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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
00:00:06:02 - 00:00:27:07
Speaker 1
Hey, it's Matthew Cudmore and welcome to Story Behind the Stone, a show where we talk with people, changing the way the world remembers in history and commemoration and cemeteries. Today, we're exploring a deeply personal story of legacy, a sudden shift in purpose, and when it truly means to step into a life of service. Our guest today are a married couple who are living in the fast paced corporate life in Los Angeles.
00:00:27:10 - 00:00:47:13
Speaker 1
Shayda Frost was a film producer and Timothy Amoui worked in public relations. But when Shayda’s father passed away unexpectedly. They flew to Atlanta and made a choice that changed their lives. They quit their careers and took over the family business. The Lincoln Memorial Group in Atlanta, Georgia. It operates four working cemeteries in the Atlanta area. They chose to stay.
00:00:47:16 - 00:00:53:18
Speaker 1
Turning it into a thriving hub for the community. The honor is both the living and the dead. Shayda and Timothy, welcome to the show.
00:00:53:19 - 00:00:55:05
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having us.
00:00:55:05 - 00:01:05:01
Speaker 1
We’re approaching the three year anniversary of assuming the helm of the Lincoln Memorial Group. Shada and Timothy, if you could just walk me through what is the Lincoln Memorial Group and why is it so special to you?
00:01:05:02 - 00:01:34:15
Speaker 2
We are a cemetery company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and we own actually six cemeteries in total, approximately 250 acres of land. And we somewhat fell into this business three years ago, rather unexpectedly. And quite a sad story. Shaders. Father passed away and it was left really to no one. And what happened was we had no choice to begin with.
00:01:34:15 - 00:02:02:14
Speaker 2
And then we looked at each other and said, you know what? Let's go and run cemeteries. And ever since that moment, Shayda and I have never looked back. And it was a very scary to begin with because it was a total uprooting of our lives. Like you said, mentioned we were based in Los Angeles, California, living the great life, and we decided to move to the South and learn a whole new profession that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing.
00:02:02:15 - 00:02:17:07
Speaker 2
Shayda has been phenomenal in this journey, and I'm sure she'll talk more about the story on sort of the personal side of how we even got here, because she's got deep cemetery roots. But yeah, that's that's where we are today. And that's why we're sitting here in Atlanta and we are now cemeteries.
00:02:17:09 - 00:02:39:01
Speaker 3
For clarity. It was it was left to me. But when Tim says it was left to no one, he's referring really to the fact that there was no succession plan, like there was nothing in place. I mean, I remember gosh, I remember we were sitting in an attorney office, I was with my dad. It was just me and my dad and his attorney, and he'd been encouraging him to do, like, a will.
00:02:39:02 - 00:03:04:20
Speaker 3
And my dad was 65. Like, it was like he was just so young. He didn't feel any urgency to even do that. But he finally, you know, the attorney kind of strongarm into it just to get something on paper. And it came to the businesses and literally it was the craziest moment where he just it's crazy. Now, on reflection, because I remember the attorney saying, Jack, who do you want these cemeteries to go to?
00:03:04:21 - 00:03:31:22
Speaker 3
And he went, oh don't worry. Like by then I will have sold it. You know, we're not keeping it in the family because I was working in Selma. I was living in Los Angeles. I have a sister, but she's, you know, she's a therapist in Los Angeles. Like, we just had very different lives. And my father had no other children, and there was no real other, like, interested individual party that felt that this would would be left to as like a succession, an idea of succession.
00:03:31:23 - 00:03:49:05
Speaker 3
And so I think his plan was in his later years, upon the deciding to retire, that he would sell it either to an independent or a consolidator or whatever would make the most sense at the time. And his attorney was really insistent. He was like, you have to put someone's name down. It doesn't matter if it's an exercise.
00:03:49:06 - 00:04:09:04
Speaker 3
You just never know what the future holds. So you have to put someone's name down and you just across the table. And he was like, well, then clearly leave it to Shayda. And that was it. It was only about three years later that he passed away and it was very sudden. I mean, he was ill, he had cancer, but it was very quick the way that it all happened.
