The Blue Screen of Death by Richard Thompson

The objective of the Death Cafe is “To increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.”  It’s all about an interesting, unstructured conversation – open and free-flowing with no specific agenda. The next Albuquerque Death Cafe will be held online on Sunday, July 10 at 3:00 p.m. MDT. Get the link for this online conversation through this Meetup group event listing.

During the pandemic, Albuquerque Death Cafes have been, and continue to be, held online on Zoom. The format proved to be popular, not only with people in New Mexico, but also for those across the U.S. and around the world.

Gail Rubin, a pioneer of the Death Cafe movement in the United States, will be featured on an upcoming webinar on August 31, 2022. The 90-minute online event, hosted by The Completed Life Initiative, will examine the Death Cafe worldwide movement, with an opportunity to experience an online Death Cafe.

Your Death Cafe Host

Death Cafe host Gail Rubin, CT, The Doyenne of Death®

Albuquerque Death Cafes are hosted by Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist, and a pioneering death educator. Rubin is a public speaker, a published author of three books, host of a TV interview series and podcast, a blogger, a funeral industry trade journalist, a Certified Funeral Celebrant, and an innovator in the funeral business. She created a conversation-starting game called The Newly-Dead Game®, introduced the Death Café movement in the United States, and held the first Before I Die Festival west of the Mississippi in 2017. Albuquerque Business First named her one of their 2019 Women of Influence.

About Death Cafes

The Death Cafe concept was started in the United Kingdom by Jon Underwood. He was influenced by the ideas of Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz, who started holding Cafe Mortel events in France and Switzerland. At these events, people come together in a relaxed, confidential and safe setting to discuss death, drink tea (or your favorite beverage) and eat delicious cake or cookies. Read more here, or visit the worldwide website, www.DeathCafe.com.

The post July 10 Online Death Cafe first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

Birthdays are for loved ones, friends, and family members who are still living. A celebration of life, on the other hand, honors the life of a senior loved one who has died. Unlike a memorial or funeral service that’s more structured, a celebration of life is less formal and more casual in nature. It’s a joyful occasion to focus on their lives and accomplishments.

If you’re looking for different ways to honor and remember a dearly beloved senior, the good news is you have many options. You can recognize their well-lived lives online through social media platforms, like here at https://waywiser.life, Plus, here are six brilliant, no-fail ideas:

Uphold Family Traditions

Family traditions don’t have to be anything grand. There are many simple traditions that are just as impactful to ensure you are able to successfully celebrate the life of aging loved ones who have departed this world.

For example, every year on their birthday, you can visit the cemetery as a family to bring that loved one’s favorite cake or flowers. Or, if time and your budget permits, you can throw a party to celebrate their birthday in the way they would’ve chosen to, had they still been alive.

Plant A Tree In Your Senior Loved One’s Name

Here’s something that will impact your family for a very long time: plant a tree in your loved one’s name. As the years go by, the tree will grow. In due time, the future generations can spend time there and gather to remember your senior loved ones on their birthday or death anniversary.

You can make it more memorable by planting the tree in one of their favorite places. When you do that, it’s as if your loved one is still there, right in the place they loved so dearly.

Play Their Favorite Music

During a celebration of life gathering, make it more enjoyable by playing their favorite music. Just imagine them singing or dancing to those tunes they once loved so dearly. It may just take you back to fun and special memories of the past. 

Before the celebration of life itself, you can always start by creating a playlist of all their favorite songs. To create a comprehensive music list, ask for ideas from your senior loved ones’ other friends for more song ideas.

Experience Their Favorite Things

Did your dear grandfather love shooting when he was younger?  Did your grandmother who raised you adore baking?  Put yourself in the shoes of your senior loved ones and try the things they used to love doing. It can give you a whole new perspective about them, and, perhaps you can better understand why they’ve loved those hobbies so dearly. 

When you try out doing the things your loved ones used to enjoy doing, you’re not just remembering them. You’re also preserving hobbies or habits that could be passed on from one generation to the next.

Create And Play Memorial Videos

In addition to songs, you can also play videos with a compilation of clips and images from when your loved one was alive. Piece together footage and curate a tribute to play during your family gathering.

Chances are you’ll have conversations covering topics of those memories, with a healthy mix of laughter and tears. It’s not just about honoring or remembering those memories with your loved ones. It’s also about giving younger generations a glimpse of the life and history of your family.

