Ottertail woodworker finds life in caskets

Business expanded to included caskets after death in family

Associated Press

Published Saturday, November 24, 2007

OTTERTAIL — When Patrick Kilby's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer two years ago, he started looking into funeral costs.

What he found amazed him.

"A cheap casket is $5,000," he said.

He and his sister, Carol Lima, looked around, but they couldn't find anything they were happy with. Then Lima suggested that Kilby make the casket himself.

As the owner of Sugar Creek Woodworking, a custom woodworking and furniture refinishing company, Kilby had the skills to do it.

"It just felt comfortable," he said. "It was something that we were involved with. It didn't feel so sterile."

The family used a hand-sewn silk quilt Kilby's mother, Carolyn Kilby, made as the bedding for the casket, and Kilby's nephew, Gregory Pallos, glued a metal rose on top of it.

The process not only helped bring an element of closure to Kilby after his mother died, but it inspired him to start a new business.

"As I've investigated, I realized there's a huge need for an alternative," Kilby said.

After doing a little research, Kilby found that by federal law, a funeral home has to accept other people's products and cannot charge more for them. He and his wife, Karen, started A Simple Pine Box, a family run business that makes individually handcrafted caskets.

The caskets range from $1,200 to $2,800 and are made from locally available wood such as pine, oak and ash.

"We're trying to offer an alternative on caskets," Kilby said. "We offer a dignified, simplified way to do it."

Kilby sprays the inside and outside of the caskets with a high-quality lacquer and hand-rubs them.

The inside does not have a material finish, though it is available at an extra cost.

"What I tell people is if you have two pillows and two blankets, you have the lining already and it really is just that simple," Kilby said.

The caskets can also be personalized with laser engraving or other decorations.

"We really encourage the families to be as involved in this as they're comfortable with, to create their own bedding for the casket to put any kind of personalization or decorations," Karen Kilby said. "There's so much that you can do as a family to finish this out."

"People can come here and talk to us and tell us about their loved one and we can create something for them," Patrick Kilby said.

One family brought in wood from their farm and Patrick Kilby used it to build the casket and put a cross into the inside cover.

"We've talked with a lot of different people about the process of choosing a casket and everyone we've talked to has talked about how intimidating it was, how overwhelming it was," Karen Kilby said.

"What we're trying to do as a woodworking shop is offer something a little less threatening," Patrick Kilby said.

James Mulvihill of Ada had a casket from A Simple Pine Box made for his wife, "because of the kindness they showed me during my wife's illness," he said.

Patrick Kilby was able to make the casket Mulvihill had been considering from the funeral home and added a Wiccan pentagram on it.

"The casket was beautiful," Mulvihill said. "When it is my time, if he is still in business, I will be sure to have him make one for me."

A Simple Pine Box also makes cremation caskets and urns, and pet urns and caskets.

The Kilbys plan to attend the Fergus Falls trade show in February and will bring caskets geared toward motorcyclists and farmers.

The Kilbys have been making caskets for friends and family for about a year and formed the business a couple of months ago.

A Simple Pine Box is a division of Sugar Creek Woodworking. Both businesses are run out of a woodworking shop at the Kilby's Ottertail home.

Sugar Creek Woodworking has been in business for about seven years.

Karen recently joined her husband of 23 years in the shop. Patrick says he has more of the artistic and design expertise while Karen is better at handling the business aspects. Together, they build furniture, cabinetry and refinish woodwork that has seen better days.

"Just about anything to do with wood, we can do it," Karen Kilby said.

They took a maple rocking chair that was dingy and scraped up after sitting in somebody's barn for a long time and transformed it into a shiny piece of furniture that looks like it came off a showroom floor.

"The chair turned out beautifully," Patrick Kilby said.

They've also restored 40-year-old teak dining room chairs with leather stripping, and a table that was in pretty rough shape.

Janine and Andy Cherne of Maple Grove wanted the set restored so they could use it in their lake home on West Battle Lake. The set belonged to Janine's parents and it held a lot of memories of card games and dinners around the table, so it was important it resemble its original state as much as possible, she said.

Other furniture restoration businesses wanted to put vinyl pads in place of the leather stripping. The Kilbys were the first to say they would restore the chairs exactly as they were, Janine Cherne said.

"I knew I was never going to get rid of the table and chairs so I didn't want it done half way," she said.

To restore something that's been severely damaged or destroyed is a fantastic feeling, the Kilbys said.

"What makes the job fun is the people who bring a piece in and have emotional ties to it," Patrick Kilby said.

Patrick Kilby has been working with wood since he was about 9 years old.

"He is addicted to wood," Karen said. "He can look at a tree in the backyard and he can see in his mind's eye what that wood is going to look like in whatever he makes out of it."

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