Man Drinks to His Pabst Can Coffin SOUTH CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Ill. (May 5) - Bill Bramanti will love Pabst Blue Ribbon eternally, and he's got the custom-made beer-can casket to prove it. "I actually fit, because I got in here," said Bramanti of South Chicago Heights. The 67-year-old Glenwood village administrator doesn't plan on needing it anytime soon, though. He threw a party Saturday for friends and filled his silver coffin - designed in Pabst's colors of red, white and blue - with ice and his favorite brew. "Why put such a great novelty piece up on a shelf in storage when you could use it only the way Bill Bramanti would use it?" said Bramanti's daughter, Cathy Bramanti, 42. Bramanti ordered the casket from Panozzo Bros. Funeral Home in Chicago Heights, and Scott Sign Co. of Chicago Heights designed the beer can.

Workers at children's casket company "deal with what nobody else wants to"

By DREW JUBERA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 7/27/07

Griffin - You work inside a single-story warehouse painted sea-foam green, just up the two-lane from a roller rink and hamburger drive-in, and try your best each day to accommodate the unspeakable.

Maybe you work in upholstery, a brightly-lit room where women line wooden boxes with pleated fabrics, or use a pneumatic staple gun to apply, say, a gingham cover.

Or you paint, relishing those moments when you can spray pink highlights on a creamy all-white box.

Or you work in the woodshop.

"This is about as simple as it gets," says Ricky Cavender, a woodworker here, off-and-on, for about 18 years. He points to a small pine rectangle. It's about a foot long, with a lid.

"Like a shoebox built with wood," Cavender says.

You talk easily about your work inside this cozy, 40,000-square-feet warehouse that's one of the only places in the country devoted solely to building caskets for children.

Outside the warehouse, it's another story. When somebody asks what you do while you're waiting in a grocery line or sitting in a restaurant, you pretty much know what's coming next. So you start with the basics. You just say you work at a casket company.

"If they think it's adult caskets, it's okay," says Gina Alford, 33, who has worked in upholstery for about seven years. "It's when they ask that next question..."

It's only when outsiders press for more details that you say you work at a place that builds caskets for children. That's when you get... the reaction.

Cavender remembers one guy suddenly getting upset and telling him, "Leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you." Norman Haynes, a painter here for 14 years, says people have waved their hands in front of their faces, as if to ward him off.

Alford said she was at a hospital once, waiting to have blood drawn, when a receptionist asked if she could touch her hands.

Alford recalled that after letting go of her fingers, the receptionist said, sounding surprised, "I thought they'd be cold."

Mike Mims gets it. A former Baptist minister and hospice executive who is now president of the 67-year-old Cherokee Casket Company, Mims says most folks don't know what to say or how to react when the subject turns to children dying. Some shiver just thinking about it. It's as if the mere mention of other children dying somehow puts their own kids in jeopardy.

Yet kids die. They need to be buried.

"We deal with what nobody else wants to," says Mims, whose company ships about 10,000 caskets a year across the country and around the world, from the Netherlands to New Zealand.

"And that's okay," he adds. "We're proud of what we do. It's reality."

Leaving the warehouse parking lot each evening, you head home and maybe relax a while in front of the TV. Sometimes you catch the news - local, national, doesn't matter - and there's a story on about a kid who has died. Maybe been killed.

It always gets your attention.

"When you're watching news stories like that, you know when you go to work the next day, that order's going to come," Alford says.

More than 38,000 children aged 14 or younger in the U.S. are buried each year in a casket, according to the Casket and Funeral Supply Association of America. That's only about two percent of the more than 1.7 million total caskets bought annually.

Of those 38,000 children, almost 28,000 are under 1.

Funeral homes rarely keep more than a couple children's caskets on hand; most handle only one or two such funerals a year. Fewer than a handful of the nearly 150 companies that manufacture caskets in the U.S. build them exclusively for children.

"There is a greater sensitivity surrounding [children's caskets] because often that loss is all the more tragic," says Mark Allen, executive director of the Casket and Funeral Supply Association. "Some companies are reluctant to get into that market because of that sensitivity."

You and the 20 or so other employees at the warehouse in Griffin rarely, if ever, know the circumstances behind the casket you've built. Cherokee is a wholesaler that deals with funeral home directors, not grieving families.

"I can deal with this end of it. I couldn't deal with it as a funeral home director," says Lawanda Radekin, 60, a Cherokee customer service representative. "My husband has worked at a funeral home for 30-plus years and he still doesn't like dealing with children's deaths. You never get used to it."

All you or anybody else at Cherokee knows from an order that comes in is the style, the size — caskets range from 11 inches long to five-feet, six-inches long — and the location of the funeral home where it is being shipped.

A quick glance at the shelves in one room stacked high with caskets shows how far and wide the work inside this little warehouse about 35 miles south of Atlanta reaches: Glendale, Cal.; Mesquite, Tex.; Mahwah, N.J.; Pine Mountain, Ga.

There are also special orders. There are unpainted orthodox caskets for Jews and Muslims, put together with wooden pegs. There are biodegradable caskets — no metal hardware — for the Netherlands, where burial plots are re-used every decade or so.

