I received a call on December 4, 2006 from a monument builder in Gonzales, Texas. He expressed his appreciation for my numerous publications and history of advocacy for issues affecting consumers and the monument industry. I welcomed his call as it is always good to hear from my readers.
We talked about how some within the funeral industry have looked at cemeteries as the dumping grounds for its services instead of the place of importance that they should be. Cemeteries are places where we honor our loved ones, and members of the communities. They deserve to be properly maintained as places where we honor both the living as well as the dead. Accordingly, from cemetery maintenance to proper design and installation of monuments, we should all be concerned for the appearance and preservation of cemeteries.
Obviously, I do not want to sweep with too broad brush as the illegal, unethical or short-sided actions of one person should not mar the reputation of the entire industry, as every industry, trade and profession has good and bad apples.
We talked about the differences between a monument and a memorial and how our company prefers to build memorials and not monuments and the difference between the two is that a memorial honors the life of a person more than celebrating the death with seldom more than the name and dates of birth and death.
I explained how we build Family History Plaques (SM) and how these plaques have been very popular with our clients. See http://www.valdostamemorials.com/LifeHistoryPlaques.asp.
During our conversation, we discussed the difficulty of installing monuments in Catholic Cemeteries with onerous rules on outside monument companies. I have observed absurdly onerous rules designed to limit competition that were generated by for-profit cemeteries too, particularly those cemeteries owned by the large corporate conglomerates. I have even observed situations where private cemeteries falsely stated that they would not allow the installation of outside products, an event clearly in violation of Federal Trade Commission regulations and fair business practices.
I suspect the ability to compete fairly and on a level playing field is an area of common concern that should receive a united front by the monument industry. I would like to hear from my colleagues and the public on this and other subjects of concern.
If you have thoughts you wish to share, please email me at Burton@USAMonuments.com and I will post select comments on this site. I thank you in advance for your contributions to improve the death-care industry, memorialization and honor the loved ones of grieving families.
Burton Fletcher
Owner
http://www.usamonuments.com/
