There have been 2 comments  AT  THIS BLOG from Matthews Cremation.

1. Matthews International Will soon have a website devoted to bio(or green Cremation)

Comment-Matthews Cremation will be releasing a website dedicated specifically to the Bio-Cremation process shortly. Our hopes are to dis spell some of the myths associated with this process and advance legislation to allow it in all states. Stay tuned!

viaYour Funeral Guy Exclusive: Funeral Industry Alkaline Hydrolysis(Pics) Demonstration

2. Matthews Cremation will ship an Alkaline Hydrolysis(Green Cremation) Machine very soon to St. Petersburg, Florida.

Comment-Actually, the Bio Cremation machine going to St. Pete will serve as a full service facility for those requesting green cremations. It should be installed soon and we are looking forward to seeing it go out.-via Tale of Two Bio Cremation Machines

Different Companies claim the green or bio cremation will cost the  same as traditional or fire cremation(ie cycled life). Others say it will cost more. Some  say it will cost less. It really depends on the funeral home or the funeral Director setting the Price!

Funeral Industry|Funeral News| Funeral Blog

Your Funeral Guy has been Featured in the Washington Times

A Your Funeral Guy blog  story has been referenced in the Washington Times in early 2010. The blogpost is about the Rise of Indigent Burials in 09. The article is titled  “Rising Public  Costs for Cremation and  Burial“  The  Funeral Cost and News Story talks about how local governments are paying for Funerals for the Poor in the UnitedStates.

Snippet:

The sale of life insurance policies will hurt the funeral industry

Because of the severity of the recession banks have been buying up life insurance policies. Some of the big banks are bundling them together just as they did debt before the Wall Street Crash a year ago. These  Wallstreet banks are selling them as bonds.

This is a risky investment scheme. This will hurt the funeral industry because in the majority of cases life insurance is the vehicle that folks pay for a funeral.

This is another bad sign for the traditional funeral industry in the USA.

From the New York Times:

“The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.”

This  will mean lost income for the Funeral Business.

Funeral industry|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy.

The Funeral Industry takes another hit

CLICK HERE AT 7PM EDT FOR LIVE STREAMING VIDEO ON THE SENATOR KENNEDY CELEBRATION OF LIFE-FRI

CLICK HERE AT 7PM EDT FOR LIVE STREAMING VIDEO ON THE SENATOR KENNEDY CELEBRATION OF LIFE-FRI

Funeral Industry|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

JFK Presidential Library pic from flickr under the creative commons license from

neprowell’s photostream

Walter Cronkite Funeral to be Webcast on internet

The Walter Cronkite Funeral will be webcast live at cbsnews.com at 2pm (eastern) on 7.23.09 . If you have the time you can view the Walter Cronkite Funeral at the CBS website. More and more folks are webcasting funerals and some funeral homes offer this service. This is a kindness shown to Walter Cronkite .

If your friends and family can not make it to a funeral, the webcast is an alternative that allows participation.

From the NewYorkTimes;

CBS News will webcast the family funeral service for the former anchorman Walter Cronkite on Thursday…

the private service will include tributes by the “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney and Mr. Cronkite’s son Chip, among others.

Funeral Industry|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy.

Three popular online memorials For Walter Cronkite

Illinois Burr Oak Cemetery Scandal Largest in US HISTORY

The Burr Oak cemetery disaster may be the worst cemetery disaster in US History.  Up to 100,000 graves will have to be examined. 300 graves dug up, mean three hundred love ones disturbed, a scandal causing grief. This is a sad commentary on our culture. IF YOU ARE DEAD AND CAN’T BE SAFE IN THE GRAVE WHERE CAN YOU BE SAFE?

Reports say that the folks got only about $300,000. How far will that take you? Up to 100,000 grave

THIS SHOULD SERVE AS A WARNING TO ALL WHO ARRANGE FUNERALS & BURIALS, Check out what is going on and who you are dealing with.

Snippet From the Aurora Beacon News.

“The Cook County sheriff’s office estimates that about 300 bodies were dumped at the rear of Burr Oak, in an area about the size of three football fields.”

The body count appears to be going higher and higher.

The Scandal took place at an historic African American Cemetery

This is sad because this is an African America Cemetery in Alsip,Illinois  with prominent black leaders buried there.

There are reports that families are gathering for a vigil on Sunday July 12,2009 at the cemetery.

According to a posted ABC 7 News report at tribdemo.sites.5ksites.com:

Investigators say more than 100,000 gravesites will need to be inspected at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip

The financial end of this tragedy involved preneed and cemetery plots.

Funeral Industry|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy.

Sadly Illinois Burial Scandal where up to 300 bodies desecrated.

Discarding  and desecrating bodies and collecting money by reusing graves-This happened at the Burr Oak Cemetery in  the Chicago Area- Alsip, IL. Two words made this happen Preneed and Greed.Reports state that up to 300 bodies have been desecrated.

In the last post entitled Burr Ridge Cemetery Scandal| Could humans have done this?-YourFuneralguy.

One realizes that humans did do this and that their main motivation was greed. The way they pulled it off was through at need and preneed cemetery sales.

