Technological gadgets give tombstones a makeover

It's no longer trendy to have cookie-cutter grave markers.
Tombstones are taking on new shapes and acquiring technological gadgets.
"The new thing out right now in all the trade magazines is a solar-powered device that affixes to the stone showing a digital memory photo album or videos of a person's life," said Mitch Minnis, president of Minnis Chapel Inc. of St. John. "We have yet to see them out here. But they are hits on the East and West Coast."
Past trends
Such elaborate displays weren't always the case.
Wander into almost any Kansas cemetery and the tombstones tell stories of how generations of families viewed life and death.
Kansans in the mid-19th century often had headstones with warning messages encouraging visitors to the graveside to get their religious act together, said Albert Hamscher, Kenneth S. Davis professor of history at Kansas State University.
By the late 19th century, stones' messages were more hopeful, he said.
There were promises of "reunions in the great by and by," and epitaphs with sayings like "She's in heaven and in the hands of Jesus."
By the beginning of the 20th century, Kansas cemeteries started to take on grand designs, becoming a source of community pride. People landscaped, planted trees and put in benches to encourage passers-by to stop.
During the 1930s and 1940s, commercially made tombstones with basic information about the person buried underneath became popular because they were less costly than handmade stones.
By the 1950s, the trend had shifted into making cemeteries resemble golf courses. Memorial parks with walkways and identical bronze markers on each grave were common, as were flat tombstones lying close to the ground.
By the mid-20th century, people became uncomfortable with death, Hamscher said.
"The vocabulary changed from people 'died' to 'they passed away,' " he said."... Morticians changed into undertakers and then funeral home directors. The least intrusive element in these cemeteries is the dead themselves. You don't even know they are there."
As families left rural communities, cemeteries often either fell into ruin or became private enterprises emphasizing convenience for the maintenance staff who cared for them.
But the style of Kansas cemeteries may be shifting again.
Recent trends
More than two dozen memorial companies are in Kansas, and business is good.
Visit their Web sites and you'll see how dramatically things have changed.
" (Stones) can be as grand as Mount Rushmore; as awe-inspiring as the Lincoln memorial or the Oklahoma City National Memorial," claims SI Memorial Co., of Parsons.
There are custom laser etchings, porcelain photographs, epitaphs, emblems, vases and bronze statues.
Memorial stones can be curved-top, flat-top, stand-cuts or customized. They can be any color -- gray, black, red, pink, brown, green.
"Over the last three years, people are going toward more personalization," said Mike Forbes, regional manager for SI memorials.
The most popular stones are black granite imported from India, Africa and China, with laser etchings using photographs or compilations of photographs that had meaning in a person's life.
Video kiosks with solar-powered batteries sell for $2,500.
"They can have a bronze case with a lock," Forbes said. "A family member brings a key out and there is a video message from the person the stone is for."
Stones can cost $100 for a flat marker and $1,000 or more for the larger upright stones.
"The uprights have made a resurgence," Forbes said. "Cemetery regulations have gone from those flat-marker gardens that were easy to maintain to wanting to give families a choice. And a lot of people prefer uprights because they are easy to find and have more surface area to personalize."
In the past year, Forbes worked on a memorial stone for a client who wanted to be cremated and have the remnants used in the stone. Forbes created a diamond-shaped box where the remains could be placed, along with cat toys that were meaningful to his client.
In Junction City, there is a stone with hologram of a man winking at passers-by.
In Wichita, there is a stone incorporating a Frank Lloyd Wright-type design.
In rural cemeteries across Kansas there are stones with images of combines laser-etched onto the surface, and those that display golf clubs or photos of the dearly departed.
"Tombstones show the nature of culture," K-State's Hamscher said. "The emphasis now is on people as they were and what they did."
He suggests the newest trends may be a product of aging baby boomers. Even in death, individuality takes on new meaning.
"Those from the 'Me Generation' are not going to settle for memorial parks and stones made from machines in the 1930s with their name and two wedding rings engraved," he said.