Wear Your Senior Loved One’s Jewelry Pieces

If you’ve had the privilege of being given some of your loved one’s old jewelry pieces, wear them during their special day. Take very good care of those pieces, so that they last. You can pass them on to future generations, so the life and legacy of your dearly departed family members will always be remembered.

Takeaway

Losing a loved one is never easy. There’s that period of grief and pain over the thought of never being able to see that loved one physically again. This doesn’t mean, however, that you’re going to forget about them. You can remember their life and their legacy through various means, including a celebration of life. This is something you can do in many ways, starting with these memorable and fun ideas.

The post 6 Celebration Of Life Ideas For Your Senior Loved Ones first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

Being a personal representative for an estate is a big job. If someone asks you to be an executor or personal representative for their estate, here’s a glimpse into what’s involved.

Years ago, my husband Dave and I agreed to accept the responsibility of being the back-up healthcare power of attorney (POA) and personal representatives for an elderly couple we knew through our synagogue.

Sid and Jeanne were delightful, thoughtful, well-organized people. Their only daughter had died in a tragic accident. They re-did their wills and trust to have friends from the synagogue carry out their last wishes. Jeanne died in 2016, after 66 years of marriage. Sid died in 2022 at the age of 94, after missing his beloved wife for six long years.

The primary POA representative had served Sid faithfully for many years. She helped him pay his bills because he had macular degeneration. She took him to medical appointments. Just before the pandemic shut down access to Sid in his assisted living residence, she had turned over the financial management of his affairs to a trust company. Finally, she felt she had done enough.

She asked me and my husband to step up from being the back-up POA representatives to being the primary. When we made that commitment many years ago, it didn’t seem like a big deal. We agreed to honor those responsibilities.

Literally the same day we spoke and were handed the decision-making responsibilities, Sid was taken by ambulance to the hospital. He died the next morning. We were immediately thrust into the role of estate personal representatives. I had a funeral to plan, jewelry and artwork to distribute, people to call about his death, and an apartment to clean out in 30 days.

Other Thoughts on Being a Personal Representative

It takes a lot of time to process an estate after someone dies. In the first two weeks after Sid’s death, my husband and I put in more than a combined 100 hours of work. We sorted through items in his apartment, finalized his pre-planned and pre-paid funeral and cemetery arrangements, called distant relatives, and worked with the trust company.

Fortunately, this couple had been very organized about their affairs. We didn’t have to deal with any of the financial and tax implications of the estate, which were being handled by the trust company. I shudder to think what we would have had to contend with if they hadn’t been so organized.

Being a personal representative is exhausting work, both physically and emotionally. Dismantling his apartment, we found most of his wife’s things were still there. We threw out old packaged foods that expired as long as six years ago. We safely disposed of prescription and over-the-counter medications.

In order to get military honors at the graveside funeral, I needed to provide Sid’s DD214 form attesting to his Navy service. That required a frustrating deep dive into the office files in two tall four-drawer filing cabinets. It wasn’t there. But looking around for other places it could be in the office, I finally found it in a vinyl briefcase under the computer.

On the plus side, they had excellent taste in modern furniture. Per Sid and Jeanne’s directions, my husband and I received several pieces of solid teak furnishings, two Navajo rugs, and beautiful Southwest jewelry as a reward for our work.

Personal representatives get an intimate tour of other people’s lives. There were so many photos of people we didn’t know. Part of the work involved calling distant family members and piecing together the puzzle of who was related how. Sid and Jeanne’s list of jewelry and art bequests guided me to have conversations with relatives in other parts of the country. These calls helped me figure out what to do with photo albums with old pictures of family members.

Personal Representative Tips

Here are a few tips that can help you be a better personal representative for an estate.

Use a dedicated notebook, such as a journal or college ruled composition book, to keep track of all your notes. It’s a great way to keep all the contact information for companies and people you are working with. Carry the notebook with you always – you never know when you’ll need to write down a piece of information or look up a phone number. I use a star to mark action items needed to do, then put a check mark and the date next to the star when that item is taken care of.

Write down the time you spend daily as a personal representative. If you are being paid for your time, you’ll need to document how much time you worked. If you aren’t being paid, tracking your time can build a case to get some income for your efforts. Depending on the directions in the estate documents, personal representatives can be paid in the range of $30 to $80 an hour.

Keep receipts for out-of-pocket expenses for reimbursement from the estate. These expenses can include funeral and obituary costs, postage/shipping costs, meals while working on estate issues, and supplies like trash bags, packing tape, bubble wrap, and boxes. Keep your receipts collected in an envelope to make it easier to submit for reimbursements.

