater America, prouder America, now of the pride of the ocean possessed. Thou hast of aviators whose courage battles the air, dauntless and fearless they blaze their paths everywhere. Thou hast of hearts that beat for thee faithfully, calling thee ever their loved and their own. Patron of order and teacher of liberty, e'er with the blessing of liberty strewn. Greater America, Truer America, grandest of Nations the world has ever known".

May the Memorial Parks in this Country daily unfurl the flag, a clean proud banner as a symbol of out distinguished task of preserving the memory of our loved ones, and as we see it flying in the breeze we will remember that we are Americans united now and always from Memphis, Seattle, Miami, Portland, San Diego, Clinton, Americans all in the American Cemetery Owners Association. Yes, daily may our flag float over our beautiful cemeteries. The flag which we love honor and adore.

From the publication:
“1940-1941 Cemetery Handbook & Buyers’ Guide”
ACOA 11th Annual Convention & Exposition
Hotel Statler, Buffalo, New York
September 8-11, 1940

In giving my views on the subject, "Why is it more difficult to operate a successful cemetery in a small community than in a large one", I beg you to pay close attention to the other gentlemen on this program. My view is based strictly on my personal experiences gathered from selling, operating, and in developing four cemeteries in the middle west not in city populations from 10,000 to 40,000, and may not necessarily be the same view as you will hear from the other men.

First, obviously because of limited population, cemetery developments and beautification cannot be built on a massive scale at huge expense like large city cemeteries.

Second, advantages of each development to be made must be studied as to the best selling points and the best place for certain developments to be explained in a sales sequence.

Third, enthusiasm must be built around small development improve¬ments making each outstanding where in reality the same small develop¬ment would be minor in a large city cemetery.

Fourth, man power advantages are naturally limited because of small population.

Fifth, few rich people who purchase live within the limited selling territory, thereby eliminating prestige sales.

I believe these are the most serious problems confronting the owners of small city cemeteries, all of which can be overcome.

The one big problem which has confronted most of us, and undoubt¬edly the hardest problem, was President Roosevelt's free giving of money to city owned cemeteries for developments. After 7 years I trust we will whip this free money problem with a WILL, and lock it out of our pro¬gram with a KEY.

Cemetery developments cannot be built on a massive scale like large city cemeteries. This reason is clear to a cemetery official who investigates his business and attends state and national conventions. A large city with potential prospects for years to come can build, for example, a large tower costing between five and twenty thousand dollars exclusive of music. To use music in a small city, it becomes essential to build a modern inex¬pensive tower to serve the purpose and still be a high selling point for the salesmen. In a small Michigan city a very attractive tower was built of split fieldstone at a cost of only $510; a music installation amounted to $950; beautification with various shrubs and flowers cost $120; making a total expenditure of all improvements only $1,580. With this minor cost for music, tower, and gardens, the owners were able to sell 25 thousand dollars worth of lots in a 17 week sales campaign. After the short but brief campaign of 17 weeks was ended, there still remained sufficient lots in the particular section set aside for the tower to bring them in 15 thousand dollars in future sales. This brief campaign ended about four years ago, and since that date this particular city has had about 80 imme¬diate need purchases a year and 74 out of the 80 purchases each year have been made in the Memorial section.

I gave you this example merely to show developments cannot cost too much in comparison to the large city developments. With study and care the less expensive developments will serve to build powerful sales helps for a sales campaign.

The developments selected for campaign purposes should be made a study, not only from the point of cost, but also the story to be built into the sales talk plus extra attention as to where it should be used in sequence in the sales talk. Before deciding on some particular improve¬ment to be used as a power point in a sales' campaign, I would suggest the officials consult various directors in their state association or the secretary of our National Association in regards to style, expense, and story to be used on this particular development. Members of your state association are only too pleased to assist you in any matter pertaining to improving the present day cemeteries. Officials who have never operated a sales campaign will more than be repaid by consulting some of the men who have had sales campaigns and by becoming a member of a state and the National Association.

