This post is about the sad state of death and the beasley funeral home in the past.
One of the most important aspects of the funeral industry in Georgia is the care and attention given to the bodies of the dead. Beasley Funeral Home, the funeral home that is located in the city of Marietta, Georgia, has over 1,000 bodies buried in its cemetery on the same day. But, the beasley funeral home recently lost one of its employees, who passed away in a car accident.
The company’s owner, Ron Beasley, has passed away. He was born on September 25, 1946 and passed away on September 30, 2012. He was only 39 years old when he died and was diagnosed with cancer. The funeral home has had a tragic history with the community here in Marietta.
Ron Beasley was a small business owner who opened his funeral home in 1987. In 1997, the beasley funeral home posted an advert on the internet, in which it stated that employees were hired to do “services of all kinds”. Over the years this became controversial as people who worked at the funeral home started to complain that it was a part of the business and not a human service center.
The Beasley family has always been staunch in their support of the funeral home’s mission. In the early 1990s they had a very public dispute over the use of the word “human” in the advert. They claimed that the advert was a part of the funeral home’s job, that no other service was available, and that it would be taken in context of the whole funeral home. This was a legal issue that was resolved in 2001, and the funeral home resumed its place in the community.
The Beasley family was also staunch in their support of the cremation industry. In the 1990s they fought a case against the cremation industry in an attempt to stop cremation from being a profit industry. In 2001 an appeals court agreed with the Beasley family that cremation was a public good and that their right to control the advertising of a funeral home was not violated.
The Beasley family has since gone on to purchase their own cremation business. The cremation industry is now in a unique position to do what it has always done: take the good of the funeral industry and turn it into a money-making endeavor.
In the case of the Beasley family, it is a good thing because cremation is an accepted industry and therefore less of a legal hassle. A cremation company can get away with advertising to funeral homes that their caskets are “made in a factory.” This means that the death of a loved one in a home is not just an emotional thing but a commercial one. That’s because cremation is generally a “free” service.
I’m here to say that the Beasley family would have made an awesome funeral home. Their cremated ashes are now in a plot in an empty funeral home in their hometown of Lake City, FL. This may seem strange, but because they were cremated, they were able to use the same funeral home when they died. I think it was a good thing that the family had a nice plot at the funeral home instead of having to go to a cemetery for their last resting place.
I wonder if a cemetery would still be a good idea for Beasley family members who are now deceased. The cremation process is expensive and may not be an option for certain families.
