Welcome to the hundred-and-sixteenth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #116, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!
This newsletter is powered by MemoryShare, a funeral livestreaming platform that you can set up in 30 seconds or less.
Doing good
Your end goal with every single thing you do — from making the weekly trip to Sam’s Club for bottled water and coffee to supervising a graveside service in a blizzard — is to comfort and serve your families. At this time of the year, though, many of you go the extra mile for those families and for the community at large. Here are just a few examples:
- Meierhoffer Funeral Home of St. Louis, Missouri is hosting its 32nd annual Holiday Remembrance Ceremony
- A UK funeral director raised £55k for a child bereavement nonprofit
- Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery in British Columbia is inviting families to place an ornament or memorializing decoration on a Tree of Memories to honor loved ones
- Carpino Funeral Home, Munson-Lovetere Funeral Home, and Stone Family Cremation Services in Connecticut are collecting gift cards and unwrapped toys for military families and for children receiving medical care
Got gulls?
Venice has a gull problem. And a pigeon problem. And y’all, those Venetians are doing all they can to save your paninis. Yes, hotel owners are fed up with the city’s current 2,000+ population of gulls and pigeons bothering tourists, so they’re trying a solution that has been successful in Venetian cemeteries: Falcons. However, just in case the falcons aren’t as effective in fending off the annoying birds, the hoteliers are publishing a guide that “includes coping strategies for tourists whose panini are snatched away by the marauders.”
Oh, what a tangled web …
A casket found for sale on Facebook Marketplace has contributed to the revocation of a Florida funeral home’s license — but that’s far from the only reason for the state board’s decision. In addition to the funeral home’s owner providing services even though he is not a licensed funeral director, he also allegedly demanded money from a family to facilitate the transfer of their loved one to a rival facility, and is facing charges for writing a bad check, not paying a casket vendor, and being connected to a stolen rental vehicle. The kicker, though, came when a local news outlet reported that the owner made a family purchase a $5,000 wrapped casket for a viewing prior to cremation, promising they’d store the casket for the family to use for future viewings for family members. The family was shocked to find that the casket was sold to a stranger on Facebook Marketplace for $78 after the contents of the funeral home’s storage unit were auctioned off for nonpayment. The purchaser now refuses to sell the casket to the family.
Not gone with the wind
A green burial cemetery in Ohio is offering visitors a unique way to stay connected to loved ones: A wind phone. It’s a simple idea. A black and white, push-button wall phone mounted to a tree just off a path in Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary is available for visitors to use to speak to the departed. It’s an idea that originated in Japan “when a man mourning his cousin set up a phone in his garden and used it to say all the things he wished he still could.” It’s called a “wind phone” is that the “wind will carry your words on to those who have passed before you.”
An unwanted memorial
Following a November 15 visit to Penrose, Colorado, the Environmental Protection Agency has determined that the Return to Nature facility where 190 sets of remains were discovered in October should be demolished. The EPA determined that “demolition of the building is necessary to safely remove biological and hazardous materials found in the building.” It is scheduled to be destroyed in January.
A bit of solace
Amid the ongoing horror and heartache for the families with loved ones found at Return to Nature are, thankfully, some who are offering a little comfort and step toward closure. Funeral homes and crematories across Southern Colorado are reaching out to these families to offer discounted or free cremation services. “We were able to be taken care of with the utmost respect and dignity and it was done for free,” one family member said after witnessing the cremation of her grandmother. “That, to me, is what community support is all about. That’s what we need throughout this whole process.”
MemoryShare is FREEZE proof
We’ve all dealt with the pains of buffering. It’s annoying when you’re watching a video- it’s panic-inducing when you’re streaming a funeral service.
With MemoryShare you don’t have to worry about a little buffering ruining your day. MemoryShare records the livestream to your device while you’re streaming. When the services ends, the recording is immediately available. You can also trim and upload the video for those who missed the livestream.
That’s just one of the reasons you should consider MemoryShare. Want another? Okay, it’s REALLY good for your business. Read our latest case study to see how it’s helping to transform an independent funeral home. READ IT HERE.