ENTHUSIASM must be built around the non-expensive but all impor¬tant development features to be built. Even with a nominal cost for a tower and music, as mentioned, beauty can be added by securing the assis¬tance of a horticulturist or landscape gardener to assist you in the beautification of this particular development with shrubs and flowers, thereby making a small city cemetery one of the city's leading beauty spots, all of which can be had at a nominal cost.

MAN POWER advantages are limited naturally because of the small population. The owners must take particular care in selecting the correct type of salesmen and sales ladies to avoid your Commission plan being told and broadcast at large, thereby making it unduly hard for the salesmen to avoid arguments from prospects in regard to buying a lot and paying the salesmen's commission.

One of the largest selling points, as you know, is prestige sales of purchasers or board members. This point is largely lost in a small city development because the man, who has made money or holds a responsible position in a small city, generally does not have the goodwill of the ma¬jority of the average laymen. To offset this sales point which is used commonly in the larger cities, you can make up a list of the average purchasers.

SENTIMENT seems to carry a larger amount of weight in small communities, giving an advantage to the salesmen. The people buy because of love for friends or neighbors.

PRIDE carries weight also, thereby assisting the salesmen because the families like to keep up with their neighbors or friends.

Because of sentiment and pride, the purchasers, waste no time in telling all their friends they purchased a burial estate, especially at the bridge clubs, Parent-Teachers' Associations, sewing bees, etc. You will find advance information on future prospects is somewhat easier than in larger cities because a resident generally knows the larger part of the population personally. Truthfulness plays an all important part in the success of a small city cemetery development. One pressure story, one night club party, or one argument with anyone may mean the ruination of that salesman's future sales and the prospects for the entire cemetery program. Obviously, the salesmen must be hand picked and be men and women of high type caliber with a good reputation in the city.

Prospects and sales are limited because of the small territory to cover. Improved sections with beautification as mentioned should be built after the campaign starts and should be considerably smaller in size, that is to say in number of lots, than is ordinarily the case in large cities. A promise of a specified development in the sales talk and a failure on the part of the owner to complete said development will kill the cemetery sales program quicker than anything I know.

Developments to be built should be completely modern and up to date to offset the old alibi of “I want to be buried in the city cemetery where mother and dad are resting". A simple answer to this argument is, "I am sure if there had been a modern cemetery of this type in your city at the time they purchased a lot, they too, would have bought there, because they were progressive. I know they expect you to continue throughout life with progressive ideas and be among the city's ambitious young folks to assist in all civic developments".

I should like to enlighten small city cemetery owners of the advan¬tages they have to make a success with a sales campaign. Each of the salesmen selected should be good listeners, as well as being able to answer all questions. Small city residents enjoy telling their life's history and should be given that opportunity. This holds true, I think, with a lot of people in large cities also.

Second, salesmen as well as the owners must have confidence. I have found the average layman in small cities to tell all their friends what a lovely burial lot they had purchased, and the story has been passed on to the salesmen sooner or later by others who have heard the story by word of mouth thereby building confidence in the salesmen. This sells him on his business more than any sales director can sell him. With confidence you can meet each morning unafraid and conquer anything.

Third, salesmen become persistent in small communities because of price raises as the developments are being made and soon learn to call back on lost sales ahead of each price raise and thereby make sales.

Fourth, salesmen working on small city campaigns become more considerate of prospects because of family leads. It is common for a salesman to make a sale and be given the names of sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. This is one of the main advantages in selling small city cemetery property over larger city property. I recall a salesman, who contacted a family one winter afternoon when the thermometer stood at 22 below zero. He made the sale and within 6 days had sold 17 lots to relatives. It is, therefore, my belief that salesmen enjoy selling in small cities regardless of the many handicaps because it becomes a thrill to make a sale and within 24 hours have other residents tell him they know he made a sale to some certain party; also because the news boys on the corner as well as the businessmen and the banker start calling you by your first name. They respect you because they realize you are assisting in making their city modern. Residents seen to know their city is judged by the looks and type of their cemeteries the modern memorials of the present age.