Save photographs of people. Confer with family members to help identify those people. You can likely let go of the pictures of landscapes, buildings, statues, and other vacation images without people. Unless it is a truly stunning image, no one wants other people’s vacation pictures.

Lastly, recognize that as a personal representative, you are doing an incredibly good deed, a mitzvah as this is called in Judaism. You are making sure the wishes of the deceased are fulfilled, and this is a favor that he or she cannot repay. Even if you aren’t being paid monetarily to carry out these duties, you earn major mitzvah points for your work.

Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist and The Doyenne of Death®, is an award-winning speaker, author, and coordinator of the Before I Die New Mexico Festival (www.BeforeIDieNM.com). She is also a Certified Funeral Celebrant. Her three books on planning ahead for end-of-life issues – A Good Goodbye, Hail and Farewell, and Kicking the Bucket List – are available through Amazon and her website, www.AGoodGoodbye.com.

The post Thoughts on Being a Personal Representative first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

Funeral Information You Won’t Find Anywhere Else

Gail Rubin and “Elvis” celebrate funerals at ICCFA 2022.

The International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association (ICCFA) held its annual convention in person for the first time since the pandemic shut down. The convention and expo was held in Las Vegas, Nevada March 22-25, 2022.

As The Doyenne of Death®, I attend this event as a journalist and interview exhibitors at the expo on new developments in the field. You can view videos of the interviews through the “Tools of the Trade” playlist on my YouTube Channel.

Among the interviews at the 2022 ICCFA convention and expo, you’ll find products and services related to funerals and cemeteries. There are interviews with people offering software for cemeteries and funeral homes, autopsy equipment, body bags, insurance assignments, online streaming services, fireless cremation equipment, and more.

While in the past there have been many funeral coaches (a.k.a. hearses) and other vehicles displayed at the expo, this year there was only one high-end hearse on the expo floor. OpusXenta, a software company that works in the death care space, had an Elvis Presley impersonator at their booth for all three days. He was a big hit with attendees at the convention.

Interviews published to date include these companies and services:

• Wills.com
• Mortech Manufacturing
• FuneraWeb
• Diamond Urns
• Lincoln Factoring
• Journey to Serve (and the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science)
• Body Bag Man
• EverArk Cemetery Software
• Coming soon: Forget Me Not Ceremonies
• Coming soon: AFTR
• Coming soon: Viewlogies
• Coming soon: Fireless Cremation
• Coming soon: Elevating Memories
• Coming soon: Dead Ringers
• Coming soon: WebCemeteries
• Coming soon: Zontec Ozone Generator
• Coming soon: Messenger
• Coming soon: Eagle Coach

Here’s a sample of one of the interviews:

Watch the Video Playlist

Gail Rubin, CT, is a pioneering death educator. A Certified Thanatologist and The Doyenne of Death®, she uses humor, film clips, and outside the box activities to teach about planning ahead for end-of-life issues. She’s an award-winning author and speaker, a certified funeral celebrant, and she coordinates the Before I Die New Mexico Festival.

The post Videos from the ICCFA Funeral Convention first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

The objective of the Death Cafe is “To increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.”  It’s all about an interesting, unstructured conversation – open and free-flowing with no specific agenda. The next Albuquerque Death Cafe will be held online on Sunday, April 10 at 3:00 p.m. MDT. Get the link for this online conversation through this Meetup group event listing.

During the pandemic, Albuquerque Death Cafes have been, and continue to be, held online on Zoom. The format proved to be popular, not only with people in New Mexico, but also for those across the U.S. and around the world.

As the weather warms up, Albuquerque Death Cafe host Gail Rubin will continue the online discussions as well as holding in-person gatherings outdoors in Historic Fairview Cemetery. Discussing death while surrounded by gravesites in a cemetery founded in 1881 adds perspective to the conversation.

Your Death Cafe Host

Death Cafe host Gail Rubin, CT, The Doyenne of Death®

Albuquerque Death Cafes are hosted by Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist, and a pioneering death educator. Rubin is a public speaker, a published author of three books, host of a TV interview series and podcast, a blogger, a funeral industry trade journalist, a Certified Funeral Celebrant, and an innovator in the funeral business. She created a conversation-starting game called The Newly-Dead Game®, introduced the Death Café movement in the United States, and held the first Before I Die Festival west of the Mississippi in 2017. Albuquerque Business First named her one of their 2019 Women of Influence.

