Tombstone
Curtis Madsen, known as “Tombstone” to his friends, works with stone monuments every day as the owner of Logan Memorials.
While working in the business involving the dead, Madsen’s son-in-law, Dennis Bodily, said they try to individualize each stone and not to joke about others’ losses.
“You have to kind of change your perspective a little bit,” Bodily said. “It is sad when somebody dies, but in our line of work, we still have to make a living.”
He said they try to focus on their saying, “Memories in Stone.”
Making memorials for those put 6 feet under is very seasonal, Bodily said, and most of the work is done from March to June.
“This time of year it almost closes. We don’t have much business,” said Bodily, Logan Memorials manager who has been working for Madsen two-and-a-half years.
Most people think about getting tombstones in the spring, when the snow melts, and around Memorial Day, said Bodily.
Madsen has owned the business for 35 years and has seen the business change from being individualized to now having many mortuaries offering monuments as part of the funeral package.
Only four monument businesses are in Cache Valley, and all but Madsen’s are connected with a funeral home.
“Thirty years ago it was almost unheard of that a funeral home would sell a monument unless … it was a small town,” Madsen said.
The business has evolved, he said, and funeral directors could see there was money to be made, so they also include monuments in their funeral packages.
The difference between Madsen’s business and the others is all of Madsen’s work is done locally in his shop on Center Street, he said.
“Each stone is made here,” Bodily said. “It has our craftsmanship on it. It isn’t someone else’s craftsmanship. We sit down with the customers, and from start to finish, it’s what they would like to have.”
Bodily said they have different patterns and styles so every headstone isn’t “cookie cutter.”
“We actually try to personalize them to whatever the person has passed on and liked to do,” Bodily said.
They have 10 different designs, four lettering styles and three sizes. Madsen said he’s always told his sons if they can imagine it, they can make it.
Ninety percent of the business’ stone comes from out of state, including Georgia, South Dakota, Texas, Minnesota, North Dakota and Canada, Bodily said.
They don’t keep stones on stock because of the prices, Bodily said. He added that everything in the business can be expensive, even the sand that is used for the sandblaster.
For the sandblaster to cut out the designs perfectly, the designs are stuck onto the granite stones and then cut out with an X-acto knife. Next, little pieces of sand are pumped into an air compressor and shot onto the granite. It takes 100 pounds of sand per square inch of granite to carve out the designs, Bodily said.
The bags of sand cost $1.80 a pound, and to save money, the company recycles the sand “until it all blows away to dust,” Madsen’s wife, Cassie Madsen, said.
“We’ve had stones where the shipping has cost more than the stone has,” Bodily said.
Along with monuments, Logan Memorials also designs porcelain photos and does special cleanings and repairs of monuments, and Madsen and Bodily said they will travel all over to place tombstones. Bodily said they have flown to California, Colorado and Hawaii to place tombstones.
“It’s a heck of a business trip,” Bodily said.
As their job deals a lot with the dead, Bodily said he likes to assist others in their times of loss.
“It’s nice to be able to help someone get closure on something as sad as a death,” Bodily said. “Our goal is to help them to be as happy as they can with the passing of someone that’s close to them.”
-ranae.bang@aggiemail.usu.edu