There have been orders for twins. Sometimes the request is for a double-long casket, so the two tiny bodies can be placed end to end. Other times the casket is built so they can be placed side by side.

"We don't want to know the circumstances," says Mims. "It would be too emotionally draining."

You've worked here about two years. Before that you were a forklift driver, a truck driver, a security guard, a cook at a rehab center. But you were looking for something different when you saw an ad for a job at Cherokee. Something about it felt right.

Your 17-year-old son was killed during a drive-by shooting in 1999. Your wife was murdered by a visiting relative eight months before that.

"We've all had family members, young and old, taken home," says Slayton Goodman, 54, who buried his son in Chicago and his wife in Barnesville, where he lives. "But when I think about these precious kids leaving this world, and what they'll be leaving in for the last time, I give them my all."

Despite the roomfuls of little caskets, most folks who work here rarely think about death or dying while doing their jobs. Those who do don't last long.

"Some have started and couldn't continue," Mims says. "I tell them that after 90 or 180 days, if you're still here, then Cherokee is for you."

Cherokee Caskets has always been family run. It was founded in the early 1940s by Sarah Betts, who started it inside her house in nearby Batesville. Long lengths of lumber were hard to come by during World War II, but shorter scrap pieces were available. Betts used them to create her own niche: caskets for children.

It wasn't long before the company moved to Griffin and began to sell its wares outside of Georgia. In a male-dominated business, Betts never let up.

"She was a real go-getter kind of woman," says Tom Moore, her grandson. "She drove all over the East Coast, into the Kentucky coal mine areas... She went after the business."

Betts died three years ago at age 94. A small woman, she was buried in a five-foot, six-inch Carolina poplar casket built by the company she founded.

There are lots of histories inside this green warehouse on the edge of town.

"I get a welled-up feeling in my heart when I think of my son or wife," Goodman says, taking a break in a back room. "It's not like when I was a truck driver, delivering stuff, picking stuff up.

"This is a job, but it also has meaning," he adds. "It's hard sometimes when you think of the people these are going to. But it gives me something to know I'm benefiting someone besides myself. I'm helping to ease someone else's pain."

He then returns to work, fastening a handle to a silver casket.

Pub boss dead shocked to find coffin
By Telegraph newsdesk Wednesday 20th June 2007

MYSTERY: Landlord Chris Wooddissee was shocked to find a coffin in a storeroom at the FJ Nichols pub in Blackburn.

A landlord was left stunned when a coffin was discovered at his pub during a clear-out.

The teak-panelled coffin with red silk lining and a hinged lid was found in a storeroom at FJ Nichols, Northgate, Blackburn.

Now landlord Chris Wooddissee has put the casket up for sale for £50 in the hope that it will appeal to someone with gothic tastes.

He said: "I have no idea why it was there and I don't think it's ever been used. Well, I hope not anyway!".

The 37-year-old made the deathly discovery when he was clearing out one of the storerooms in preparation for refurbishment in a few weeks.

Among an assortment of old washing machines and other rubbish, he unearthed the fully-intact coffin.

advertisementChris, who has run the town centre bar for 18 months, said: "I don't think it has ever had a body in it but I couldn't believe it when I found it.

"There's been a lot of licensees in this pub over the years so it appears that one of them has brought it here."

The £20,000 revamp by owners TCG has been prompted by the smoking ban from July 1.

However, Chris said: "We are hoping to start the refurbishment in about four weeks and this comes in time for that.

"We thought it would be a good time to have it done.

"We intend to close for three or four days and really just smarten the place up inside. There is definitely still a very strong weekend night-time economy in Blackburn and our club, the Evolution Lounge, is going through the roof in terms of sales.

"I think the smoking ban will have an effect on business, a major impact.

"It's going to be about how you manage it and this refurbishment is about trying to up food trade during the day and make it pick up from there."

Chris said he hoped that in future the only spirits he sees will be those being served behind the bar!

AP: Friday, June 22, 2007 3:52 PM CDT

FITCHBURG, Mass. — Police say a gravedigger stole body parts — including a skull and a thigh bone — from a broken casket at a church cemetery and took them home to make an ashtray.

``While he was digging a grave, a casket was broken open, so (investigators) believe he took the body parts to make an ashtray and a pipe,'' Police Lt. Kevin O'Brien told the Sentinel & Enterprise of Fitchburg.

Police discovered the theft when they went to his apartment Wednesday after his wife complained that her husband, Keith Chartrand, killed her dog. She said she found the body parts among his belongings.

Police charged Chartrand, 30, with removing a body from a grave and cruelty to animals.

Fitchburg District Court Judge Arthur Haley III ordered Chartrand held on $50,000 bail at a court hearing on Wednesday where Chartrand told the judge the charges against him was ``bogus.''

Chartrand's lawyer, Martin Maynard, did not immediately return a call to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Rev. Edward Chalmers of St. Bernard's Cemetery said he believed the remains probably were taken from an older part of the cemetery where many graves did not have vaults.