About Death Cafes

The Death Cafe concept was started in the United Kingdom by Jon Underwood. He was influenced by the ideas of Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz, who started holding Cafe Mortel events in France and Switzerland. At these events, people come together in a relaxed, confidential and safe setting to discuss death, drink tea (or your favorite beverage) and eat delicious cake or cookies. Read more here, or visit the worldwide website, www.DeathCafe.com.

The post April 10 Online Death Cafe first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

These funeral news stories offer ways to talk about death and dying. These news items were compiled by Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist and The Doyenne of Death®.

Washington Post: Even on his birthday, a black funeral director can’t escape covid deaths

As the pandemic enters its third year, the nation is edging toward normalcy. Except funeral directors still grapple with an enormous wave of deaths. Read the full story.

Washington Post: How I learned to talk about death and dying

This opinion piece by Steven Petrow starts out:

Read the full opinion piece.

The Guardian: A forensic pathologist on the legacy of lockdown: I look at death every day – let’s change the way we talk about it

This piece by Richard Shepard is part of The Guardian’s series “Two Years On: The legacy of lockdown.” It provides a perspective of a forensic pathologist from the U.K. on the pandemic and death. Among his observations:

I know that I am unusual in having had such a longstanding personal insight into death and the fundamentally precarious nature of our lives. Many of us have never seen a dead body, even of a close relative. In our westernised, urban society, the tradition of paying your respects to the body in an open coffin in the parlour is now rare. This offered the opportunity to recognise the normality of death: to look it in the face; to consider your responses; to remember your own impermanence.

By the start of this century, it seemed to me that death had become a subject generally to be avoided, glossed over, obfuscated and (if at all possible) simply ignored, at least until one was faced with it personally. Now, the lack of this experience often means it feels overwhelming.

Read the full opinion piece.

Washington Post: The death spiral of an American family

Read the full sad story.

Let’s help our loved ones discuss death and plan ahead. Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead. Your family will benefit from the conversation.

The post Funeral News Stories first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

Have you inherited your family’s photo collection? Is it overwhelming your life? What can you do to manage these photos, and how do you deal with the emotional baggage tied to all these things?

Martie McNabb, a personal historian and founder of Show & Tales and Memories Out of the Box, has helped hundreds of people deal with these issues. In this video interview, she encourages people to have hope when dealing with an overwhelming task.

Managing the Memories

“It’s sentimental, it’s memories, it’s the stories that people get deeply attached to,” said McNabb. “You can’t keep a house full of stuff, and you can’t keep every photo for multiple generations. What will you do with it for the future as well?”

“I encourage people to make choices, just like a museum or a documentary film maker ends up curating what they keep…. That stuff that you let go of, at the very least, you can have a photo or make a video, or even make a book about these objects, saving and sharing the story while letting the physical clutter go.”

It can be too much to focus on details at the very beginning. Set up three boxes:

• A “Keep” box, for those items you absolutely must keep;
• A “Maybe” box, if you don’t know for sure but think the photos might be important;
• And a “Toss” box, for multiple duplicates of photos, blurry images, and unremarkable landscape pictures.

Photo Curating Tips

Here are some key takeaway points from the video conversation with Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®.

• To help pare down what you keep, save three to five of the best pictures from trips and special events.
• Organize the “Keepers” chronologically. “We all think, compare, and understand our lives chronologically, generally speaking,” said McNabb. “Don’t get into ‘Is this 1955 or 1956?’ An era range is fine.”
• Scanning is not the answer to everything. It can be expensive and time-consuming. Ask who are these for? Who’s the audience? Who’s going to inherit them? Who’s going to appreciate this?
• You can recycle albums that have no personal information like names, birthdates, anything that could be used for identity theft. Shred items with personal details.
• Old yearbooks can be sent to alumni associations for universities or schools. Sometimes small historical societies, museums or libraries might want them.
• There’s an app for scanning photos! Check into Photomyne.com.

Photo managers, professionals who can you help tackle what can be a seemingly enormous task, can be hired to get the job done. Martie McNabb can answer your questions about managing your family photos. Contact her by email: Martie@MemoriesOutOfTheBox.com.

Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist and The Doyenne of Death®, is an award-winning speaker, author, and coordinator of the Before I Die New Mexico Festival (www.BeforeIDieNM.com). Her book, Kicking the Bucket List: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die, is available through her website, www.AGoodGoodbye.com.

