Funeral Service Law

28/01/2026

🚨 Legal Update: Recommendations for Employers Regarding ICE Enforcement Actions

🔗 Learn more: https://nfda.org/news/in-the-news/nfda-news/id/9958

07/10/2024

08/02/2024

https://nfda.org/news/in-the-news/nfda-news/id/8356

On Monday, NFDA shared information about a disappointing article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled “How the Funeral Industry Got the FTC to Hide Bad Actors.” On your behalf, NFDA has submitted a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal pointing out the missed opportu

05/06/2023

A Texas family uses AirTag to help track down thieves after $62K worth of memorial vases stolen from gravesites.

Hundreds of gravesites in were robbed of tens of thousands of dollars worth of bronze vases. The suspects intended to sell the sentimental items as scrap metal. Before that could happen, officials say some of the loved ones affected took matters into their own hands and helped police find three of the suspected culprits.

“It is very frustrating having to do this over and over again,” said Tony Velazquez, who recently found out his uncle’s grave at the Restwood Memorial Park in Clute, TX, had been robbed. He says this isn’t the first time.

“In December, we bought another one for my uncle because that was the first time that it was stolen,” he said. What the thieves didn’t know is that an Apple AirTag was attached to that vase and would help investigators track it. “They gave us the login information and allowed us to then track it. We tracked it to a residence right outside of the town of Brazoria,” said Clute Police Chief James Fitch and they were able to arrest the suspects believed to be responsible for stealing 102 vases over the past two months.

“These things run about 600 bucks a piece, so we’re talking $62,000 worth,” Fitch said. “They had actually tried to take the entire vases to a scrap yard, they turned them down luckily,” Fitch said.

If convicted, all could be forced to pay restitution. Velazquez and his family are now out $1,200 and say they want the cemetery to help prevent thefts from happening again. “Overnight security, maybe. Maybe some light posts around here,” Velazquez said.

Restwood Funeral Home and Memorial Park officials said in a statement: “Unfortunately, the theft of bronze vases is an issue at cemeteries across North America. It saddens us that thieves are preying on cemeteries and gravesites to commit these crimes. However, cemeteries, by their nature, are open to the public."

https:// tinyurl.com/4bnbu

14/01/2023

The staff at a central Iowa funeral home was surprised when a woman who was believed to be dead, turned out to be alive.

24/10/2022

Archaeologists in northern Germany unearth 10,000 year-old cremated remains at a Mesolithic campsite that was used for spearing fish and roasting hazelnuts.

https://www.livescience.com/stone-age-bog-bones-germany

02/10/2022

A year and two months after his wife died, Ralph Waldo Emerson opened her tomb.

Emerson had been visiting Ellen’s grave daily since she’d succumbed to tuberculosis, just two years into what had been a happy, golden marriage.

But on a gray day in March 1832, Emerson decided to not only talk to Ellen as he typically did, but to look at her dead and decaying body.

Normally a prodigious journaler, the entry Emerson made for that day was unusually terse: “I visited Ellen’s tomb & opened the coffin.”

While we don’t know what Emerson experienced as he looked into the vault where his wife lay, we can surmise the effect this act had on his life. Within months, he’d resigned his prestigious position as minister of Boston’s Second Church — a vocation he’d felt increasingly unsuited for — and left for a year-long trip to Europe. By the fall of 1833, he’d given the first of the 1,500 lectures for which he’d become renowned. Two years after that, he would be married again.

However macabre it may seem, looking into Ellen’s tomb helped Emerson accept the reality of her death — helped free him to move forward with his life.

Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, the regret of an ill-made decision, or a set of irreversible circumstances, you may also be haunted by people or possibilities you cognitively know are gone but viscerally feel are still alive.

A life lived too intimately with these ghosts, is a life lived in limbo.

While you needn’t seek release in the same dramatic fashion Emerson did, you do need to face the awful finality of things head on.

She’s not coming back. You can’t have kids. You pursued the wrong profession.

Grieve the future you’d dreamed of; lay a flower on its grave; begin to build another.

