Confessions

Why A Wood Urn is a Good Memorial Choice

July 23, 2011 urngarden.com

wood urns for ashes Selecting an urn can be overwhelming. People who have never shopped for a funeral urn are surprised at the variety of styles available. A wood urn can simplify the difficult decision of picking the perfect memorial for a loved one. If you like the look of wood, there are many wood urns that may suit your needs.

Wood urns range from simple and elegant hand carved to rustic beauty and charm. Wood urns are suitable for burial or to keep in the home and are so attractive that they don’t have to be stored in the closet.

Wooden Cremation Urns Traditional styles as well as modern designs and memorial chests are available in the wood urn collection.

We always recommend engraving the urn for id purposes and if time allows many of the wood urns can be laser engraved to personalize and protect the container.

An added bonus to the wood urns is that many of the styles we carry are made in America from timber harvested right here in the USA.

That’s all I had Left, was his Urn and his Ashes

July 3, 2011 urngarden.com

Not what you want to see on the highway on a holiday weekend….

4th of july postcard

She forgot to latch the trunk and someone stole the engraved brass urn with her husband’s ashes.

vintage postcard

“We were the only English people attending this Amish funeral. It was unlike any funeral we have ever attended.”

4th of july postcard

Overheard at the office: “Direct cremation and this never would have happened.”

Wishing you a joyous and safe holiday!

There is so much I want to tell you about last week

June 27, 2011 urngarden.com

The Victorian Blood Book fascinates everyone who has ever seen it.

On his deathbed in November of 1963, just as he was passing away, Brave New World novelist Aldous Huxley; a man who for many years had been fascinated with the effects of psychedelic drugs since being introduced to mescaline in 1953 – asked his wife Laura to administer him with LSD. She agreed.

Ralph Morse, an ambitious photojournalist for Life magazine, covered a funeral in New Jersey on April 18, 1955. Now, 55 years later, Life.com is finally publishing the pictures he took that day during the cremation and funeral of Albert Einstein.

October 1939: Hitler signs the following memo, backdated to September, and the euthanasia program becomes official. Now named Action T4, the program no longer discriminates with regards to age and all persons, young and old, can now be killed should they be ‘unworthy of life’.

hitler rock paper sissors

November, 1942: Five brothers, all serving on the same vessel during World War II, are killed in action as a result of said warship sinking at the Battle of the Solomons. Two months later, after hearing no word from the Navy regarding her sons’ well-being, Alleta Sullivan writes the following, deeply moving letter to the Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Donna Reed

After nearly 65 years in a shoebox inside an old trunk, letters written by WWII soldiers to Hollywood actress, Donna Reed asking for a pinup have finally been made public.

The DJ stayed longer, and we bought extra beverages.

June 26, 2011 urngarden.com

vintage postcard

When the family told the funeral director they planned to hold a pig roast fundraiser to pay the bill for a loved one’s funeral, he wasn’t optimistic.

He’d heard ideas like this before and knew the best intentions don’t always lead to the bills getting paid.

When the family called a few days after the memorial service, his doubts were confirmed.

“We’ve got some good news and some bad news,” the caller said. “The good news is, we had the pig roast and it was a lot of fun. The bad news is, we spent the money. The DJ stayed longer, and we bought extra beverages…..”

comic book art

Prices Subject To Change Based on Customer Attitude

Top 10 list of bad tenants in New York City includes the Hoarder and the Serial Evictee.

This list is heavy with people who live in public housing or otherwise receive housing subsidies. City employees also heavily populate the list.

Nikola Tesla

Because of his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments regarding electricity, Nikola Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist by many late in his life. Tesla died with little money at the age of 86 in a hotel suite in New York City in 1943. Later that year the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla’s patent number 645576 in a ruling that served as the basis for patented radio technology in the United States.

Abandoned machinery near Moscow, Russia

A standard three-drug sequence is used in the United States to execute prisoners by lethal injection. A shortage of sodium thiopental used in the recipe has sent U.S. states scrambling to find supplies, or alternative drugs. Sodium thiopental had been sourced through a company in London-until UK government officials put a stop to its export.

Today, the medical establishment, facing a huge shortage of organs, needs new sources for transplantation. One solution has been a return to procuring organs from patients who die of heart failure. Still, many people, including some physicians, consider this type of organ donation, known as “donation after cardiac death” or DCD, as akin to murder.

Ash Scattering Ceremony in The Bahamas

June 1, 2011 urngarden.com

flag of bahamas

Scott bought a biodegradable urn for an ash scattering ceremony he planned for his mother-in-law in the Bahamas. He explains the paperwork process of transporting the urn filled with ashes from Texas to the Bahama beach.

Prior to beginning you will need the death certificate and certificate of cremation. I have been told that sometimes they are one in the same however, most of the time they are two separate documents. You will need to contact the Bahamas Ministry of Health, or that country’s equivalent. All documents should be faxed to them (make sure to make a follow up call and get names). At that point they will send written permission that will be signed by, in my case, the Chief at the Ministry of Health. This document will have vital information on it regarding the deceased and in our case will mandate that you contact the Ministry of Health once there and make arrangements to have the burial at sea at least 10 miles off shore. Now this form should be attached in some way to the remains so that customs officials, should they become curious of the contents of the urn will see what it is and can make simple phone calls to verify. The last thing I wanted was for a customs agent to think it’s heroin or something and open it to test. I learned that customs has little or nothing to do with the process. Once we were there we went to my Mother-in-Law’s favorite beach and set her urn adrift. This was about 50 yards from the shore in a deep harbor. I would not suggest doing this in shallow water.

By the way the urns were perfect, thanks.

Funeral for a Friend: Celebration at Sea

Dust in the Wind: Scattering Ashes Ceremony

Ceremony for Scattering Ashes