The post Curating Family Photos with Martie McNabb first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

The objective of the Death Cafe is “To increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.”  It’s all about an interesting, unstructured conversation – open and free-flowing with no specific agenda. The next Albuquerque Death Cafe will be held online on Sunday, March 20 at 3:00 p.m. MDT. Get the link for this online conversation through this Meetup group event listing.

During the pandemic, Albuquerque Death Cafes have been, and continue to be, held online on Zoom. The format proved to be popular, not only with people in New Mexico, but also for those across the U.S. and around the world.

As the weather warms up, Albuquerque Death Cafe host Gail Rubin will continue the online discussions as well as holding in-person gatherings outdoors in Historic Fairview Cemetery. Discussing death while surrounded by gravesites in a cemetery founded in 1881 adds perspective to the conversation.

Your Death Cafe Host

Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death and Death Cafe host.

Albuquerque Death Cafes are hosted by Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist, and a pioneering death educator. Rubin is a public speaker, a published author of three books, host of a TV interview series and podcast, a blogger, a funeral industry trade journalist, a Certified Funeral Celebrant, and an innovator in the funeral business. She created a conversation-starting game called The Newly-Dead Game®, introduced the Death Café movement in the United States, and held the first Before I Die Festival west of the Mississippi in 2017. Albuquerque Business First named her one of their 2019 Women of Influence.

About Death Cafes

The Death Cafe concept was started in the United Kingdom by Jon Underwood. He was influenced by the ideas of Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz, who started holding Cafe Mortel events in France and Switzerland. At these events, people come together in a relaxed, confidential and safe setting to discuss death, drink tea (or your favorite beverage) and eat delicious cake or cookies. Read more here, or visit the worldwide website, www.DeathCafe.com.

The post March 20 Online Death Cafe first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

Wednesday, March 11, 2020, the pandemic shut down our world as we knew it. I was packing my car to drive to Colorado to present The Newly-Dead Game® at the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland. With the announcement of the pandemic by the World Health Organization, Nederland’s Town Council voted to cancel the festival two days before it was going to start.

Gail Rubin masked up for a walk in April 2020.

I remember how shocked and confused we all felt about how the virus was circulating and its growing numbers. We had no defenses against a new respiratory disease that was killing hundreds, then thousands of people. Remember stocking up on toilet paper, pasta and beans? The whole question of masking, the emphasis on washing your hands and avoiding touching your face? Here’s a picture of what I looked like going out for a walk early on in the pandemic.

Frozen Dead Guy Days was suspended in 2020 and 2021. The festival is back this year, but when it was time to decide, I wasn’t ready to participate in indoor events with hundreds of people coming through. Since 2011, I’ve been presenting The Newly-Dead Game and showing the comedic documentary “Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED®” at Frozen Dead Guy Days. The Newly-Dead Game is like the classic TV show, The Newlywed Game, but the questions focus on how well couples know their partner’s last wishes.

However, my friend Martie McNabb, the founder of Show & Tales, will emcee The Newly-Dead Game® at Frozen Dead Guy Days for me this year. She will be hosting two games at the Very Nice Brewing Company, 20 Lakeview Drive, #112 in Nederland. The games will take place at 12:30 and 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 20. If you’ll be at the festival and want to sign up to play, email a note to verynicebrewing@hotmail.com and let them know your name, cell phone and email and which time slot you want to play.

Traveling Again in the Pandemic

I’m fully vaxxed and boosted, and have a supply of KN95 masks. I am planning to go to the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association’s annual convention and expo in Las Vegas March 22-26, 2022. I skipped last year’s National Funeral Directors Association convention because the infection numbers were still too high for my comfort level. But I will be there in Baltimore this October, because I am presenting a break out session on holding Before I Die Festivals. Fingers crossed, at ICCFA, I will do lots of videos about new developments in the industry and not get sick. I look forward to seeing all of my funeral industry friends at the convention.

My prayer is that the current drop in numbers continues to stay low. Last summer looked so promising, until Delta and then Omicron slapped us upside the head. Wishing you health, wealth and success as we rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.

The post The Pandemic Changed Our World Two Years Ago Today first appeared on A Good Goodbye.

The Board of Historic Fairview Cemetery was recognized by Albuquerque Business First’s 2022 Philanthropy Awards for Best Boards. Gail Rubin, President of the Board of the nonprofit organization and The Doyenne of Death®, accepted the award. The award ceremony was held March 10, 2022 with a crowd of more than one hundred in attendance.

“We have a very dedicated all volunteer Board that gets involved in the cemetery and makes things happen to improve the site and share its remarkable history,” said Rubin.

