University Place

Funeral Planning

[Carrie Meyers, Resource Specialist, Aging and Disability Resource Center Northwest Wisconsin]

At our fourth annual Final Affairs conference we have Patrick Taylor, owner of Swedberg-Taylor Funeral Homes and Cremation Services here to talk to us about funeral planning. So please welcome Patrick Taylor.

[applause]

[Patrick Taylor, Owner, Swedberg-Taylor Funeral Homes and Cremation Services]

Thank you.

I was told to talk very loud. Is this good? Can everybody hear me? Okay.

Well, my name is Pat Taylor.

Let’s see if we can get this to, there we go.

This is my wife Stacey. Her and I have been working together now for over 23 years in the area. I’m a licensed funeral director both in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I got into this – I have a twin brother who’s also a funeral director. And not enough time to tell you stories about that, but we’re identical so we’ve had a lot of fun over the years with being identical twin brothers doing funerals together.

My family, we’re a first-generation funeral business. We didn’t get into it by our grandfathers or dads that were in funeral service. My twin brother started mowing grass in Anoka, Minnesota, when he was 16, and from that point on he stayed in funeral service. I went the other way a little bit. I was a paramedic for nine years. I’ve got a little bio on myself here.

Oop. This is my family. That’s right, I’ve got four daughters. I don’t dye my hair yet,okay? It’s going gray up the mountain.

My oldest daughter, Lauren, right here, she just graduated from the University of Minnesota last year, so she’s now a funeral director with me up here. So, in the last 25 years, five people of my family have gone through the University of Minnesota mortuary science program, so.

This one here just shows a little bit of my work experience. Before I was a funeral director, I was a paramedic for Allina for nine years. I also was the Medical Examiner for eight years here in Burnett County, and I’ve been involved with different social clubs and things, rotaries, and all those, sort of, different things that you get involved with in a small town as a business owner.

What I always like to start our – our first topic out with is what we call a first call in the funeral industry. A lot of people think that, you know, first they either know what funeral homes do, or they don’t know what we do. So, what I usually explain to families is that, you know, we’re available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It doesn’t mean that we’re sitting at the funeral home with our hand on the phone and a white shirt on and a tie. It just means that we’re ready to serve within 45 minutes to an hour of any of the deaths around.

All of my staff now is Minnesota and Wisconsin licensed funeral directors for the fact that we get a lot of people that doctor outside of Burnett County. They may start their care here, but they end up at Abbott or United or down in the Cities. This way we can follow the family all the way through from start to finish. We don’t have to get another funeral home involved in Minnesota, and we can do all our own work. So, it works out very well.

With the first call, it could be the Medical Examiner calling. It could be the nursing home. It could be the people out at a house that dad just had a heart attack. What we typically have to do is get our vehicle and equipment and staff. And I’m a big fan in funeral service of minivans because they are very easy to work with, with cots and lifting and such.

And you’ll see here, the model is my daughter, of course.

This cot here is prorated up to 300 pounds. Everybody’s getting a little bigger, so we have to have bigger cots, bigger equipment, more staff to go out. Most people, if they die in a home or a residence, it’s not a convenient place. They’re either upstairs in a bedroom or in a back bedroom where you can’t get a cot or a mortuary stretcher into. So, we have different portable cots and equipment that we can bring out that makes that transfer from the house to our mortuary cot and then back to the funeral home.

The other part that we talk with families at the death scene, once again if it’s at the nursing home, hospital, wherever it may be, is about arrangements. That usually happens within the next day or two. We’ll have the family members come into the funeral home. I’ve also gone out to the house before. Certain circumstances they’ll ask me to come out, rather than come to the funeral home.

We go over the arrangements, which more or less is collecting vital statistic information for death certificates, Social Security. The state now has done everything electronically, which means, as a funeral director in Wisconsin and Minnesota, I have to turn my credentials in every year, and it’s an access to the state filing system for death certificates. The days of old, you could go down the Register of Deeds, get a piece of paper of all the papers the funeral home would do and do it yourself. Because of all the way the world is now of – of people doing forgeries and everything else, the states now require that it’s an online system. Once we put that vital statistic information that we gather from the family, that goes to the state down to Madison. That information gets filed. Then we can get the death certificates for the family in the county in which the death happened, not in the county where you live. It’s the county where the death happened.

