A Greater Cincinnati funeral home is partnering with a Southwest-based “death tech” startup to offer families an alternative to conventional cremation.
Dalbert Woodruff and Isenogle Funeral Home in Westwood is partnering with New Mexico-based startup Parting Stone, per a release. Parting Stone’s technology offers a clean alternative to cremated remains — by creating “stones” that can be touched, held and shared.
The process is now available for families choosing cremation at Dalbert Woodruff – and it’s creating a lot of buzz, funeral director Chad Isenogle said.
“With more families choosing cremation, we wanted to be able to offer the families we serve another option to consider, for preserving the memory of someone they lost,” Isenogle said in the release. “We have had incredibly positive feedback from our customers that felt cemetery burial was not their ideal choice, or who feel that Parting Stone was a more environmentally responsible option.”
The solidification process returns the full amount of cremation remains in a solid and clean form that resembles a collection of polished stones. The average person results in about 40-60 solids ranging in size from thumbnail to palm-size.
The color is 100% natural, and many result in white stones, but some are a hue of blue, green or another radical variation.
The whole process costs about the same as a traditional urn, Isenogle said.
Parting Stone, founded in 2019, raised a $1.3 million "seed-plus" investment round this year to grow its network of funeral home partners — Parting Stone says it has grown "substantially" during the Covid-19 pandemic as families seek to memorialize people that have died amid restrictions on gathering.
Dalbert Woodruff & Isenogle Funeral Home, a third-generation small business, offers funerals, cremations and end-of-life planning, along with pet cremation and services and more.