00:04:09:04 - 00:04:31:07
Speaker 3
And it also was very I mean, I know that you say cancer and you're like, oh, that's a lingering fight. But like, it was so quick that it was shocking, as you mentioned, were coming up on it. So it's about a month from now. And it just kind of was the most stunning thing that this all happened. And we were dealing with a lot of like grief, and we were dealing with a lot of surprise.
00:04:31:07 - 00:04:50:00
Speaker 3
And then in the midst of that, we kind of looked up at each other and said, oh my God, yes, we have to plan a funeral, and yes, I have to make arrangements and yes, I have to figure out these things. But what about the businesses that are like captain lists all of a sudden? Very like immediately. And so that was a really big conversation that we had to have.
00:04:50:01 - 00:05:11:18
Speaker 3
And we made some pretty big decisions within a matter of like a couple of weeks. We've moved within three weeks we had industry peers that it was actually my dad's peers that called to offer condolences and advice and support, and they've been so amazing in this journey for three years. They've been true mentors, like multiple people have really stepped up in a way that is really beautiful and really supportive.
00:05:11:19 - 00:05:15:06
Speaker 3
But the biggest piece of advice was to sell it like, don't do this.
00:05:15:06 - 00:05:34:16
Speaker 2
The interesting thing was it took a death for us to be in death care, which is really, really ironic. But there was an element of we also have one of the largest family owned cemetery companies in this area. When I talk about choice being removed, there was an element of choice being removed and going, we've got people to look after and shade.
00:05:34:16 - 00:05:44:05
Speaker 2
His dad's just past. We have no choice. We need to go get into the cemetery and make sure that those people can still be paid. They can keep their jobs, they can continue the careers that they've.
00:05:44:05 - 00:06:05:19
Speaker 3
Loved, and that they can continue to serve the families that they were serving. Just because you're having an emergency doesn't mean other people are not experiencing a similar emergency, right? We serve people that experience this every day. And so it was just it was very quick. And though like, oh my gosh, we have to just keep it running and try to keep it running as smoothly as possible.
00:06:05:20 - 00:06:26:05
Speaker 3
So it was a weird way in which it all happened. But I also think there was a certain element of legacy involved in terms of. So before my father took this over, my grandmother was running the space. She bought it in 1969, and then she actually asked for it in the divorce settlement in 1974, which is crazy if you think about it.
00:06:26:05 - 00:06:52:06
Speaker 3
That was a time when women didn't have bank accounts, and she was like, no, I'm getting divorced and I want this business. So she ran it with she was very detailed and a very, very shrewd business business owner and administrator for over 50 years. She met in the space. And so there's a lot that she did that we either look to for inspiration or to mimic, or that we are like, oh, wow, she was doing that and I really want to bring it back.
00:06:52:07 - 00:07:12:13
Speaker 3
And, you know, she was really amazing at like galvanizing community and really involved in the legislature. And she was just a well-known presence in the area where like, we want that legacy to also like, oh, you know, joins Joan Sawyer. Like, I would like our names to be associated with that kind of positivity to hopefully that's like part of the goal moving forward.
00:07:12:18 - 00:07:15:23
Speaker 1
What do you think she would think about what you're doing with the cemeteries today?
00:07:16:00 - 00:07:16:09
Speaker 2
Funny you.
00:07:16:09 - 00:07:16:14
Speaker 1
Say.
00:07:16:14 - 00:07:19:04
Speaker 2
That because we spoke about that last week.
00:07:19:08 - 00:07:20:23
Speaker 3
Both of them would be shocked.
00:07:21:03 - 00:07:37:04
Speaker 2
They would be looking down on us right now going, where the hell did that come from? We were actually visiting Shayda’s cousin who's in the space up in North Georgia. And he said to us last week, he goes, man, they would be so proud but so shocked.
00:07:37:05 - 00:07:41:07
Speaker 3
I mean, I hope they'd be proud. I would expect they'd be shocked.
00:07:41:10 - 00:07:55:01
Speaker 1
I hear you're talking about the staff, and I really felt that you really were considering them as part of that. Is there any particular staff member that you were thinking about at that moment that just said, no, we're keeping this. We're keeping it going.