Also, by doing that, Social Security then is electronically notified also once we send it to the state of Wisconsin. The only benefit with Social Security now is if you have a spouse at the time of your death, they’re entitled to a $255 death benefit, period. So, whatever you’ve heard on TV, just ignore it. This hasn’t changed in probably 30 years. So, you have to be married at the time of your death, and whoever the surviving spouse is, they will get a $255 death benefit from Social Security. Now, as with all good government agencies, it’s going to take probably four to six weeks before you get that check in the mail or electronically deposited into your account.

This just talks about, you know, with prearranging and – and doing things in our business, I have to tell you, I’ve been doing this almost 25 years, and if there’s such a thing as a good arrangement, it’s when the kids come in and the parents have already done all this pre-planning. Getting things set up. Putting down your funeral wishes. Whether you want to be buried or cremated. If you want to go to State Vet Cemetery. If you want to go down to Minneapolis VA, or wherever it may be. Just simply listing all of your wishes down makes it so much easier. These kids come in; they have no idea what to do. Most people don’t make funeral arrangements but once every 10 years.

These kids that come in, they’re in their 20s, maybe early 30s, and they dont – they really don’t know what to do. But by parents going Inside the folder that left in front of each one of your spots here, you’ll see in there the very first as you open it up, the very first page there, it talks about a pre-planning guide. And more or less that takes you through step by step of what we ask for during arrangements, what is needed. It also has a spot in there to list your wishes for what type of funeral service you want. It also talks a little bit about everything else that was talked about today in regards to having, you know, healthcare directives and wills and all those sorts of things lined up. But it’s a four or five-page document that’s in there. And then, on the left side, it talks about all the benefits of pre-planning for – for funerals.

I just wanted to go and talk over a few different topics in regards to funerals. If we talk about a traditional funeral service, that would be one where we have a body present, it’s been embalmed, casketed, and would be buried at a cemetery somewhere.

And with a traditional funeral service, just so you know, embalming is not required by the state of Wisconsin unless there’s going to be a public viewing or visitation. So, if the desire is to be buried, you don’t have to be embalmed for that, but there’s no public viewing or visitation.

Likewise, for cremation, we’re the only funeral home provider, I believe now, within about two to three counties that has refrigeration. So, we can actually hold a person in refrigeration because there’s a 48-hour wait period for the actual crem – if we do cremation. But also, by having this refrigeration, for those that don’t wish to have the body be embalmed, we can go and simply hold the body in this refrigerated area, and then for the day of the service, have a closed casket, then go to the cemetery.

Now, there’s all kinds of different merchandise involved with either a cremation service or a traditional service. Anywhere from caskets to register books, memorial folders, thank you cards. Some families, I’m sure you’ve seen where they do the DVD tributes, where they put pictures in a big series, and it goes through, and there’s music playing.

These are just some different types of caskets from simple fiberboard containers into different steels and metals. Some of the casket companies now are doing themed, where, if mom was into angels, you can get angels on the corners, and then those can be taken off prior to the burial and given to the family as a keepsake.

This will show a few other ones. Then you get into all kinds of different wood caskets. Just so everyone knows, with funeral service product, you do not have to buy any product from the funeral home. If you want to make your own casket, if you want to buy it from a private party, if you want to bring in your own urn, you’re able to do that.

But most funeral homes are going to have you sign off a release of liability so if you’re carrying that casket into the church, and the bottom falls out or the handle breaks off, it’s not going to hold the funeral home responsible for it. So, the big thing now days is mental anguish for – and liability. And they sue all the time. Is the attorney still here?

[laughter]

But especially in our business, mental anguish is huge. How could you possibly ever forget Grandpa falling out of the bottom of the casket, you know? So, most funeral homes will go and have some type of a – a company that they work with, a casket company, that will have a three to five million dollar product liability warranty, which means that they have built their product so well that they will stand behind it with a warranty. And, knock on wood, or simulated wood, I have never had a problem yet with a casket that way, so, and hopefully I never will.

