Not really elder law: Custom Caskets for the Boomer Generation–“Fairway to Heaven”
Give Joe Draeger points for originality. Not many people would look at some log
furniture and think, “Boy, that stuff would make a great-looking casket.”But from such notions businesses sometimes grow.A while back, a group of college students enjoying a few beers got to talking about barbecuing, and one said he thought a grill shaped like a beer barrel would have natural market appeal. Thus was born Keg-a-Que, the signature offering of Keg Products Inc., a small Mequon firm that, 11 years after its founding, is still standing.More recently, a Merrill businessman decided the world needed a gum to make it harder for deer to smell hunters. The result: Gum-o-Flage, a product that sold 75,000 packs in its first season.
So don’t immediately dismiss the log-covered caskets that Draeger and partner Bob Diercks, both of Antigo, are selling through their Timber Valley Log Casket Co. They just may strike a rustic chord with families of the nature-loving departed.”It definitely got my attention,” Diercks said of his reaction when his longtime friend pitched the idea. “It was something I of course never even dreamed of.”Diercks, a 50-year-old former potato farmer, was game for the venture. He did a little research, went to a casket industry trade show in Indianapolis and concluded that the log-casket market was wide open.”(We) hired a couple of carpenters and here we are,” he said. “It’s done well. We’re in five different states throughout the Midwest.”The casket box is birch. The trim and handles are ash. The logs on the cover are cedar, Diercks said, because cedar lasts a long time. Fabric choices include “a mossy oak” camouflage pattern that Diercks said was popular.”We always keep them in stock,” he said.He said retail prices varied greatly and wouldn’t disclose the range, other than to say it was in the middle of the wood casket market.”I think that’s justifiable because they’re all hand-crafted,” Diercks said.Although Diercks and Draeger may be pioneers with logs, specialty caskets have been around for several years, said Jay Kravetz, editor of the Death Care Business Advisor, an industry newsletter.That’s in line with a larger trend, driven by the desires of baby boomers, toward more-personalized funerals that are less about mourning and more about celebrating someone’s life, he said.