coldpspring: winter 2014 memorial insight newsletter
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The cremation trend calls for new traditions within the funeral and cemetery industries
Expanding consumer options result in more, not fewer, opportunities for cemetery, cremation and funeral professionals to interact with their customer. Cremation has been on the rise in the United States for years. Changing mindsets, convenience and the cost of burial have been cited as just some of the reasons for its increased popularity.
Dan Kantar, cemetery manager for Mound Cemetery of Brooklyn Center, Minn., believes that limited grave space in some areas of the country may have precipitated the trend toward cremation. “Also,” he says, “Cost is a big factor.”
The media center for the National Funeral Direc-tors Association lists $7,755 as the average cost of an adult funeral (as of 2009). Cremation costs can be a fraction of this amount. The media center also states that as of 2011 the cremation rate in the United States was 42%. In Minnesota, it is estimated that there is now a 57% cremation rate. “Of that 57%,” says Kantar, “only 20% are
coming to cemeteries. The remaining 80% are scattered or kept at home.”
While cremation offers families an alternative way to deal with the death of a loved one, it does not always involve the
familiar rites and rituals associated with burial. This can leave families without a clear idea of how to proceed when it comes to managing funeral services and memorialization. Because times of grieving are not ideal for processing new information, it falls to cemetery, cremation and funeral professionals to help their custom-ers find answers. Filling this role also helps those in the industry update their business models and maintain profitability.
New traditions
Traditions may change, but many underlying needs stay the same. The tradition of burial is changing, but the needs that remain include having a physical place in which a loved one can be memorialized and establishing a lasting, dedicated visitation area for family and friends.
Kantar has seen instances in which a family member will return many years after a burial to purchase a grave marker for a loved one. This is indicative of the fact that the decision to leave a grave unmarked – a decision that is usually based on immediate concerns such as cost or the perception that a marked gravesite is not important – does not address the full scope of the situation. In fact, it can be an important part of a family’s identity to have a physical location in which generations of its members are memorialized.
Changing roles within the industry
For most consumers, the first permanent memo-rial option that will come to mind for cremains is the large scale columbarium, which houses multiple cinerary urns. Private mausoleums are another option that is familiar to the general
Create a lasting tribute
Cremation Garden
Cremation Boulder
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public, but these have long been incorrectly associated with elite, land-owning classes. Today, however, there are a growing number of memorial options which fit a very wide range of socio-economic groups. The industry has been keeping up with the current trend toward cremation and now offers an expanding range of choices when it comes to housing cremains or establishing a memorial site. Not only does this help cemeteries and other memorial providers maintain their profitability, but it allows them to meet the needs of their customers and give direction to a new generation of traditions.
Sometimes value is placed upon privacy, as is the case when families incorporate a niche space
into their pri-vate grounds or private mausoleums. This reflects a growing interest in keeping im-mediate family circles together in one memo-rial. Mausole-ums, columbari-ums or private estates help to meet this need.
The fact that modern society is more mobile than any previous generation has also been cited as a reason for the rising popularity of cremation. Cremation offers consumers flexibility in terms of timing and portability, but also increases the amount of coordination that families need to accomplish in order to effectively deal with interment and memorialization. This, then, becomes another area of potential expansion for those in the funeral service industry.
The memorial as a designed space
Current consumer preferences often involve care-fully designed spaces with a high degree of per-sonalization. While older, established burial tradi-tions involve creating a single point of reference (often a symmetrical and self-contained memorial such as a headstone or pillar), increasingly, archi-tectural and landscape elements are coming into use. There is also a growing preference for natural
Create a lasting tribute
characteristics and products. These trends have combined to make outdoor or back-to-nature gardens especially popular with cremation memorialization.
In the landscaping industry, designers refer to softscape (live vegetation) and hardscape (manmade objects or structures). An outdoor memorial garden requires both kinds of elements, with stone benches, plaques or boulders being intermingled with plantings. Available garden products include those which house cremains, such as a niche space or bench that is cored out to accommodate an urn and products that purely pay tribute. In addition to contemporary, natural looking boulders or tumblestones, cremation garden products are also available that hearken back to the more traditional monuments, allowing customers to complement their landscape designs with a polished, geomet-ric stone. Gardens offer a creative venue for memorialization, frequently utilize space unsuitable for traditional burial and can also span many price points.