Now, every funeral that you have, you’re going to have what they call cash advances. Cash advances have to do with things that are outside of the funeral home. For example, flowers, lunches, pastor, organist, soloist, death certificates. In the 72 counties in the state of Wisconsin, we have 72 either medical examiners or coroners, and each county has their own fee depending on what you’re asking that office to do. If a person dies at home, and they have not seen a doctor within a reasonable amount of time or they cannot find enough medical background on them, the medical examiner could – could order an autopsy.

So, there’s different fees involved with – it wouldn’t be for the actual autopsy itself, but hes gonna have – he or she will have a fee for signing death certificates. It could be anywhere from $50 to $100. The cremation authorization, they actually have to come to the funeral home, identify the body to make sure that’s who it is. Depending on what county you’re in, that can be anywhere from $50 up to $175. It’s all fee generated by the county boards depending on where you’re at. Closer to Milwaukee, the prices go up. Go up north here, the prices are a little less, so.

There’s always been talk about burial vaults. Now, there’s no state rule in regards to using burial vaults at a cemetery. And this is in regards to a traditional funeral. The burial vaults are used only if the cemetery requires the use of it, or the family chooses to use them.

Now, typically, if there’s some type of a requirement at the cemetery, they don’t ask for a vault. They ask for what they call a grave liner, which is a concrete box that goes into the grave itself. The casket is placed in, and a flat concrete cover goes on top of it, and then the earth is put over. Typically, a concrete box helps the grave from not sinking and also keeps the headstones flat and level.

So, if you go to some of the older cemeteries, and you see hills and dales, they used old wooden rough boxes in those. Whereas, if you go to the newer cemeteries, you’re going to see flat and level. That’s because they either used a grave liner. The difference between the two is a burial vault, once a casket is placed within it, it seals. None of the elements of the earth will ever enter back into that vault. So, it’s really about choices in funeral service. And it’s only a value to people if they find importance and use of it. Some people go: “I’ll just meet the minimum requirement of the cemetery. I’m not getting a burial vault.” And that’s your choice as a family. But if the cemetery has a requirement, it’s only going to be that of the minimal concrete box or grave liner.

Now, before I touch on cremation, just so you know with traditional funerals, at least up here, a lot of people want to know: Jeez, what do they cost? I can kind of give you round numbers. Typically, up here for a traditional funeral where, I’ll give you for example, we have a visitation the night before, service the next day, and then go to the cemetery for burial, come back to the church, have lunch. Up here, you’re probably somewhere between $8,500 and $10,500. The exact same funeral down in the cities would be somewhere between $14,000 to $16,000.

Difference being up here, grave openings are $650, $500 to $650. Down in the cities, it can be anywhere from $1,400 to $2,200 just to open a grave. And down in the cities, the bigger ones that are owned by the corporations; what happens with them, whether you bring in a urn or a full casketed body, they charge the same price for opening the grave.

So, you have to be really aware down in the cities when you’re dealing with that. That’s why a lot of people come back home to small town to have services because the sign of a good funeral home is how many years has it been in the community. That means that they’ve been doing the right thing. The ones that close up, they obviously weren’t doing the right thing, and it’s all about trust in our business. If – if you’re trustworthy and follow through with the things that you tell the families that you’re going to do.

So, with cremation, now there’s a couple different types of cremation we can do. The first one would be just like a basic cremation. I’ll give a scenario. Grandma is 101 years old. She’s outlived everybody. They come in and say, “Pat, we just want the minimal. Just an obituary in the paper and those, sort of, things. Cremation can raise in price – can range in price from anywhere from like $1,950 up to $2,200 for a basic cremation.

Then we get into traditional service followed by cremation. That’s where people will come in, they’ll rent a casket, body is embalmed, full service at the end of it. The body then is taken back to our funeral home because we have our own crematorium, Webster, and then the cremation happens.

