Cemetery Services

Graveside set-up

A full graveside set-up includes:

Tent
Grass
Chairs
Lowering device

A green graveside tent over rows of chairs and green grass carpet in a cemetery.

A worker preparing a grave with green grass carpet and a lowering device.

Grave digging

Grave digging for:

Earth burial, with the casket alone in the ground
Underground vaults
Disinterments: removing remains, caskets, or vaults

Opening and closing

We open and close:

Earth burials
Underground vaults
Brick tombs
Mausoleum crypts

For cremation, see the cremains committal service.

Mausoleum entombment

An entombment, in order:

Open the mausoleum crypt.
Set up: tent (unless indoors), grass, chairs, crypt shade, and registry book.
Place the casket in the crypt.
Close the crypt with its door.
Engrave names, dates, epitaph, emblems, and designs.
Set the floral ring and vase.
Mount the porcelain picture.

A companion crypt front with a bronze nameplate, engraved names and dates, and a vase of sunflowers.

Date-of-death engraving

Also called final date engraving, or bronze date tabs

Many families have a headstone or mausoleum crypt engraved ahead of time with everything except the date of death.

When the time comes, we schedule the date to be engraved on the headstone or the crypt front. If there is a bronze plaque, its bronze date tab is installed then.

A pink granite crypt front with a bronze nameplate above an engraved name and dates.

Disinterments and relocation

Most often, a disinterment moves a loved one (the body, casket, or vault) to a new place, in the same cemetery or another. Usually the family wants their loved one closer to the family plots or to where they live now.

Disinterments are also done for forensic investigations.

A vault and casket lifted out of the ground on straps during a disinterment.

A worker standing in an opened grave, rigging straps around a vault for lifting.