Will the Handles Fall Off?

Philip Wartel is out of business, and after two years he has nothing good to say about the funeral directors in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts who ran him into the ground. Wartel opened Pioneer Valley Casket Co just a year ago, and has faced the wrath of the funeral directors who didn’t like him undercutting their prices by $1500-2000 per casket. Today’s Recorder newspaper details the sad story.

“David Quinn Sr., of Kidder Funeral Home in Northfield,
confronted a grieving widow at her husbands wake and told her he hadn’t signed earlier in the day for receipt of the casket they’d purchased from Wartel because “I won’t be responsible if the handles fall off or the bottom falls out after you leave. You chose to buy the casket elsewhere; you should be here to sign for it when it arrives.”

Wartel said the incident was a violation of the funeral home rule that says homes can’t require purchase of a casket along with purchase of other funeral goods and services. Another funeral director said Wartel’s caskets ‘were seconds, they squeaked, and they were faded and/or damaged, and some were used before.

Under 1994 federal rules, people can provide their own caskets and can request a preprinted price list for services and products from funeral homes.