The one that’s in the middle of that is the body – it’s called cremation with memorial service. Inside the folders there, you’re going to see what they call a general price list. It’s kind of a tannish folder. All funeral homes across the country have to provide what they call a G.P.L., a general price list. And that goes through and gives an itemized breakdown of what everything we do at the funeral home.

I have mine itemized out. I don’t do packaging because I don’t think packaging is a reasonable way to do things because you get a whole bunch of stuff in a package a lot of times that you’re never going to use. So, I have mine set up on whatever you use is what you’re charged for. If you’re not going to use it, of course you’re not charged for it.

So, like I mentioned, basic cremation, no services at all, probably somewhere between $1,950 and $2,200. If we get into a traditional followed by cremation, you’re probably going to be somewhere between $6,000 and $7,000. And with down to just a cremation with memorial service, whether it be at the church, lodge, the funeral home, you’re still going to have all the same cash advances no matter what kind of services you’re going to have. You’re going to have to get death certificates, you’re going to have to get obituary notices and those, sort of, things. That’s going to be somewhere between that $3,500 and $4,500 range for cremation with memorial service. Okay?

And these are just guides; some of them are less, some of them can be more. I’ve had some people that are now catering meals for funerals. The days of the lunch ladies at the churches, there’s nobody filling their shoes once they pass away. So, we don’t have the lunch ladies anymore doing it, so we’re having to hire caterers to come in. And when you’re looking at $8 to $9 a person, and you have 100 people, you could be anywhere up to $1,000 just for a funeral lunch.

Some people just do cookies and coffee, middle of the day funeral type, and that can help with saving expenses.

So, cremation itself, like I mentioned earlier, the thing you want to realize is that there is a – no matter what kind of service with cremation you’re going to have, there is a 48-hour waiting period that gives the medical examiner or coroner time to do an investigation, verify the death, to make sure that there’s no cover-up of a homicide or whatever else may be out there. Because once they sign off on that authorization, days of old, if we buried somebody, and there was a question why they died, we could do a disinterment, have the autopsy done. Now, once the cremation starts, there’s no turning back. So, they have to make sure they’ve got everything legally lined up, and they have a proper cause and manner of death.

Once again, with cremation, you’re still with merchandise. You’re going to have many things the same. Memorial folders, thank you cards, register books, those, sort of, things. We’re also into customizing now. People want pictures, bigger folders.

Now, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, most of the crematories are going to ask for some type of a simple container to hold the person’s body in. And you’re going to see up here, this is a simple fiberboard container. These now are prorated up to 300 pounds, and we actually have containers that are larger than that because the funeral home and crematory has to have a way, first, to hold the body and then, secondly, to place something, a person into a crematory. I’ve got a photo here. Everything is done – this is different cremation jewelry.

This is what our crematory looks like right here. It’s a big container. The door here goes up, and there’s a roller. That fiberboard container I showed you, it’s used for holding the body for that 48-hour period. Most importantly, it helps us place the person into the crematory because we just glide them in. There’s a roller on the front and roller – a cardboard roller that we put in, and it glides the person right into the machine. Thus, you don’t have to go and buy caskets or cremation caskets. This simple fiberboard container I showed you earlier is all that is required.

The other thing that we do at our crematory is to make sure everybody gets back who we bring into our care. We have a stainless-steel coin system that we use. And it’ll say “Northwoods Crematory,” and there’s a number right in the middle. That number represents how many cremations I’ve done over the last nine years that I had it open. I use the year 2016-whatever the coin number is. So if I had three urns sitting on my counter, 1350, 51, 52, and there wasn’t a label on them, I can go back to our logbook because I run our crematory as a separate entity, and that way we have everybody logged in that we bring in, not only their name but paperwork that has to be completed, and that coin stays with the body from the time that we have them in our care all the way through the cremation process. And when we do the transfer of putting the cremated remains into an urn, we zip-tie that coin right to the bag, so that way we know for sure we’re giving back Mom or Dad to the right family, okay?

