Langlands Funeral Home Holland (2024)

FAQs

Who is the largest owner of funeral homes? ›

Service Corporation International (SCI) is the largest funeral home company in the world, with a network of over 2,000 locations across the United States and Canada.

This American tradition of hosting funerals in the family parlor is the genesis of the term “funeral parlor.” In more wealthy homes, a false (death) door was place off the parlor. It led outside to remove a deceased family member.

Casket. A casket is often the most expensive item that factors into the average funeral cost.

If the human remains are properly preserved they can be stored for longer periods of time. In most cases, so long as the remains are properly refrigerated, funeral homes can store a body for a few days to a few weeks.

Babylonians, Persians, and Syrians preserved their dead by placing them in jars of honey or wax. By depriving the bacteria in the body of air, decomposition was prevented. Peruvians practiced mummification 1000 years prior to being conquered by Spain in the early 16th century. Jewish preservation customs are simple.

Having the funeral home owner or an employee live on-site reduces the chances that someone will break into the funeral home to steal chemicals. There's also the chance that vandals could break in and do damage to the funeral home's interior.

Coffins are sometimes referred to as a casket, particularly in American English. Any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box for jewelry, use of the word "casket" in this sense began as a euphemism introduced by the undertaker's trade.

Certified death certificates are used when making claims for insurance and other death benefits. Chapel—A large room in the funeral home in which the funeral or memorial service is held. Columbarium—A structure, similar to a mausoleum, but designed for inurnment of cremated remains.

In 1895, the trade magazine The Embalmers' Monthly put out a call for a new name for the profession in the US to distance itself from the title undertaker, a term that was then perceived to have been tarnished by its association with death. The term mortician was the winning entry.