Columbariums, too, now come in all shapes and sizes, and can be customized to fit any space. Contemporary columbariums serve customers on any budget. Jon Laskie, Family Services Manager at Carriage Services, a funeral and cemetery service provider, became aware of Coldspring’s custom-de-signed columbarium and ossuary when it was on display at a national conference. Laskie immediately arranged to have the combina-tion columbarium/ossuary purchased and installed at Bunkers Memory Garden Chapel
Custom-designed ossuary/columbarium featured at national conference
Private Estate with Niche spaces
Cremation Garden
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and Cemetery in Las Vegas. The monument features limestone accents, a custom granite center piece, eight premier family corner spaces, 30 urn spaces and 540 ossuary spaces.
“This feature is perfect,” Laskie says, describing it as functional and aesthetically appealing. “It’s diverse; from top to bottom, it has everything you need from an ossuary and urn spaces to personalized estate corners for families.” Mound Cemetery offers a similarly flexible solution in their new memorial walkway.
“Part of our cemetery dates from 1855, before Minnesota Statehood and before the cemetery was incorporated,” explains Kantar. “There are unmarked burials that we needed to protect. So we established a memorial walkway in that old part of the cemetery.” An adjacent area with columbariums and benches further rounds out the design of the new garden. “Cemeteries need to offer cost effective solutions for families. We wanted to create a space for those who are considering cremation.”
Not only can the walkway’s paving stones be engraved with names and dates, but stones imprinted with butterflies are available for adoption. Soon to be installed along the walk-way are granite boulders which can be used as memorials and custom cast bronze butterfly statuettes can be mounted to those.
The bronze butterflies are a new product manufactured by Coldspring and they are available for personal as well as cemetery use. They can be taken home as a keepsake, mount-ed on trees, or placed on a wall. At 5-6 inches in size and produced in five designs, the butterflies
open up new pos-sibilities for creating a naturalistic memorial space. They add a layer of detail and integrate well with a memorial’s other architectural and landscape features, taking memorial design to a whole new level. Beyond their associations with nature, butter-flies are often seen as a symbol of transforma-tion, resurrection and celebration. Many reli-gions view the butterfly as a symbol of the soul and other cultures see the butterfly as a sign of good luck, beauty and honor.
Variety and customization
The new emphasis on personalization, creativ-ity and carefully designed spaces, concurrent with the rising popularity of cremation, means that old traditions are being rapidly pushed aside. Funeral and cemetery professionals who are able to customize their services, offer va-riety and act as informed consultants for their customers will best weather those changes. And there’s no need to go it alone. Many industry groups offer education and support. A video (http://vimeo.com/59438085) developed by the Monument Builders of North America (MBNA) explains the importance of memorialization with cremation. Not only will adaptable funeral and cemetery service providers maintain profitability and expand their business into new areas, but they will help shape the memorial spaces and traditions that will be used by future generations.
Bronze Butterfly
Columbarium
Bronze Butterfly
Personal Reflections® gives your customers more options
New products now available
The latest release features an expanded product offering including select Benches, Crypt Plaques and Niche Plaques. Additional new features include a preset scroll filter, order form enhancements, improved load time, and miscellaneous fixes.
To find out more information about Coldspring’s Personal Reflections system, please contact a Coldspring sales representative at 800.328.2312 or via email at [email protected]
Make memorial selection easier on yourself and your clients
Niche Plaques
Benches
Crypt Plaque CF - 138 C
Crypt PlaqueCF - 141 I
Cremation StoneGB - AE - 7045
Crypt PlaqueCF - 139 C
Crypt Plaques
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In many parts of the country, cemeteries now face a growing challenge – a limited amount of space. Cemeteries are finding creative solu-tions, including new designs and structures to maximize their resources. Toledo Memorial Park recently upgraded a structure, and through a restoration project, by adding columbarium niches to the bottom of an existing memorial tower, created new, value-added memorial space.