Now, that other picture I showed you too with the cremation jewelry, and you’ll see it’s in the – the flyer here too, there’s so many different things coming out. I’ve got a couple things over on my table over there. There’s some new jewelry that’s come out. It’s called Thumbies. I don’t know if anybody’s seen it or heard of it. But what it is, is we can take an imprint of your thumb with a – and capture the print. We can send it off and they can actually make pendants, rings, of the person’s fingerprint.

I tell the story I had a gentleman that died, and him and his wife had just missed their 50th wedding anniversary. He died just a few days before it. So, the wife, we took her fingerprint, and we took his fingerprint, and there’s one over there you’ll see. I call it a ying-yang. It’s a circle like this. Looks like a 50-cent piece. And each one of their prints is on there. So that’s what she got for a memory piece for herself. It’s not for everybody, but everybody likes to see things that are different.

There’s another necklace piece over there with glass. You can actually go and take a teaspoon of someone’s cremated remains, and have it blown into glass jewelry or a keepsake. Once again, I see some people raising their eyes at me, but everybody has different thoughts and feelings with all of this. So, just to show you how different things can be.

Here’s that Thumbies right here. You can see we take the fingerprint, and then what they can do is you can have hearts, double hearts, a little bit of everything.

Now, the other thing is, since my daughter joined us, I’m going to embarrass her. My daughter, Lauren, is sitting right back there.

Raise your hand, Lauren.

That’s my oldest daughter, Lauren.

She’s now into the monument marker line that we can help families with. And the nice thing about this company, Sunburst Memorials, they have a computer program that she can use and go back and design the stone, and it looks just like how it would look if it was going to be at the cemetery. So, when you go to approve it, you’re going to see exactly what it’ll look like before it even hits the cemetery, before it’s even placed. So, they have all kinds of different monuments and markers. You can do different laser engravings. Nowadays, with computers and technology, the sky is kind of the limit of – of different designs and things that you can do.

We talk about major life events. From weddings, which we just had Lauren’s wedding just two weeks ago, to birthdays, baptisms, all these things. Much like those are events, passing away or a death is a major event in your life. And the biggest benefit to preparing, prearranging and – and things is that your wishes get to be known. We call it putting your house in order. So, when the person who comes in to make those arrangements, we open the prearrangement folder up, and here’s everything laid out to bible verses, scripture, how the folder is supposed to be, what paper the obituary is to go in. The greatest gift is if the mom or dad could write up their own obituary, so you don’t have to try to figure out dates and all those, sort of, things.

So, with the benefits of pre-planning, especially pre-funding, a lot of banks now have gotten away from accepting pre-funded monies for funerals. U.S. Bank is a prime example. There’s too many laws between all the different states that the banks are involved in that they don’t want the liability. So, U.S. Bank doesn’t do funeral trusts anymore. Bremer is still doing them, but that’s about our own financial institution. A couple credit unions are still doing them.

So, what a lot of people in the funeral industry are going to now is insurance companies with annuities, irrevocably placed where we can itemize everything out now. Right down to death certificates, lunches, and it’s all itemized out because eventually, if we all live long enough, like we heard earlier, the state is going to get our money. And they really want you to pay for your own funeral. That’s why they allow you to put money away in what we call an irrevocable funeral trust. Meaning the only time that monies can be used is upon your death.

So, it’s not considered an asset. Whereas, if you made it revocable, that means you could actually skim the interest off of it. But the idea with the funeral trust is that the interest keeps up with the cost of inflation. Now, the program we’re with now, it’s a company called Great Western Insurance Company. It allows us and other funeral homes that use them, we can guarantee our prices at the funeral home, the ones that you see in the little tan folder there. Our services, we can guarantee and take the chance that the interest isn’t going to keep up with the cost of inflation. So, for peace of mind for the consumer, once you come in and plan with us and set the money aside, the only time that money can be touched by anyone is once the person has died.

And it only goes to the funeral home provider that provides the service. So, let’s say you came into the funeral home and said: “Pat, I want to write up a pre-need funeral trust.” And all of a sudden you are in Florida, and you die, and you want services down there. By law, we have to release those funds to the funeral home that’s going to be providing services. It does not become the property of any funeral home until they actually provide the service. So, it’s transferable, it’s protected, and this insurance company that we use, they’re paying between 2% and 3.5% interest on the money. Banks are under one right now, okay?

