Cemetery Spritz Cookies & Baby Building Blocks | 4M #211
Welcome to the two-hundred-and-eleventh edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #211, 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!
Eco-friendly endings
Remember when the late Desmond Tutu’s 2022 disposition by alkaline hydrolysis led to a spike in interest in this relatively new form of cremation? A North Carolina couple with a background in nonprofits and renewable energy were also intrigued — so much so that they decided to open their own operation with the goal of becoming the “first carbon-neutral funeral home in the country.” Hunter and Veronica Beattie’s Endswell offers aquamation and natural burial in addition to traditional cremation and burial, and were recently awarded a $75,000 USDA grant that will go toward a solar array that will offset the energy used for aquamation and electric vehicles.
If you’re already working with Treasured Memories partners – and most funeral homes are – you could be earning rewards instead of leaving money behind. With points that convert into real value and access to exclusive member tools, Treasured Memories helps you boost revenue while serving families better.
A sweet story from Missouri
In May 2024, about 50 people from a northwest Missouri community gathered at the graveside of an infant who had been found in a local park, deceased. Over the previous 30 days, as the investigation into the baby boy’s death continued, funeral director and embalmer Ron Denbow had become more and more attached to the infant in his care. When no family members stepped in to take custody of the child’s remains, Denbow and his wife ordered a monument consisting of “three building blocks stacked on one another, the top block inscribed with the words “‘Nodaway County’s Loving Angel’ and ‘Beau ‘Bo’ Mozingo May 25, 2024.’” The name was given to the child by Denbow; the “Bo” is from Denbow’s last name and “Mozingo” is the name of the lake and park where the baby’s body was found.
To die for
If you haven’t started your Christmas shopping yet, here’s an easy addition to your list: To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes. The book is the result of several years of recipe-gathering by author Rosie Grant, who has documented and shared her cemetery visits with the nearly 200,000 followers of her @ghostlyarchive TikTok account. You’ve got to believe that these recipes are going to be amazing if they’re important enough to be part of a person’s lasting legacy and permanent memorialization!
Stabbing leads to investigation, charges
Back in April, a man was stabbed by a Houston, Texas funeral home worker when he and his sister took video of the conditions in the facility where their mother’s body was being prepared for services The man survived — and the video, which showed bodies in various stages of decomposition — sparked a larger investigation of Richardson Mortuary, which was quickly shut down by the Texas Funeral Service Commission. As of last week, two Richardson Mortuary funeral directors are facing three charges each of abuse of corpse after “multiple bodies were found in various stages of decomposition in a storage room, exposed and with no working air conditioner.” Other charges may be filed, and families are also considering civil cases.