02/09/2022

19/08/2022

According to a recent email sent by the FTC, scammers have been calling, pretending to be people from the FTC. While the names they use might be real, they’re actually scammers — some of them hoping to trick you into thinking they’re an FTC Commissioner: https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2022/08/ftc-commissioners-arent-calling-you-really

14/08/2022

For a time, eating and relaxing among the dead was a national pastime.

06/08/2022

On June 17, 2022, as Air Force Col. Charles McGee’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery came to an end, the sound of bagpipes filled the air. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Adam Tianello, dressed in a unique uniform which included an Air Force tartan kilt, played “Amazing Grace” for the mourners, providing a poignant conclusion to the ceremony.

By the time Tianello, The U.S. Air Force Band’s only bagpiper, blew into his bagpipes to end the McGee funeral, he had already performed at about 1,575 funerals. He only plays for funerals for Air Force colonels and above (per U.S. Air Force regulation). “I will play any tune the family will want to hear,” said Tianello. Yet he does not play for the departed. “I play for the people that are there, to help them with the grieving process.”

In addition to funerals, Tianello plays the bagpipes at change of command, retirement, and other official ceremonies and events. He also plays at civilian events, traveling to the White House every year to play on St. Patrick’s Day. His last St. Patrick’s Day performance at the White House resulted with a video of his performance on the president’s Twitter feed.

As for the kilt, it’s Air Force-issued. Tianello gets plenty of comments about it, most centered around how good it looks and how it must be cold in the winter. To him, it’s more important than just a sharp looking accessory. “It’s a strong visual representation of our heritage,” he explained.

Ever since Tianello was fourteen-years-old, growing up in Rochester, New York, he has wanted to bring bagpipes to his generation. “Bagpipes were never something someone told me to practice,” he said. “It was something I was always motivated by.” He played “Amazing Grace” at a funeral when he was fifteen and was shocked when the mourners began to cry. He paused but the funeral director told him to finish the tune. Looking back on it today, Tianello realizes it was simply “the power of music.”
Tianello continued to play the bagpipes into college and graduate school. He played in a band in Dunedin, Florida, which made him a better player. While there, he earned a Master’s degree in business from Argosy University before moving back to Rochester, New York.

September 11, 2001, changed Tianello’s life. After civilian airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania, he played his bagpipes at civilian and military funerals in New York. “I realized there was a need,” he said, aware of how people appreciated his music. “So, I asked all the branches of the military how I could contribute.”

Tianello decided on the U.S. Air Force. “The Air Force was the one I resonated the most with,” he said. “They had the best pipe band in the world in the ‘60s and ‘70s and were a staple at President Kennedy’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.” Many of Tianello’s bagpipe teachers had played in the Air Force pipe band. He auditioned for a new pipe band at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. “I played my fingers off,” he recalled. When he finished, the commander told him, “You’ve won yourself a place in basic training.”

Tianello had a decision to make. He could take a job in investment banking or go to school for business administration, both of which offered more financial security than an enlisted Airmen’s salary. Instead, he made, as he described it, a leap of faith. “Even if I only served four years,” he said, “I could only imagine the stories I could tell my grandkids.” He entered the Air Force in 2010 and soon helped put together a pipe band from various facets of the Air Force: the enlisted and officer corps, active, guard, and reserve. That year, the band performed at the White House on St. Patrick’s Day and at the U.S. Capitol for the Prime Minister of Ireland, Enda Kenny.

But in 2013 the Air Force disbanded its Reserve Command Band and its pipe band, PCSing (permanent change of station) most members and granting early retirement to others. Tianello was too young to retire, so he requested a PCS to The U.S. Air Force Band in Washington, D.C., where he joined the mission at Arlington National Cemetery. “I got my leadership to enroll in the idea,” he said, “and I got the orders in 2013.”

Tianello has been playing bagpipes at the cemetery ever since. He loves his work and talks excitedly about it and the opportunities it has provided him. He has been able to play with an orchestra in Puerto Rico where he mixed his bagpipes with percussion instruments. “I cherish that experience” he said. Playing at official events also gives him an inside look at his service. “It’s amazing to really see the Air Force and what is they’re doing,” he explained.

Yet, the funerals at Arlington National Cemetery impact him the most. When asked if certain funerals affect him differently, he humbly explains, “There is none that is more impactful than any other. They all weigh heavily on me.”

01/08/2022