So, also with pre-planning, I’m part of a blended family, which I’m sure a lot of us are, and we have a lot of unique personalities, I’ll leave it at that, in each family. And sometimes families will get into arguments about: “Well, that’s not what my dad wanted. Well, yeah it is. Some people have gotten to the point now where they will go and get this form, and the actual name of the form is used to put your final wishes in. And it’s called Authorization for Final Disposition. And what that Authorization for Final Disposition allows you, before you die, to fill that out, have it notarized, and, for the funeral planning of it, that supersedes a will or anything for us once that’s signed and documented. So, if you have challenging families that you say: “You know what, I want to be buried.” And the stepson says: “No, no you’re not, we’re going to cremate you. You can have it written down, documented, and you can even list personal representatives as to who you want to be in charge of the funeral arrangements.

So, the state of Wisconsin is ahead of themselves that way because it’s a huge benefit for people that, you know – I’ll give you one for instance. I had one family, mom came in, she had had her funeral all set up for about the last seven years. She had roughly $9,000 or $10,000 in a trust. She had everything picked down to what color flowers she wanted on her casket. Mom dies, the son comes in, says: “You know what? Just before my mom died, on her last breath, she told me, ‘I don’t want any services; change up my funeral plan, just give the money to the church.'”

Well, the problem is mom was on an assistance program through the state. So, recovery comes in. Well, the son – the son thought he was going to pocket this money and walk away. Well, he didn’t. Of the money, by the time it was done, I think the state ended up getting about $6,000 back. And he didn’t follow his mother’s wishes of what she wanted. So, that’s what that form of the Authorization for Final Disposition is – is a huge document for families that are challenged with many opinions and people that don’t want to follow through with what you want.

This is one way to get your final wishes done, notarized, and most funeral homes will keep a copy of it in their files. And I always tell families when you’re doing all this pre-planning and thinking, don’t lock all the stuff up in a safety deposit box or in a safe because death isn’t convenient. It happens on a weekend; nobody can get into the safety deposit box. Nobody knows the safe combination. Or like they mentioned earlier, make copies of it at least and give it to somebody that you trust to put into their safe so when the time happens, they have access to it.

Everybody needs somebody. Where I come with that – where I came up with this is when I have folks come in for arrangements, I always ask them to bring somebody with them because there’s a lot of questioning, a lot of decisions, and when a death happens, people, they’re – theyre not there, the shock of the death. And the thing that I always want somebody to come with is that there’s no reason to overspend on funerals. With four daughters, everything’s expensive, I tell them. We just want to try to make it affordable.

Right, Lauren?

So, by doing this and coming in yourself and picking things out, it’s – its a huge benefit that until you’ve been through it to see – I know Barb talked about it a little bit earlier too with her mother when everything was set up. It made things so much easier for the family when they came in. Mom wanted this, she wanted that. All they pretty much had to do was pick out what day do they want the service and which memorial folder do you want. Everything else was done.

They talk about the most difficult day of your life is – is doing these things. Now, personal history and vital statistics.

This comes into play, like I mentioned in that little pre-planning booklet. A lot of people forget the second generation. And where I’m going with this is when we go through vital statistics, we need to know what the decedent’s dad’s name was and then what the decedent’s mother’s name was, plus her maiden name.

And I’ll guarantee if you go ask the grandkids, 75% of them wouldn’t have a clue what Grandma’s maiden name was. So, all these websites that you see with, you know, Ancestry.com and all that? They’re getting their information off death certificates and off other information. And we always try to collect and get all the spellings correct because that death certificate is the last piece of paper to show we were here. And I’d like to get it as close to 100% accurate as we can. So, with the death certificates, keep in mind those are going to be used for anything legally that you’re going to have to – real estate, like the attorney was talking about. If you have more than one life insurance policy, every life insurance company is going to ask for their own certified copy of the death certificate.