00:07:55:01 - 00:08:30:23
Speaker 3
For us. We've had people that have been working there for 40 years, you know, particularly there's our head of grounds, Dennis. He came on to the cemetery six months before I was ever born. And so I've known many of these people through childhood or through my teenage years. And so all of a sudden, this relationship that they had to my family and this loyalty and this, you know, loyalty, they had to the space all of a sudden was now my responsibility and Tim's responsibility to ensure that that they were taken care of.
00:08:31:00 - 00:08:49:15
Speaker 3
We need to ensure that they have a space. There was an idea of like, oh, you can sell it. And one of the big concerns was, well, if we sell it where what would happen to the staff? They've dedicated so much of their lives to doing this. And I'm not saying everyone's been there for 40 years, but like ten, 15, like it's a calling.
00:08:49:16 - 00:09:10:13
Speaker 3
I think that a lot of people that work for us feel. And so there's a responsibility to say, okay, well, I want to make your lives study and stable. And also through the betterment of the business, we have the betterment of your career. So I think that there's an enormous responsibility to the people that, frankly, we're working, not for us.
00:09:10:13 - 00:09:37:14
Speaker 3
They didn't sign up to work for us or with us. They signed up to work for and with my father and my grandmother. And so we were very cognizant of like, okay, well, how do we take care of them in a way that feels right and feel stable, and that they're also not completely freaked out by us coming in and frankly, not really knowing much about the space at all, because that was that was a really big fear.
00:09:37:15 - 00:09:53:23
Speaker 3
Is us coming in and being like, okay, well, you know, cemetery is not like other businesses. It's very, very different. And so we had to be honest with ourselves very quickly about like what we didn't know and who we needed to bring in to support that gap in our knowledge.
00:09:54:01 - 00:10:15:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, we had to build trust really quickly with people internally. I mean, we're a family owned company, so for us, keeping our people that have been there for the longest around even longer is why we do this, right. They really is. I mean, we just love the fact that our people have been with us for so long, but we had to build trust pretty quickly because the business had been absentee managed for a while.
00:10:15:04 - 00:10:34:13
Speaker 2
So what and I recognized really quickly was invest in them, invest in the business, but invest in them. And we can build trust that way and accept that we didn't know much, if anything, about the actual business, but we knew if we invested in them and this business, they'd get on board with this next generation that are trying to take over.
00:10:34:13 - 00:10:52:15
Speaker 2
They're trying to do the right thing, because even if you get it wrong, if you're trying to do the right thing, people recognize that they appreciate it. And deep down they go. They've got the best intentions at heart. So that was how we approached it. Now, we probably made a ton of errors along the way, but we definitely, definitely wanted to just make it a better place.
00:10:52:15 - 00:10:55:11
Speaker 2
And they could see that. At least I hope so.
00:10:55:12 - 00:11:04:08
Speaker 1
Is there any particular headstone or family that you've helped go through grief that's really kind of cemented that this has put you on the right journey?
00:11:04:08 - 00:11:36:19
Speaker 2
I would say what's amazing about cemeteries is and this I'm taking shade is infamous liners. They are for the living, right? It's not a one time only deal. This is a space that you'll be coming back to. Remember your loved one forever. And we have got a massive job in doing that. I think when I realized how special this industry is and our business and the heritage we have at Lincoln Cemetery, we had a famous service probably two years ago for an airman that very sadly passed away in very unfortunate circumstances.
00:11:36:19 - 00:12:07:05
Speaker 2
He was shot by a police officer in Florida. And to see how many people attended that service, and there was a military flyover for that event that was organized outside of the funeral home, outside of the cemetery. It was done by his peers that had hurt that on to remember him the right way, a military flyover. And I realized, wow, we are in a special space.
00:12:07:05 - 00:12:34:14
Speaker 2
To even call it a business feels wrong because it transcends business. This is something incredibly unique, and to see what it meant to the family, to the mother in particular, and how she came out of that day and that experience. It's the only way you could see the most unfortunate, heartbreaking event turn into something. I don't want to say better because she's never going to be better, but very special sendoff.
00:12:34:18 - 00:13:00:05
Speaker 3
To Tim's point, that has to be the goal in every family you serve is to make a very difficult occasion as a little bit easier, just even a little bit easier. And if you can make it a little bit special because nothing's going to make it better, right? Nothing's going to make it okay. But if you can make it a little special or a little easier and take some of that burden from them, I think that's that's the goal.
