For Matt Levinson, getting into the monuments industry was simply a natural expansion for Sol Levinson & Bros.
“We’re extending our services to keep helping people,” says Levinson, president and a fifth-generation family member of the Pikesville-based funeral home business. “It’s all about customer service for us — great communication, being honest, being nice, not pressuring people, just being there for them, holding their hand and making it easy for them.”
Family-owned and operated since 1892, Sol Levinson & Bros. is the only Jewish funeral home in the Baltimore metropolitan area and a genuine community institution.
The funeral home recently created Levinson Monuments, which includes custom headstones, bronze markers, benches and memorials, as well as in-house engraving, unveilings and monument restoration services.
Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer, Levinson’s director of monument services, views it as the final step in the funeral process.
“Monuments are typically the last step in the process that brings families closure,” he says. “This is something that is the family’s connection to their loved one. I want that to stand the test of time and to be done right from the beginning. There’s a lot of details that go into every memorial.”
The Levinson monuments team – which includes Schleifer and Matt Fram, who serves as monuments specialist — guides families through the process.
“Every cemetery has different rules and regulations,” says Schleifer. “We advise people on what the rules and regulations are in the section that their loved one is buried in, and then provide them with the different offerings that they can have.”
For granite and bronze memorials, the team guides families through the many customization options, across colors, shapes and sizes.
“We try to just advise them on what their options are and then follow their lead on what they have in mind,” says Schleifer.
Many people choose to follow the lead of their relatives in the past and stay consistent with the style of memorials of deceased family members. That often requires Schleifer to research ahead of time on memorials of their family members.
“I really love doing research to get people information that they didn’t know,” he says.
For example, Schleifer says he has dealt with families who cannot remember their loved one’s Hebrew names, so he asks for a copy of their ketubah, or Jewish marriage license. From there, he informs them of the Hebrew names of their loved ones.
In other instances, Schleifer says his research has unearthed discrepancies in birthdays between the legal birthday and what the family thought was the person’s date of birth.
“I go to great lengths, and it’s very meaningful and rewarding,” he says.
The Levinson Monuments team prides itself on not cutting corners and doing things right. For instance, engraving is not something most people think about, but quality matters, says Schleifer.
Poor engraving means the stone might not be legible after the passage of decades.
“How you do engraving matters,” says Schleifer. “The easiest to do is to do the minimal engraving, but the right way to do it is to do a deeper engraving. You’ll see Matt Fram throughout all the different cemeteries with full garb on with a compressor and state-of-the-art sandblasters. We are only using the highest quality materials.”
Engraving services include initial inscription, final date engraving, additional names or text, Hebrew engraving and customized artwork.
Levinson says expanding into the monuments industry has been an idea percolating at his company for a long time.
“It’s an extension of our current services,” he says. “We’re really excited about the added service and helping families throughout the entire process now, not just through the funeral.
“We’re not generally the type of business that’s always looking to grow,” Levinson says. “We’re trying to find opportunities to help. So for us, if we’re able to provide a high level of service, make their life a little bit easier during this process or experience, we’re being successful.”
So far, Levinson says his clientele has expressed their approval of the company’s latest enterprise.
“A lot of people when they heard about this, the first thing they said was, ‘This makes so much sense,’” he says. “And then, ‘What took you so long?’”
For information, visit levinsonmonuments.com.
Anna Lippe is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer.
A committed philanthropist and community leader, Russel was president of R&H Motors.
The mother of four was a native of Winchester, Virginia, who spent most of her life in Northwest Baltimore.
The Columbia resident worked on the Gemini and Apollo space missions.
A St. Louis native, Edelman served as ambassador to the central African nation from 1987 to 1989.