Beginning March 2nd, 2020 the Mailing Lists functionality on RootsWeb will be discontinued. Users will no longer be able to send outgoing emails or accept incoming emails. Additionally, administration tools will no longer be available to list administrators and mailing lists will be put into an archival state.
Administrators may save the emails in their list prior to March 2nd. After that, mailing list archives will remain available and searchable on RootsWeb
Did you know, you don't have to buy a coffin from a funeral director?
If I read this right, you can make one in your garage, if family agrees.
Simple caskets handmade in state
Design for wooden coffins came from St. Meinrad monk; showroom at Abbey
Press Gift Shop often surprises visitors
By Jessica Dyer
The (Jasper) Herald
July 2, 2007
ST. MEINRAD, Ind. -- The Abbey Casket showroom, in the back corner of the
Abbey Press Gift Shop at St. Meinrad Archabbey, surprises some people who
wander back to that end of the shop, perhaps looking for a Bible or just
browsing.
Jennifer Keller, associate director of Abbey Caskets, takes many questions
from those curious shoppers. She's even had people take photos of themselves
next to the caskets they want to be buried in. Most people walk away with
information on how to purchase one of the handmade wooden caskets or urns.
"We try to make people comfortable," she said of the brightly lit,
six-coffin showroom. "People come to a place like this and see that there's
no pressure."
When people wander into the showroom filled with caskets and various urns,
they often ask about the company's origins, Keller said.
For many years, a monk at the archabbey made the coffins strictly for monks
there. Because consumers were interested in the simplicity of the monks'
burial boxes, Abbey Caskets was born in 1999, offering two styles of
caskets: monastic and traditional. Hurst Cabinets in Huntingburg was given a
contract to make the caskets, the design for which originated in Switzerland
150 years ago.
"We started out making a lot of poplar, and now we make more cherry than
anything," Hurst Cabinets owner Jon Hurst, St. Anthony, said of the $1,275
to $1,975 caskets. Urns sell for less than $200.
A monk still makes caskets for the monks at St. Meinrad, but for them only.
Hurst manufactures the more polished and padded commercial coffins 10 at a
time.
Abbey Caskets sells about 250 of the oak, walnut, poplar and cherry burial
boxes each year. The monastic-style caskets are a simpler style that closely
resembles what St. Meinrad monks are buried in.
The coffins aren't sold just locally. Keller said the company has sold
caskets in every state and shipped internationally.
"We've shipped three or four to Ireland," she said.
Last summer, Keller took Abbey Caskets to the Indiana State Fair, where the
display got a great response. Many people wanted to see what was under the
closed half of the display casket, "where the feet would go," she said.
Fairgoers were also interested in the way the coffins opened and closed, and
in the upholstery inside.
She noticed that some people looked at the caskets like they were furniture
instead of coffins.
"It was a more comfortable setting for people to talk to their family," she
said.
Many people were interested because the caskets were handmade in Indiana.
Janice Hurst, who stains the caskets for her son's company, noticed people's
responses to the caskets at the fair, too.
"People were handling them quite a bit," she said. "We had to repair a few
of them."
Abbey Caskets is heading south to the Kentucky State Fair in August and
Keller hopes to have the same response as she did at last year's fair.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
Keller said one thing she's learned is that many people believe they have to
purchase a casket from a funeral director.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
However, in 1994 the Federal Trade Commission passed a law that requires
funeral homes to accept any outside arrangements made by a family or the
deceased.
"People don't know this option is available to them," Keller said of the
caskets, which are advertised mainly through word-of-mouth.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
Though Keller didn't think she'd be selling caskets after she graduated from
the University of Southern Indiana, she likes the nature of her job.
"It's comforting to me to know that I'm offering this service to other
people," she said.