The small city owners need a national association because of the gain they receive through visiting with members from larger cities, the advantages to be gained by reading and studying the year book, the talks presented at the conventions, along with the great opportunity afforded them in being able to see the latest and most modern display at the National conventions.

The only other way I know of to better assist small cemetery owners can be and no doubt will be within the coming years, added to our National program. This assistance should be a traveling director who is qualified and knows from experience the problems of the small city cemetery owners, along with learning from personal contacts throughout the country what others are doing to make a success and thereby passing on information and assistance to the small city cemetery owners while covering the United States. When this day arrives to add such assistance through the National Association, it will not only be constructive, but a God’s Blessings to owners who operate in the smaller communities and will assist to build a larger National Association. Until our association can build large enough and work out plans to finance such an educational, instructive and direct assistance to this particular type of owner, it is imperative that these owners continue to attend and assist, not only with respect to building a larger National Association, but at the same time assist in building a local state association. What we have done in Michi¬gan in respect to building a cooperative State Association and assisting the - small cemetery owners, I will be only too glad to explain to interested members any time during this convention.

My personal advice to small cemetery owners who anticipate opening new sections, or start a selling campaign, would be to read every article that appeals in our National Association Year Book, the Legal Coupon and the American Cemetery Magazine, listen attentively to what is told you by others who have had sales campaigns, but refuse to accept it as fact until you have thought it over relative to the possibilities of it work¬ing in your own locality. Analyze it, and decide in your own mind whether it is the proper move for your own particular locality and ceme¬tery. Use your personal ability to reason, to analyze, and to choose the things you hear and read that which in your opinion is worthwhile and helpful to your own case.

If you have tried to increase your sales with ideas of your own and met with somewhat of a defeat, do not forget and by forgetting wipe it out of your mind, instead take your defeat, examine it, analyze it, and make it a power weapon to fight new battles with new ideas you picked up at this greatest of all National Conventions.

Be like the cemetery salesman who had worked all day making many calls but no appointments. His neighbor wanted him to go to a soft ball game that night but he declined. "I've got a lot of home studying to do." The next night he was ready to go and was more than full of enthusiasm. Later he explained that the night before he worked three hours going over every call he had made, analyzing each. He studied every objection given to him, worked out a new sales talk to whip these objections and that day sold one out of two sales talks.

I would like to say in closing, if you listen and read everything possible about our business, work out a plan of benefits that are attractive to prospects, build what you say you're going to build, assist in building a larger membership within your State and National Association, you need not worry about your possibilities of making a success with a small city development.

CHAIRMAN HINDS: If anybody here wants to ask a question, we have time for a few questions.

MR. A. L. WATERS (Lancaster, O.): The program says why should the small cemetery be connected with the Association. Beyond Mr. Eisner's paper, I would like to ask him what the Association can do for the small cemetery.

MR. YELLAND (Norwalk, Conn.): Isn't it true that the state con¬vention or the state associations are of more value to the little man because the problems of each of those members are more nearly alike and they understand them better, and they are probably among that group; a few that have sound methods of solving those problems. Here a small man's problem is not that of Los Angeles or of Chicago or of Atlanta or of Philadelphia. Ours is an entirely different problem and many of the good things that have come out of this convention are much over the head of an institution such as ours and many of the institutions in our state, which are similar.

MR. EISNER: That is very true. However, if you apply the things you hear here in your own local park you really won't need a state association, as I see it, but a state association has different problems, of course, from legislation on down, and they can work them out. I will say to you the information given out at the State Association in Michigan has not only helped Michigan small cemetery owners but we have had people volun¬tarily send in $1.50 a year in order to be kept in contact with the little bulletin paper of what we are doing in Michigan, the small cemeteries as well as the large from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Ontario, and if that is true, if someone was out in the field contacting and going to those places and giving them advice and helping to hire men and trying to close sales, giving them all of those ideas, some one, of those things would be worth the fee to pay the National Association, if it could ever be worked out.