Some Albuquerque Cemetery History

In 1881, the railroad came to Albuquerque. The population boomed. People lived, and people died. That meant they needed to be buried somewhere. The empty sandy mesa two miles to the east and south of New Town Albuquerque was the perfect place. The sandy soil was easy to dig, and the mesa was above the Rio Grande flood plain. This location is now surrounded by neighborhoods, situated east of Isotopes Park and south of the University of New Mexico.

The first burial in Fairview Cemetery took place in 1881, although the cemetery was officially established in December of 1882. Many founders of Albuquerque businesses and the State of New Mexico are interred in Historic Fairview Cemetery. Starting in the 1960s, the historic cemetery began to deteriorate as perpetual care contracts ended. Vandals, drug addicts and homeless people wrought damage to the markers and grounds.

Glancing through the cemetery’s ornate gates, one sees fallen headstones, tumbleweeds and dirt. A nonprofit was established in 2011 to preserve Historic Fairview Cemetery and share its history. However, not much work was done – until 2020. In March of 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, a new Board took over Historic Fairview Cemetery’s nonprofit organization.

New Developments at the Cemetery

The new Board undertook these activities:

• Raised funds with history tours on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
• Installed road signs so people could find their way around.
• Created maps with self-guided history tour information.
• Established a website, HistoricFairviewCemeteryABQ.org, and made the self-guided tour a downloadable PDF.
• Fixed cemetery walls and re-set numerous headstones and markers.
• Started monthly volunteer clean up sessions the first Saturday of each month.
• Gathered mulch from local tree companies to cover the dirt and minimize weeds.
• Held a Cemetery Stories event in the cemetery with the New Mexico Humanities Council and the Before I Die New Mexico Festival.

Going forward, the Board hopes to accomplish these goals:

• Raise more funds to restore the two veterans’ burial areas in the cemetery and other veteran burial plots (approximately 500).
• Reset the rest of the headstones that have fallen or been pushed over (approximately 100).
• Install interpretive signage that helps tell the remarkable stories of Albuquerque and New Mexico through the lives of the people buried in Historic Fairview Cemetery.
• Mulch the entire 17.5 acres of cemetery and encourage high desert natural growth.

The current Board members for Historic Fairview Cemetery (HFC)

• Gail Rubin, President: A pioneering death educator, award-winning author and speaker, as well as a public relations professional and 2019 Women of Influence Award winner.
• Patricia Milner, Vice President: Financial services executive with ambition and determination to preserve the historic value of the cemetery and a quest to promulgate this history to the general public, especially our youth.
• Janet Saiers, Treasurer: A resident of Albuquerque since 1955, she is president of the Albuquerque Historical Society and past president of the Historical Society of New Mexico.
• Sara Sather, Secretary: Sara and her husband Ed Sather (Director) are Directors and Lead Investigators of the Duke City Paranormal Research Society. They were both history majors in college and have a passion for researching history connected with the cemetery and improving the veteran burial areas.
• Claude Valles: Has been a neighbor of the HFC for decades and got involved to get to know it better.
• Pamela Wendt: A resident of Albuquerque since 1971, she is a retired science teacher, small business owner, and genealogy researcher.
• Lisa Roberts: An expert in xeriscaping and natural gardening, she has been interested in history and historical cemeteries since childhood. She became interested in HFC after the 2021 Memorial Day tours and sees educational opportunities for youth through the cemetery.
• Chris Nolan: The newest member of the Board, Chris brings expertise in uncovering the history of graveyards in Florida and restoring/maintaining old cemeteries.

The Historic Fairview Cemetery nonprofit organization coordinates volunteer cleanup and mulching activities in the cemetery on the first Saturday of each month from 9:00 a.m. to noon. The cemetery is located at 700 Yale Blvd. SE in Albuquerque. Enter through the gates of Fairview Memorial Park. The next cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, April 2. Join “Albuquerque’s Historic Fairview Cemetery Meetup Group” to be kept apprised of activities (https://www.meetup.com/albuquerques-historic-fairview-cemetery-meetup-group/).

“There’s a headstone in the cemetery that has the inscription, ‘God buries his workmen but carries on his work,” said Rubin. “We thank Albuquerque Business First for this award, and our great Board for their enthusiastic contributions to the cause. The work carries on.”

Watch the Acceptance Speech

The post Albuquerque Business First Gives Best Nonprofit Board Award to Historic Fairview Cemetery first appeared on A Good Goodbye.