Well, I have families say: “Pat, not a problem, I’m going to take that piece of paper over to the copy machine, make a copy.” You used to be able to do that, but the state of Wisconsin now has this paper that – or this program that when you take – here’s my certified copy that I paid three dollars for, and I put it on the copy machine, the ink inside it pulls it up, it says “void” everywhere on it. So, Wisconsin charges $20 for the very first copy of the certified death certificate, and it’s $3 for every copy thereafter. If you run out, they’re going to charge you $20 to make it again, and $3 for everyone thereafter. So, I highly recommend to families you’re better off to order six more than what you think you’re going to need for $18 rather than calling up a month later and saying you need one for $20. So those are the things we go over during pre-arrangements and arrangements also.

Now, with veterans, how many veterans do we have here today?

Thank you for your service. Wow, a lot of them.

Now, how many of you are registered over at Wisconsin State Vet. Cemetery, okay?

As a veteran, there’s a couple benefits I’ll just touch on briefly here. All veterans, if you – what funeral homes are going to need is a copy of the DD214, which is the honorable discharge paper. DD214 shows that the person entered and exited the service as honorable.

In the state of Wisconsin, you have to be living in the state. It has to be your primary residence in order to be buried at Wisconsin State Vets Cemetery. The veteran, there’s no expense. They will take care of the grave space, the grave opening, the marker. If it’s a cremation, they’ll pay for the niche, they’ll pay for the bronze plaque on the outside. No charge for the veteran.

The spouse of the veteran, they charge $550, but you get the same benefit as the veteran, but for $550. So, I tell families that a grave opening is $650. You go over to State Vets, and for $550 you get everything for that. So its – and if you haven’t been there, it’s a very, very nice cemetery. If I was a veteran, I would definitely go there.

Now, if you’re wanting to use a national cemetery, like Fort Snelling, you go down there, the spouse is also covered like the veteran. There’s no charge for either one at a national cemetery. It’s just the state one that has the fee for the spouse.

All veterans are also eligible for a flag, military honors. And what we do is we put a request, with our funeral homes, we put a request in with Fort McCoy. And the biggest reason we do that for is we’re going to get two uniformed military personnel that are active duty. And they train in funeral – fold, you know, folding the flag and those sorts of things and firing of the rifles.

Our local clubs, kind of like that lunch lady group, they’re kind of dying off, and we’re not getting the people returning to fill those spots. So, when we call Fort McCoy and get everything set up, we have to fax them a copy of the DD214, put a request form in, they call us back and say: “Yep, we’ll have two uniforms there.” They try to get a firing squad with the local people because every veteran deserves to have honors, whether it’s at the funeral home, it’s at a church, or even out at the cemetery. They want to entrust that everybody gets honors for veterans. So, you get the flag, you get honors.

Now, if you decide you don’t want to use a state or national cemetery as a veteran, you are still eligible, the veteran is, for a cemetery marker. And you’ve probably seen the white marble, light gray granite. It’s just a simple stone that can be used out at the cemetery for a grave marker. So that’s the only benefit. There’s not reimbursements or anything else for – for not using State Vets. They used to give a reimbursement years ago, but they don’t do that anymore. It’s either use the State Vet Cemetery or the national, and then, if you don’t, they’re only going to provide you with honors, flag, and a marker at the cemetery.

You can get pre-signed up at Wisconsin State Vets. It costs you nothing. They’re going to go and ask you for a copy of your DD214. They’re going to also ask for your marriage certificate, if the spouse is going to be buried with you there. And they’re going to make a copy of it and give it back to you, because you have to prove that the spouse is married to the veteran at the time of the death in order for them to reserve a space because once – what they did is I call it bunking. If you go over there with a traditional casket, whoever dies first gets the bottom bunk, and the top bunk is reserved then for the next one, whoever passes. So, they do double burials over there.

With the urns, if you go to the garden, you can bury two urns pretty much whatever you’d like. If you use the niches there, they’re limited on space. They’re a 12 by 12 by 12 box. So, you can’t have a big fancy urn for one and one for – they got to be very limited sizes within the wall. But once one person dies and goes in there, it’s reserved for the other one. So, if – if the veteran dies first, the spouse will have a spot reserved. Whether it takes, you know, five years or ten years after they pass, it’s still going to be reserved just for them. Nobody else can use it, okay?