MR. CHESTER SPARKS (Philadelphia): Bill, I am going to say a word; if you please. When I went to Philadelphia people said, "Oh, Philadelphians are a lot different from Detroiters." I think that is the trouble with the small cemetery man. The statement was made here just now that his problems are different from the large operator. It is all wrong. Philadelphians are like Detroiters. Your cemetery is life the big cemetery, and we do not want to kid ourselves that our-problems are dis¬tinct and aloof. I have given a lot to those Michigan Association meet¬ings, but believe me I have learned a lot from those, from these same little, small-town operators. The only thing about the small-town operator, he tries to keep the things to himself. If he would give in to these National Associations and State Associations as much as the big-town operator gives, then all of us would benefit, but don't let us kid ourselves that the small-town problems are different from the big town. We all have our fights and we must work together, and give together to benefit.

MR. C. H. HOLLPWELL (Vincennes, Indiana): I just, want to go a little farther and ask Mr. Eisner about this contact man, if I understand it correctly, and probably inject something in that. It sounds like a good idea to me, probably not to the big operators because they know more and have the bigger problems to handle and a lot of it never gets out, but for the small operator it seems to me it would be a very good idea for the National Association to have a contact man to contact these small owners in the small towns and pass on the ideas and, as Mr. Eisner said, help him for a day or so on ideas to get men or if nothing else to kind of fizz the organization up, to let a lot of these salesmen so-called in these small towns know these ideas. They have no direct connection with the National Association. The sales manager or the owner probably belongs, but when he gets back, well, he has a lot of ideas and doesn't tell them or isn't able to give them like a contact man would that would be out to do that one particular job, and that is to fizz up an organization. To me it would be like some big business concern having their repre¬sentative out in the field contacting different branches throughout the country for a day or maybe two days and fizzing that particular branch up and it would be a very fine thing.

I don't know whether it could ever be worked out with the finances, whether the finances of the National Association could finance that part of a program or not, but I think it would be very helpful and I think a small operator would be willing to pay for that service, and between the time of the National Association meeting and the next National meeting there are lots of things that come up that the small operator should know about which are helpful. By the time the next National Association meeting comes around that is old stuff and they are just a year behind on it, where if there was some way of passing this information on when this new idea comes up, why they would just be a year ahead. Yet, they have to wait to come to the National meeting, and a lot of that information is never passed on.

There is so much to be taken up here in a few short days you just don’t get it all. You get a lot of good. I don't think anybody comes here that doesn’t go back with good, but I think the Association could be improved by this idea Mr. Eisner has of a contact man, not only to visit the small cemeteries but the larger ones. The large cemeteries would naturally benefit by the ideas some small operator is using and he could use it probably on a larger scale.

Chester Sparks and Bill Heston and Harry Miller, who belonged to this National Association for six or eight or ten years did a very big part of building up a State Association and in seeing that the little operators are doing business.

We have in Michigan today five memorial cemeteries that weren't there three years ago, that is, old cemeteries with sections of memorial and they wouldn't have been there if it hadn't been for the enthusiasm and the pep and so forth of all the men in the State Association, which leads right back to the one point that the big operators were able to send their men out for this complete information.

How far, Mr. Eisner, do you go out to get business from the smaller towns?