00:13:00:05 - 00:13:18:20
Speaker 3
That's really the North Star for us. And I would say that that particular service, Kim worked with the family and with our advisor that was serving that family very closely. So it was a moving one for us. What's crazy is I feel like there's so many that like so many, move you, so many people and families that come through the space move you.
00:13:18:20 - 00:13:44:21
Speaker 3
I would say the children are the hardest. I think that that the younger people are, the more they stick with you because you just want to make things as easy as possible, or for these parents or for the grandparents or whomever is organizing. I would say there's a couple that that personally stick in my mind where, you know, you're helping through one of the hardest things a person could ever look through, right?
00:13:44:22 - 00:14:21:08
Speaker 3
And again, you'll never make it. Okay. That's not your job to make it okay. It's your job to make things feel correct for them and feel some sense of closure. And there's been a couple that come to my mind, like just off the bat, off the top of my mind. You know, I'd worked with them past the services and we'd worked with them with the memorialization, and then I'd called them specifically because we do it, you know, Christmas tree lighting at the in the beginning of December every year we've started that I remember I called, I think, three separate families just personally for last year.
00:14:21:12 - 00:14:43:07
Speaker 3
I mean, we do mass invites and things like that, but there was three very special families that I wanted to make sure that if they were available and they all showed up and it was just such a moving event that and it felt like this, like culmination of this probably very, incredibly difficult year for them, but it felt like some kind of burden shedding to a degree.
00:14:43:07 - 00:15:05:02
Speaker 3
As much as you can reach out and relate to people and reach out and say, hey, we're here. And like, not only do we care on this one day, but we will continue to care every day after because you've entrusted us with your loved one. They're here with us now. I'm here every day, you know. And as much as people will visit very often, at times, or maybe a little less often, like we're there every day.
00:15:05:02 - 00:15:08:03
Speaker 3
So they are entrusting us with the care.
00:15:08:05 - 00:15:21:19
Speaker 1
I can truly hear the passion, the interest you're taking in these families. And you grew up in Atlanta, if I'm not mistaken. When you walk your grounds today, do you feel a different kind of connection to your hometown than you did growing up?
00:15:21:19 - 00:15:44:11
Speaker 3
I think so I love Atlanta, and I loved growing up in Atlanta. I think that when I left, I left in this idea of a totally different career, and to try and make it in this space that was very unfamiliar. I mean, granted, the death care is not actually, it wasn't familiar because I never worked in it, but I had been going to this space for for many, many years.
00:15:44:11 - 00:16:10:13
Speaker 3
And I think coming back into it and moving back to Atlanta has been a real eye opening experience of like, my God, the space that we're in has such a rich and deep history, but that that's like specific to Atlanta history, like it was a very big player many years ago, and not just in death care, but because it had other lives, it had other iterations of lives.
00:16:10:13 - 00:16:33:18
Speaker 3
It's actually incredibly interesting what what it was, but originally so that the cemetery was founded in the 1920s and it was chartered in 1927. So we're we're going to coming up on the centennial next year. So that's pretty cool. And it was founded by this kind of local legend, Theodore Tiger Flowers. He was the United States first African American middleweight boxing champion.
00:16:33:18 - 00:16:58:22
Speaker 3
And he was this amazing entrepreneur and philanthropist through the area. So there's a lot of different things in Center Hill that are named after him, including like the fire station. But we have different gardens named after him, and the cemetery itself was founded by him. But that was only one portion of the parcel. Lincoln, right on the other side of Lincoln, used to be a nine hole golf course and a country club, and records are very difficult to come by in this.
00:16:58:22 - 00:17:29:00
Speaker 3
But it was one of, if not the first African American members only country club. And it's hard to say that to be like, oh, in the US or just in the southeast, because the historical records were not kept very well, particularly about African American or black spaces. But we know that it had been going for many, many years, and it was established similarly around the same time because the cemetery was operational as as the nine hole golf course was, was operational.
