$90 Coffins & Funeral Trains | 4M #229
Welcome to the two-hundred-and-twenty-ninth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #229, 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!
Bill buzz
A Georgia senator — who is also a funeral director with more than 50 years in deathcare — has introduced a bill that would end the requirement that funeral directors also hold an embalmers license. Sen. Rick Williams says Senate Bill 239 would allow mortuary students to pursue a non-embalming funeral director career path and just makes sense based on shifting consumer preferences. The bill would also make impersonating a funeral director a misdemeanor crime.
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Pets matter
Amid an ongoing high-profile pet cremation company scandal, a Maryland politician has introduced House Bill 564 to keep it from happening again. In August 2025, the owners of Loving Care Pet Funeral and Cremation Services in Catonsville, Maryland were arrested for accepting nearly $13,000 for more than 50 pet cremations that were never performed. The husband and wife team now face up to 25 years in prison. Their victims are supporting HB 564,which would require pet cremation firms to register with the state, keep detailed records, and provide pet owners with written documentation.
Big business in little China
A young woman who left her teaching job in 2023 to start a coffin company definitely isn’t regretting her decision. Lisa Liu, 29, sells about 40,000 Chinese-made coffins a year to the Italian market, generating an annual revenue of about $6 million even though they sell for only $90 to $150 each. In addition to being about one-tenth the price of coffins manufactured in Italy, Liu’s coffins are made from paulownia trees, a lightweight, lovely grained, and low ignition point wood that is prevalent in her hometown of Heze.
Mutton chops and casket flags
One might think that viewing “only surviving casket flag” from Abraham Lincoln’s 1600-mile funeral train journey in 1865 would require a trip to a museum. But one would be wrong. If you want to see this 37-star American flag, you’d need to visit Keens Steakhouse, a 141-year-old restaurant in midtown NYC. Keens owner Tilman Fertitta, who also owns Rainforest Cafe and Bubba Gump Shrimp, bought the flag at auction in 2024 for $525,000 to add to the steakhouse’s vast second-floor collection of Americana. The restaurant unveiled the flag just last week.
