Welcome Wildlife & a Two-Decade Debate | 4M #83
Welcome to the eighty-third edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #83, 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.
Arlington expanding?
A proposed nine-acre expansion of Arlington Cemetery could add up to 60,000 spaces, which would effectively accommodate burials through 2060. Right now, though, the fate of the project is in the hands of a federal judge, who is weighing the arguments of both the U.S. government and Arlington County, Virginia. The county is asking the government to pay up to $21 million for the valuable parcel of land, which, if not used for the cemetery expansion, could have been rezoned for lucrative housing projects to accommodate workers from the nearby Pentagon and upcoming Amazon headquarters. There’s much more to this story, which has actually been a topic of discussion for more than 20 years.
More cool things in cemeteries
Picnics, art shows, and yoga are just a few things happening in cemeteries that have nothing to do with death. But just how often are cemeteries recognized for their non-deathcare features? Kudos to these guys!
- Lakewood Cemetery has been designated as an accredited Level 2 Arboretum (the only one in the state of Minnesota!)
- Fairmount Cemetery, Denver’s second oldest graveyard, has been certified as a Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation
- A cemetery in Washington has used public grant money to create a one-acre nursery where they grow hundreds of trees to replace old or damaged ones on city properties.
A deathcare tell-all?
A California funeral director will soon publish her book “What to Do When a Loved One Passes” — which was inspired by her experiences as a funeral home location manager. “I saw people getting lied to and spending more money than they needed to,” author Anjelica Wolfe told the East Bay Times. Topics included in the book will include the “up-charge for caskets” and the “real costs associated with funerals.” The author adds that “[w]riting a book that states California law with guidance on how to do things yourself […] will upset more local funeral homes, but it won’t hurt their bottom line because of how our culture views and handles death.”
Compounding grief
Senseless deaths are never easy to handle, but it’s especially heinous when these deaths occur as mourners are saying goodbye to a loved one. Sadly, there were two instances of killings following funeral services this week.
- A 67-year-old woman was charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting a 22-year-old man in a fight which began during a memorial service and spilled into a funeral home parking lot in Texas.
- Four people were shot outside a D.C. funeral home after leaving the funeral of a homicide victim; one man died from his injuries.
The secret’s out
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The MemoryShare not-so-secret sauce for success
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Two things funeral homes need in 2023 are visibility and increased call volume. MemoryShare provides both of these things as well as a team of REAL people you can talk to if you ever run into trouble. So what are you waiting for? Learn more about MemoryShare today!