00:17:29:00 - 00:17:48:00
Speaker 3
And I mean that country club, it went until it was operational and it was like the big band Fridays, I think, until the 70s. And then it burned down and then the land reverted back because it was like a lease. The reverted back to the cemetery. So now it's used for cemetery space, but it's just this really rich history.
00:17:48:00 - 00:18:09:18
Speaker 3
And we have so many leaders in the Atlanta area that are interred with us that I think you walk around with this sense of, I want to call it a bit of pride, but also responsibility, you know, and I think Tim and I have had long conversations about, yes, we own the business, but you can't you can't own community.
00:18:09:19 - 00:18:33:11
Speaker 3
You can't own space. Right? Really, we feel like custodians or champions of this space, because what's interesting about cemetery that you don't get in any other business that I can think of, at least off the top of my head. It has to outlive us. You know, it's been here for 100 years. It will be here for 100 more and 100 more than that and 100 more than that.
00:18:33:11 - 00:18:55:11
Speaker 3
So it's our responsibility, really, to ensure that the space is taken care of and that it's set up for a future, that it's set up for success way past us. Because one day we will not own the space. And that's either, you know, because it doesn't work out for us anymore or because we too have died. One way or another, the space will outlive us.
00:18:55:11 - 00:19:14:04
Speaker 3
And so we're constantly reminding ourselves and planning with that in mind, you know, when Tiger Flowers founded it, I'm sure he too was like, okay, well past my death. This will be a space of community in a space that you can come commune. And so now that's kind of the ideas that we have to.
00:19:14:05 - 00:19:23:00
Speaker 1
You're taking a long view. I don't often hear at least my personal life. So I think like it's super inspiring that you are taking that long horizon.
00:19:23:01 - 00:19:48:10
Speaker 3
It's funny I think in death care, but in cemetery, specifically in regular business, you may plan like A35 year plan, maybe seven. You know, we plan 20 at least years in the future. We look in decades, not in years. So when we talk about like, oh, the land that we have left, we have to speak in decades and the planning that we have, it's longer term planning, which is that was an interesting shift, I think, for both of us.
00:19:48:13 - 00:19:55:22
Speaker 1
When you do look to the future, how can the community get involved and just experience that history? That is at Lincoln Memorial Group.
00:19:55:23 - 00:20:19:11
Speaker 3
We host a few events a year. We try to center them around either holidays like Mother's Day or Veteran's Day. I'm working to get it back up. My grandmother used to do a really large Veterans Day program. It was also, coincidentally, her birthday, and so I think it was probably her favorite event to do. She would bring in speakers and color guard, and it was marches and it was just, you know, withdrawal crowds of 5 to 700 people.
00:20:19:12 - 00:20:38:17
Speaker 3
Like, it was really, really cool. And so I'm working on bringing that back up to those levels. We also have started a fall festival. We hosted a fall festival in conjunction with our local Center Hill Neighborhood Association. And so last year was the first year we did it about a week before Halloween, and we had like 25 trunk or treat cars.
00:20:38:17 - 00:21:01:00
Speaker 3
We had a couple of these inflatable slides and mazes, and we had about 300 families come and peruse through. It was like fun and games and a little bit Carnivale, but really the trunk or treat was like the big thing. We also do Christmas tree lighting, and so we are trying to like, host things to bring our community in.
00:21:01:03 - 00:21:08:13
Speaker 3
As much as we try to also give back to the community and participate in as much as we can within the West Side corridor in Atlanta.
00:21:08:14 - 00:21:41:11
Speaker 2
That's been the number one area we've improved on, including the grounds. The grounds look stunning, but I will say community getting back involved in the community, really, we're community businesses, right? We're like a nonprofit. You know, everything is about serving the community. I think another area we've been looking to expand on is our veteran events. There is a number, probably tens of thousands of veterans, black veterans buried at all of our cemeteries, but probably the most at Lincoln Cemetery, where we have about maybe about 150,000 barrels since 1925.
00:21:41:11 - 00:22:00:16
Speaker 2
We have five veteran gardens, but definitely on the veterans side. For us. We've been looking at reefs across America as well. To be building out that program. We find that there is a traditionalism to veterans. And, you know, there's obviously support from the VA for memorialization. Many of the families we serve today a veteran. So we want to be part of that.