MR. EISNER: Well, I would say 15 to 20 miles. Nothing has ever been sold in any of the small cemeteries I have been connected with at all in investment, nothing absolutely.
CHAIRMAN HINDS: That is fine. Well, I was talking to Mr. Eaton, who I understand has gone out. I wanted to ask him some questions. He has a big organization, strong salesmen, and he talked about going out into the adjoining towns and selling cemetery lots 150 miles away. I live in Memphis, used to live 104 miles from there. Jonesburg is about the same distance. I couldn't get it through my mind how you could go 100 miles and sell a cemetery lot, and just to convince myself it could be done in Memphis, I employed a man and sent him up to see an outstanding planter 74 miles away at Blightville, Arkansas. The most of my talk was about what Eaton told me he did, and it was along this line. I found out from the bank the financial standing of this man. I didn't get his balance, but he was comfortable and I instructed him to use a speech similar to this: Go up there and find out how that man stands on your account. He stopped at the filling station and asked the local officers or somebody else. He was satisfied to that, and he walked into the room and he had a speech similar to this: "Mr. Webster, I notice you have a nice home here."

“Yes."

"And a modern looking home; it is beautiful. I want to commend you for having it. You have a nice garage, a nice car in the garage.'" He commented on those things and he was invited into the home directly. He got in, and the man had a nice divan sitting on the side and he was sitting in a cheap chair. It looked like $3.00 or $4.00, and it had a split cushion. He looked like a farmer and dressed like a farmer. "How come you got that nice divan? It must have cost $150."

The planter said; "Mary is getting grown and has beaus and I thought I would buy it for her." That old fellow had the idea of getting as favor¬able a marriage as possible. He commented favorably on that. "How many children have you?"

"Three boys, Sam, John, and Henry"

"Where are they?"

"Sam is at Tulane University, New Orleans, taking a medical course. John is up at Vanderbilt University. I think he is trying to be a lawyer, and the other boy is going to stay here. He is interested in agriculture and is going to be a farmer." Well, he didn't fail to comment on that. The old man was illiterate, only had a fourth grade education, but he knew how to make money. A lot of those fellows do. Well, the sales¬man didn't try to sell him anything. He left some literature and touched the high points, and he did say to him, "I understand why you are so successful and have a fine family and you are happy and you are to be commended.”What about your burial ground?"

He said, “We have an old graveyard, a little old cheap graveyard.” “Now a man of your type ought not to have that kind of a funeral place. A man who has made a success all but the final rights ought not to have that.” Well, he convinced him that he wanted him to come over and see Memorial Park. He promised to come, and the salesman brought him to Memorial Park and he sold him an $800 lot for a $200 down check. He brought the check in and the rest is to be paid in the fall.

Now that convinced me that that thing can be done. That is the reason I asked that question. You can go out and centralize the same as centralizing schools. You can centralize cemeteries in small places if you are not afraid of hard work.

From the publication:
“1940-1941 Cemetery Handbook & Buyers’ Guide”
ACOA 11th Annual Convention & Exposition
Hotel Statler, Buffalo, New York
September 8-11, 1940

Being from "Down in Dixie" where we work only about half time to have more to eat, longer mint juleps and less clothes than you folks; where Congressmen get elected by promising to vote for all appropria¬tions, and against all taxes; where we spend the time saved admiring our beautiful women, and taking everything easy except our politics - I am going to ask you to drop your war hysteria, forget all your troubles (be¬cause there are a lot more coming), and think about your blessings, for if there ever was a country that should be profoundly thankful it is America. We, without question, are the most favored people on Earth. More than ever before, I appreciate Uncle Sam has become the hope of the World.

My faith will not permit me to believe the suppression of freedom will engulf the World, forcing us to live under despotic un-Godly Hitlerism. All Dictators have their day and cease to be - Hitler will never rule the whole World, nor the New. While it is true America never won a con¬ference, it is also true she never lost a war. If we should unfortunately be drawn into the conflict, and mankind has a future, that future rests, with Democracy, and it will not be the Democratic faith which is finally vanquished. Now, that we have settled the war, let's relax and get "Down to Earth in the Cemeteries in Small Communities".