There are not tough enough laws in  Illlinois for the selling of  cemetery sites in the State of Illinois. Most sites are sold on a preneed basis. This means that people buy cemetery property before their funeral. Many times a preened insurance policy is used.

Snippet  from the Chicago Tribune:

“Illinois Rep. Dan Brady (R-Bloomington) said today the Alsip cemetery scandal illustrates why the state needs stricter regulations over individuals who sell “the pre-need burial spaces in the state.”

Funeral and Cemetery Preneed  Policies have been a probem in the State of Illinois as mentioned often in this blog. In fact the loss of the two largest  Funeral Corporations in the United States. Service Corporation International and Stewart Enterprises  have had horrible loses in Cemetery Sales.

Those in the Cemetery business are hurting. The people  involved here have taken it upon themselves to hurt others by desecrating graves. This a sad burial scandal.

Funeral Industry|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Site of Farah Fawcett Funeral and reported burial June 30th 2009

Will Farrah Fawcett be buried at church or at the Cemetery? Several places are reporting the Farrah Fawcett is to have a private funeral and burial  on June 30th  2009 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of  the Angels in LA. . It will be following the funeral  4pm Pacific Time. Earlier reports had the funeral set for Wednesday, July 1st.

In the tradition of the Medieval Churches the Modern Los Angeles Catholic church has a mausoleum and cremation Niches beneath the floor of the Sanctuary.

A famous celebrity is buried there Gregory Peck.

Find  A Grave.Com says the church is the cemetery

“Burial:
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
Los Angeles
Los Angeles County
California, USA”

Funeral Industry | Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy.

Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, LA  picture from wikepedia

Farrah Fawcett Poster pic from Wikipedia. Information below from wikepedia  pic link as well.

Farrah Fawcett  below pic from

in a  scene  from “Someone Killed Her Husband” in 1978. from LA Times

A Leading National Independent Funeral Directors Association is having deep difficulties.-The Order of the Golden Rule.

News-6.22.09- The funeral organization “Order of the Golden Rule” OGR is downsizing, restructuring and evaluating all staff. This situation  is similar to the demise of the Illinois Funeral Director Association(IFDA)early on.

1.The executive director is gone and an interim executive has been put in place.

2. There is an indication of financial irregularity.

3. An indication of leadership deficits.

Whether there is Scandal behind this event or not time will tell. One can say with certainty that this breaking apart  and downsizing of the Order of the Golden Rule ia another indicator of a funeral industry/business decline.

Here is a quote from the head of the Order of the Golden Rule posted  at  ConnectingDirectors.com:

Dear Friends:

Fragile Economy contributed to the Order of The Golden Rules problem.

In my most recent messages I’ve noted that we all are experiencing an unstable business climate requiring us to use “every ounce of savvy management skill we possess to keep our businesses intact and competitive.” This is no less true of our professional organization. As is the case with our own businesses, OGR has had to face a number of economic challenges, some of which are the result of practices that have not kept pace with prevailing management trends and fiscal prudence.

For the past year, the Board has addressed significant challenges in re-directing the course of OGR to secure its future ability to

• strategically reconstitute its mission and effectively respond to the needs of its members;

• restructure its internal operations toward accountability and contemporary management practices; and

• re-commit to exemplary leadership in the funeral services industry.

As part of this process, the Board secured the help of seasoned association professionals to evaluate and advise about our governance, functional operations, and member services.

With that said, hard decisions have been made with a clear focus on re-creating OGR’s role of leadership for the future…and our work has only just begun!  The preliminary decisions that have been made toward OGR’s future include:

1.  Changes in staff management;

2.  Relocation of the OGR corporate office and restructure of staff functions;

3.  Re-evaluation of all programs and services; and, most important,

4.  Re-alignment of member values, mission and member criteria………….

With kind regards,

Koven Brown
President

OGR President Koven Brown

THERE  IS ONE MORE SIMILARITY TO THE THE ILLINOIS FUNERAL ONE PERSON: RANDALL L EARL.RANDALL L EARL IS A PAST PRESIDENT OF  THE OGR and THE ILLINOIS FUNERAL DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION.

What all this means is CHECK UP ON YOUR FUNERAL DIRECTOR(S).

It appears that the OGR President is being transparent, something we did not see from the IFDA.

Whether there is Scandal behind this event or not time will tell.
Funeral Industry|Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy.

OGR’s official name is  International Order of the Golden Rule.

European|Green Cemetery(getty images rf)

A section of a Non-Profit Municipal Cemetery has been put aside for Green Burials, in Lawrence, Kansas. For profit geen burial grounds are growing in the United States. This is the first type of this kind of cemetery for Kansas, and maybe the United States. Green burial grounds are less expensive to maintain and can be a cost advantage for municipalities.

Embalming fluid and metal caskets are prohibited. The Oakhill cemetery is fairly close to Kansas City. Most green cemeteries are located quite a distance from the metropolitan areas. Transportation for out of city green funeral  can raise funeral cost.

Funeral Industry|Funeral Cost Blog  by your Funeral Guy.

Source: KansasCity.com