In 1929, Toledo Memorial Park erected a tower honoring local veterans, today known as the Veterans Memorial Tower. The beautiful, cylin-drical tower of limestone bricks is located just outside the park’s specially designated area for veterans and their spouses. After years of natural wear, the tower required scheduled repairs. In conjunction with these repairs, park officials de-cided to construct a columbarium, a structure comprising of numerous niches for cremation burial, around the tower’s circular base.
When the park conceived the idea for a vet-erans’ columbarium, park officials called on long-time partner, Coldspring, which had previ-ously completed three mausoleums for the park. Coldspring’s experience in cremation niche design and capabilities in custom applications brought the versatility needed for the project.
The columbarium’s design, a collaboration between Coldspring and Toledo Memorial Park, was intentionally subtle and with minimal orna-mentation not to overshadow the existing tow-er’s beauty. The plan called for eight sections of radial-cut granite to wrap around the tower’s circular base, installed atop existing steps at the tower’s base. With a height of 41 inches and diameter of 58 feet, the columbarium contains 213 niches, each measuring 1 by 1 foot. To
coordinate with the tower’s limestone, Cold-spring’s Carnelian® in Polish and Rub & Sand finishes was selected for the project. “Because we were building a radial-cut structure to fit around an existing structure, there was zero margin for error,” said Jim Calgaro, Project Manager and Estimator, Coldspring.
As such, Coldspring’s estimating team came on site to make the meticulous measurements around the tower’s base and steps and found only a ¼-inch variance around the base, which meant the original tower was in good condi-tion with an excellent original construction. “We constructed the columbarium’s base and cap to an exact matching height so it doesn’t look like it was added on,” said Calgaro. “Our top granite cap was seal-cut around the radius of the feature, so there’s not even a step there.” Coldspring custom fabricated the niche cabinet’s structure of aluminum, a material which allowed flexibility for accom-modating the slight variance in height around the structure. The aluminum cabinet comprised of eight sections of straight segmented boxes, each having its own niche front. “Everything was custom produced for this project,” said Calgaro. “We do a lot of custom work like this to fit the project requirements.” After two weeks of construction on site, Coldspring completed the project before the intended Memorial Day goal.
“By constructing the veterans’ columbarium, we created a lasting burial space for veterans who want to be cremated,” said Jim Mocek, Sales Manager, Toledo Memorial Park. “In ad-dition, we are able to donate a portion of the sales to support Honor Flight Northwest Ohio and set aside additional funds for the future
Niche project maximizes existing space
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Niche project maximizes existing space
care and upkeep of the tower.” Honor Flight North-west Ohio is a non-profit organization formed in 2007 to send the veterans of Northwest Ohio to Washington, D.C., to see the memorials built to honor their service. The new niches constructed at the base of the Veterans Memorial Tower demon-strate the possibility of future applications for cem-
eteries. By evaluating existing structures, cemeteries can find creative ways to maxi-mize their memorial space, add value and meet customers’ needs.
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ICCFA Convention April 8th - 11th Booth 1248 Mandalay Bay Resort Las Vegas, NV
17482 Granite West Road Cold Spring, MN 56320
T: 800.328.5040 F: 320.685.8490
www.coldspringusa.com
Enhancements to the Coldspring Warehouse program
Welcome new representatives
Recent enhancements to our Warehouse program gives families the opportunity to change or upgrade their memorial for a nominal fee.
Upgrades available to all existing & future memorials in storage
Applicable to assembled memorials, bronze only memorials, crypt & niche plaques
Kevin Young REGIONAL SALES MANAGER CEMETERY BUILDING SOLUTIONS
Responsible for Alberta, Mani-toba, Saskatchewan, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
Sue Berry CUSTOMER CARE REPRESENTATIVE BRONZE
Responsible for Texas.
Barb Lingofelt CUSTOMER CARE REPRESENTATIVE BRONZE
Responsible for Arizona, Colo-rado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. E [email protected]
John Allegretti REGIONAL SALES MANAGER BRONZE & GRANITE Responsible for Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Arkansas.
Storage of memorial will be in our bonded, licensed and insured warehouse for a period of up to 50 years.
Upon completion of manufactur-ing, a Warehouse receipt and certificate of title will be furnished to the cemetery for distribution to the memorial purchaser/owner.
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