Why is it more difficult to operate a successful Cemetery in a small community than in a larger one? The location and man power has so much to do with creating sentiment in the building of a successful Ceme¬tery that this question opens up a rather large field. In towns of ten to twenty-five thousand people, surrounded by a good suburban population, this should not be true, especially if you are fifty to one hundred miles from a city. We know we are living in a changing age, and nothing is certain in the world except Progress. Failures are due not to changing conditions, but to the failure of men to change with them.

Progress has reached the age-old institution, the "town-graveyard". The spooky tombstones and gruesomeness of the old graveyard are on their way out - "Old things are passed away; Behold! All things are become new".

What Can Be Done to Make the Small-Town Cemetery Play an Important part in Community Life?

One of your greatest problems is your Superintendent. Get the right man with the right attitude toward his job, and the rest will be easy. If you should fail to find a home-man equipped for this work, try an ad in our official publication and you will probably find an experienced man. Have your Business Men's Club call a meeting of your worthwhile men and women, be sure to have your Mayor and Board of Aldermen present and let the public know your town is interested in creating or improving your Burial Grounds so their Cemetery will be the pride of the community. In other words, tell the people you are going to turn a public liability into a public asset. If you want to enough, you will.

The Cemetery that would survive must provide lasting appeal to the living, for you secure your lot buyers from the living, and they are the ones 'who sustain the interest which makes a Cemetery successful. Ben¬jamin Franklin was right when he said: "I need only to visit the Cemetery of any community to learn the character of its people”.

Is it any wonder that right in the midst of the growth of progress the idea of the Memorial Park should be born? It was inevitable, the public demanded it. They quickly recognized that class distinction of property and social position so evident in life should end m death, and that competition between families in the erection of costly tombstones should be eliminated, and in the last resting place there should be real Democracy. The Park Plan with its Naturalistic Beauty and Economy was the answer. There is nothing so powerful as an idea that arrives in its day. Now, you don't have to be rich to build a beautiful, attractive Memorial Park. I’ve seen many cold, forbidding Cemeteries that represented large investments and years of effort that were only forests of tombstones - Just burial places for the dead - truly a bush and grass graveyard. How different it is when the same ground is transformed into a beautiful Memorial Park, with velvet lawns that are a shrine of loveliness and a living asset to the culture and sentiment of the community. Beware of frequent close-cut¬ting of lawns as you may injure the root structure, moisture and plant food available to the grass, and thus subject it to greater damage from drought, insects and cold weather.

There Can be No Plan Without a Planner

Forget you have ever seen an old Tombstone Cemetery. Work out a plan that will fit the contour of your grounds, eliminating all depressing features of an ordinary graveyard, and you will have an atmosphere of Peace and Quiet that only Naturalistic Beauty can contribute.

Layout your roads twenty feet wide - keep as many as possible m the valleys and low places. Never plan or design lots or graves before staking out your roads.

Memorialize All Improvements

Name your Entrance, Tower, Fountain, Lakes, Roadways, Gardens, etc., after historical and community citizens who have made definite contributions to humanity and your locality. Have unveilings for each, with appropriate exercises. When possible, have some relative of the family do the unveiling - this will pack a lot of sentiment into your Park, and bring Good Will with much needed interest, which is the best asset in any business.

Can you think of anything that would create more interest in your property than the history of your community, and a more appropriate place than a beautiful Park? It is by far the finest opportunity to pay tribute to those who have served their community.

Beautiful Lawns

The new Park Plan, with Beautiful Lawns, and Artistic Bronze Mark¬ers, offers the only Democratic way for the rich and poor to fulfill the divine plan of everybody being equal in death by having Burial Estates "Where it costs less - To have the Best".

Build a lake and sunken garden for your first features. If you have no natural stream, dam up a low point where natural drainage will help out in providing water supply-three feet in depth, with a privet hedge border will give you a beautiful sunken garden.