00:22:00:16 - 00:22:23:14
Speaker 2
And Lincoln is still very traditional. It's run by some millennials today, but we still lean very much on tradition. That's at the heart of who we are, and we'll never be able to move away from that. And nor should we getting back into the community that can look in lots of different ways. We do a great job with working with our community groups, with with our neighbors, even going even more hyper local, our local politicians.
00:22:23:14 - 00:22:27:11
Speaker 2
But leaning into that legacy for us is so, so important.
00:22:27:12 - 00:22:51:15
Speaker 3
That's going to say. Which also just trying to create memories with the space that don't necessarily have to do with grief. I want you to come to our grounds and I want you to commune, and I want you to create and I want you to have closure. But also, I think that coming and experiencing something joyful is a wonderful thing to do because you build these core memories.
00:22:51:16 - 00:23:16:08
Speaker 3
Right. And when you go to the veterans event, or you go to the fall festival or the Christmas tree lighting, it's an opportunity to remember the loved one that is interred there. That is with us. It's also an opportunity to to spend some time and to create a memory in the space that they're in that maybe has nothing to do with grief or, you know, like your communing in a different kind of way.
00:23:16:09 - 00:23:38:17
Speaker 3
I'm a really big proponent that cemeteries are for the living. People visit all the time, and my favorite is when there's a birthday inverse re celebrated. We've been invited to like picnics. They're like, oh come on, we've plenty of food. And like it's it is a sad occasion, obviously, but also it can be one of joy where you're, you're just commemorating this person in a wonderful way.
00:23:38:18 - 00:23:42:13
Speaker 1
How can listeners stay updated on your journey? How can they follow your story?
00:23:42:14 - 00:24:04:07
Speaker 2
We are on a journey and we're really in the first innings of that journey for us. We're trying to build a more sustainable business, a better business than what we took over three years ago. That's that's our goal is to to make sure that these cemeteries have a long lasting impact and are set up for success. We're not even talking ten years, 20 years.
00:24:04:07 - 00:24:28:16
Speaker 2
We're talking potentially even a thousand years forever. That's our obligation. It's a perpetual care cemetery. We have a very unique obligation. So for us, we are doing everything we can to build that. And so our journey for us, we're looking at so many different things to try and improve what we have. Recently we've been looking at embracing a natural burial ground at one of our non perpetual care cemeteries.
00:24:28:16 - 00:24:55:22
Speaker 2
The idea is, is that you know how you have a building, you call it adaptive reuse. We're looking to do adaptive reuse of a historic cemetery that has been somewhat abandoned. We have these old cemeteries that were never set up with trust funds. And for us, if we could turn it into something natural, ecologically friendly, something that Qader and I and our values are very much intertwined with that that would be that would be really exciting.
00:24:55:22 - 00:25:19:00
Speaker 2
And then as we look forward as the Lincoln Memorial Group, if we could save other cemeteries that may be struggling, maybe needing some more investment, maybe there's owners that have come to the end and they're like, well, it's time for me to move on and bring in some people that really, really want to get in and get involved every single day and be there and improve the grounds and build a team around this.
00:25:19:00 - 00:25:38:09
Speaker 2
That's what keeps us energized about what we're doing. That's that's what excites us. That's what gets us out of bed every morning. Obviously serving families, it's hard of that. But if we could do that on a larger scale, and particularly on the historic cemetery side, we love historic cemeteries. That would be be success for us.
00:25:38:10 - 00:25:52:01
Speaker 3
And we do try to document on our website to all of the occurrences that are like any events that we're throwing or any like new big news. We will put that out on our website and, you know, whoever's interested, it can connect there for sure.
00:25:52:03 - 00:26:12:01
Speaker 1
Shayda Frost, Timothy Amoui, thank you both for coming on the show, sharing more about Lincoln Memorial Group. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you genuinely to hear about the passion and the long horizon that you're taking with this work. And thank you again for coming on the show.
00:26:12:03 - 00:26:25:03
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for tuning in. Story. Behind the Stone is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the Rise Across America Radio Network on iHeartRadio. Audacity and tune in to search for wreath.
00:26:25:05 - 00:26:26:06
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in.