Clinton Campaign Delayed In Sacramento By Coffin

A nice coffin can add a stylish touch to the home

By Caryn Eve Murray
Sunday, June 3, 2007

NEWSDAY

To Mark Zeabin, a living room should be for the living, even if the centerpiece furnishing happens to be a sofa, an entertainment center or a display case that’s made from a coffin.

And even if it includes, perhaps appropriately, an end table. Known online as Casketman, the crafty Canadian entered the hand-built novelty home-furnishings market about 10 years ago by thinking outside the box: Zeabin, who’d trained with his cabinet-maker uncle, joined with his father, Harry, a contractor, in creating their first homemade coffin for Harry Zeabin’s mother after she died in 1997.

“I guess,” said Mark Zeabin, “we were being a little bit of a cheapskate but also practical. We knew we could do it better ourselves.”

Through grandma’s death, a company was born.

Zeabin, 31, who was in art school at the time, took a pride-filled look at what this father-son team had created and was sorry to say goodbye to their careful handiwork.

“I’ve always loved building beautiful things. I like to show things off,” he said. “But people buried my work.”

That’s when he decided coffins should be enjoyed now - and used later. His Web site, www.casketfurniture.com, displays his designs for an array of coffee tables, display cases, sofas and even beds for less-than-eternal rest.

Admittedly, it’s a small niche in the vast home-furnishings industry - with a mostly East and West coast market. One of the biggest-ticket items is the “Eternaltainment Center,” which breaks down into his-and-her coffins, for almost $6,000.

Zeabin’s working on his own coffin, too, carving a graphical representation of his autobiography into the mahogany exterior. At some point, he said, it’ll be ready to go - but not before he is, too.

Business offers ‘deep discount’ on metal caskets

By Roger McKinney

rmckinney@joplinglobe.com

For sale: Caskets. Never used. Some minor smoke smell or damage. Big discounts.

Freeman’s Annex on West Seventh Street diversified into the casket business about a year ago, said Greg Freeman, who owns the business with his wife, Shirley.

Freeman said a friend bought the caskets from an insurance company after they were involved in an insurance loss. He said a North Carolina warehouse fire in a building next to where the caskets were located caused some of them to have a smoke smell or to have soot deposited on them. Freeman said the soot is easily wiped off.

Freeman bought 52 caskets, a semitrailer load, from his friend. He said that in the nearly a year that he has had the caskets, he has sold 23 of them for $500 apiece. He said the caskets are metal and are imported.

“Several families have bought them,” Freeman said of his customers. “Maybe we’ve helped some families that wouldn’t otherwise be able to buy a casket.”

He said that on the day the caskets came in last July, he received a call from someone who needed a casket for a funeral that day.

Not all of his casket customers want to bury someone in them. He said some members of a group that owns hearses have bought caskets for cargo in their vehicles. A motorcyclist converted one of the caskets into a trailer for his motorcycle.

Because Freeman’s Annex specializes in merchandise that has been damaged in natural disasters or other insurance losses, Freeman said, the business sometimes sells unusual items. He said he once had a body cooler for sale. The business also has aluminum bunks from a ship for sale.

He said he never knows what exotic merchandise the next phone call may bring.

“There’s a certain amount of adventure,” Freeman said.

Regular prices of steel caskets at Joplin funeral homes that list prices on their Web sites range from $995 to $3,719.

5/21/07 London - Courier Leslie Wright's final delivery was his own body to his funeral - in a coffin-shaped cardboard box.

The 71-year-old was dispatched to Cambridge crematorium in the package, marked fragile, this way up and handle with care, reports the Daily Mirror.

Leslie's family even got funeral director Andrew Patey to sign a form, in duplicate, accepting delivery of the body which was dressed in his work uniform of burgundy trousers and jacket with a white T-shirt.

Son Chris, 41, said: "Dad had a fantastic sense of humour and he would have loved this send-off.

"He must have delivered tens of thousands of parcels over the years and it was fitting his last delivery should be at his funeral."

Divorced dad-of-two Leslie, who died of bowel cancer, had told his family he hated the idea of "going in a hearse".

So they paid £250 for the cardboard coffin. Management consultant Chris and Leslie's grandson Kris, 20, drove him to his service in his old Mercedes Sprinter van.

He added: "The coffin actually cost a bit more than a standard plywood one with a veneer finish, but it was worth it."

Chris addressed the delivery note on the box to Cloud 9, Peace and Quiet Road, Heaven, Near Scotland". - ananova.com

Big problem with coffins
02 May 2007 - Newham - United Kingdom

INCREASING levels of obesity are causing problems for crematoria, which are dealing with bigger coffins around Britain - but not, it seems, in Newham.

Nationally, the problem has become so severe that the Local Government Association is warning that local authorities are finding their cremators are too narrow to deal with the growing numbers of over-sized coffins.

Standard coffins range from 16 to 20 inches but coffins 40 inches wide are now being ordered to cater for larger bodies.

However, Newham seems to be bucking this trend, as none of the three major crematoria in the borough have reported a problem with over-sized coffins.

And while several funeral directors said they have not had to order any special coffins, John Cribb from T. Cribb funeral directors said that, to cope with taller bodies, they have had a special hearse made. It is a foot longer than their original horse-drawn Victorian ones.