Cemetery Sentiment has to be religious because it has to do with something beyond this life. Stay with Nature. Keep away from modern¬istic designs, and keep in mind artists are just copyists, whether painting a beautiful landscape or sculpturing a beautiful woman, the better the copyist, the better the artist, for Naturalistic Beauty so far surpasses all the Earth's other wonders in majestic dignity and Beauty that comparison is futile.

Make the Park Brighter and More Cheerful with Color

The days of drab Cemeteries, remindful of death (when a visit was a depressing event) we have outgrown - we have reached a saner idea of providing our departed loved ones a resting place surrounded by Beauty. We all love Beauty, and without colorful flowers we cannot have a Memorial Park. Naturalistic Beauty is the Greatest Memorial Ever Created.

The Cemetery is the Birds' Haven

It offers more ideal conditions for attracting birds. Here they find quiet, seclusive shade - protection from their enemies - food and water are always necessary, and may be easily provided by planting certain shrubs, vines, fruit trees and small amounts of rye or barley for quail, pheasants, etc. Then provide a few homes to attract wild birds from the woods. You will receive a great dividend from any effort along this line as the birds will destroy insects far in excess of their keep.

Select shrubs for their year-round beauty. Evergreens and American holly are beautiful, but often overdone. You can capture a lot of Beauty with flowering trees. Privet hedge gives more display for the cost and upkeep than most evergreens. Use native trees liberally.

Don't overlook Memorial Days - get out the band and have all the boys around the flag. Encourage the children to pay homage on these occa¬sions. Such deeds of reverence help build the Memorial Idea, love for the Flag and Patriotic Sentiments.

Why the Small Cemetery Needs a National Association

You remember how hard it was to work examples in long division when you did not know the multiplication table. The small Cemetery's need for the National Association service is just as simple and important. Trying to succeed in building a profitable modern Burial Estate without being associated with and attending the National Association Conven¬tions would be like trying to build a home without tools – It Can't Be Done.
So if you want to be a sound thinker, a wise Cemetery leader, capable of building for your community a Burial Estate that will satisfy a dis¬criminating buying public, don't think of the annual dues and cost of attending the conventions, but count the few dollars as the best investment you can possibly make. Study will help you, provided you are willing to work to make it work - an adding machine has no value unless you work the right keys.

Let's be honest with ourselves. It is not the fault of the public or the Association that some of the poorly managed Memorial Parks have failed to make good - the fault is with those of us who have not kept faith with the public, and worked hand-in-hand with the new ideas created by the progressive and successful Memorial Parks. When cooperation is lacking, the individual and institution must suffer. Our enthusiastic Secretary has been telling us over and over again for five years how we can get ahead by using the National Association. In fact, he has been about as persistent as Mr. Brisbane who has not been able to write a column since 1934 without telling Uncle Sam to get busy building airplanes if he expects to hold his important place in World Affairs.

The ACOA meets more of the progressive problems which Cemetery builders’ need, and gives its members more for their money, than any other business organization with which I have ever been connected.

"If one element in business can do a thing better than another, per¬form a service of equal or greater worth to the people, at a lower cost, then that is the element that is going to prevail". - Printer's Ink.

It was our National Organization that brought the New Idea Me¬morial Parks into existence, and continued Progress will keep this Progres¬sive Idea growing in Beauty and Popularity every year.
The pooling of knowledge is the surest step forward to Progress. The problem that worries you most today may have been solved by a fellow member yesterday. If experience is a very expensive teacher why not take advantage of “the other fellow's experience?" at less cost by getting busy working with and for the National Association, you will be happier and more successful.

Cooperation is not a sentiment - It is an Economic Necessity. Improve your knowledge and your Cemetery will improve.

Your Committee is hopeful this discussion has developed some ideas which you can enlarge to your benefit.

From the publication:
“1940-1941 Cemetery Handbook & Buyers’ Guide”
ACOA 11th Annual Convention & Exposition
Hotel Statler, Buffalo, New York
September 8-11, 1940