Memorial instructions is the other part in that folder too. If you flip through that one that we had first referenced, it goes in the back and talks about memorial instructions, funeral instructions.

Important information that you want. Some people will keep all of this between, like I mentioned, we take care of Social Security. The good thing about the attorney, she talked about wills and probates and living trusts and power of attorney. There’s – theres so much more than just planning your funeral, as you probably all are overloaded on information today, but it’s all been good information.

And then, just things to remember. When you’re planning funerals and those, sort of, things. For the public, I always like to explain to you that in order to be a funeral provider in the state of Minnesota or Wisconsin, you have to be a licensed funeral director with a licensed funeral home. So, where I’m going with this is you’ve heard a lot about these cremation societies. Well, all they are is a funeral home with funeral directors.

That’s what I am.

A funeral home with funeral directors in it, and they have a name called Cremation Society of Minnesota, Cremation Society of Wisconsin.

It’s – its kind of a storefront name. So, Cremation Society of Minnesota is actually Waterston Funeral Home down on 24th and Nicollet. You’ve got American Cremation Society is Washburn-McReavy Funeral Home down in the cities. You also have the Cremation Society of Northwest Wisconsin. That’s me. So, it’s – its a name.

We were called the other night to assist a funeral home, the cremation society. And a lot of these societies now don’t do any work after 11 o’clock at night. They tell you they’ll be there in the morning. They don’t do night call anymore.

And we’d had a call, and this funeral cremation society wanted us to go out and do the removal of the person’s body and hold it at our funeral home, and they’d come up and get it the next day. And I told them: No. I said: “We have our own crematory. We have our own staff that – were – we’re here for the families that call on us.” So, they actually had to drive from somewhere down by Eau Claire all the way up here and then go back.

It delays probably about three to four hour wait time because a lot of these cremation societies have limited staff, and if they get multiple calls in the night, I’ve had some where we’ve got a call and says: “We’re not waiting any longer, We want you to come out and take care of our mom.” So, my brother had one years ago down in Blaine. The guy called and wanted prices at 2:00 in the morning. After my brother’s done talking to this fellow, he goes: “Okay, that’s good, you can come and get my mom. She’s on the kitchen floor.”

[laughter]

Yeah. So

So, just keep in mind, I always suggest that, you know, whether – no matter what funeral home you’re using, always make sure. You know, you can go online and see if there’s any violations. You can see if the directors have had any violations. It’s really consumer beware. And to – to check out, you know, most of the funeral homes around that have crematories do it all. And they put them in the community so people will use it.

If somebody’s on state aid programs, I don’t know too many funeral homes that won’t accommodate or work with families to make it affordable for them because the funeral homes, we actually make application for the families. You don’t go to Social Services anymore. We have a number, we call down to Madison, and I can find out within just a few minutes if the person qualifies. And what the state now says is they’ll tell you they are potentially eligible. They don’t say: “Yes, they qualify for medical assistance money.” So, we have to go at the funeral home, fill the paperwork out, and that cash advance part that I was talking about where we write checks out? We now have to give them a copy of the check that we wrote, a contact name, and a phone number so they can call the pastors and all these people to find out if they got paid. If the cemetery got paid.

So, they’re – theyre really pulling in on they want to recover the funds that aren’t being used. So, we file all of that, and most of the time, the state will only pay out up to $2,500. So, they’re going to pay $1,500 towards the funeral home side. They’ll pay up to $1,000 for cemetery or crematory. And it has – it’s just a very basic service. And it’s like anything else. Either the funeral home can accept what the state is going to reimburse, or the family has to go to another provider that will take medical assistance funerals.

We take medical assistance funerals and have for years because up here we are in somewhat of a depressed county, and you have to be able to work with people. You can ask whatever you want for prices, but you’ve got to be able to bring a product that people can afford too.

So, otherwise, I think that concludes what I got.

Any questions?

[applause]