Memorials

Click here for many choices of Memorial Products

Answers to Your Questions

Memorials are an important part of any family's grieving process, and, while statues, urns, cremation jewelry and other such products are popular memorials today, headstones are probably the most common and effective memorials in use today.

Whatever their form, memorials serve to help families cope with their losses when a loved-one passes away. By establishing permanent memorials, such as headstones, when loved-ones die; families are practicing the sound advice that psychologists typically give to those going through the grieving process.

But, besides their emotional value, memorials also have an important practical use for historians. Memorials assure that lives can be documented decades, or even centuries, after death, and that is why memorials are important, experts say, even for people whose bodies have been cremated (a tradition whose popularity is increasing dramatically). No matter how the ashes are disbursed, cremated loved ones are often given memorials, complete with headstones installed, in today's cemeteries.

Memorials, of course, need to be designed to last the ages, and the sturdy construction of today’s headstones assures just that. The long lasting granite or bronze headstones that are most common today assure that memorials will remain intact long after the elements have destroyed paper records or technology has made electronic records obsolete.

The design of headstones as permanent memorials has changed substantially over the years. For many years, these memorials were usually marked by headstones that were large, up-right pieces of sculpted stone and contained written information about the people whose graves they marked. While these types of memorials are still used today, they now usually mark groups of graves (such as an entire family). Meanwhile, memorials for individuals typically, today, consist of smaller, plague-like headstones.  In most memorials today, these individual headstones are made of bronze, granite, or a combination of the two and they are displayed directly on the ground at the head of a grave. These memorials typically preserve the memory of one individual or a couple, and they work in tandem with the larger, up right headstones to create beautiful memorials for entire families.

Many people arrange for memorials "pre need," that is before a person has died. Headstones for pre-need memorials have the name (or, in the case of companion memorial headstones, names) inscribed at the time of purchase, and then the death dates are added later. Many people choose this option for memorials because they want the peace of mind that comes from choosing the design and style of their own headstone.