Drawn by hand, onto black granite, one stone at a time.
Furrow Family Monument is a family owned shop in Hastings. We make custom monuments and do our own engraving, and we specialise in personalised hand etchings on premium black granite. Everything below was cut here.
You do not have to know what you want yet.
Most people who call have never done this before, and they are doing it at the worst possible time. That is normal, and it is fine.
Tell us the cemetery, and anything at all about the person. What they did for a living. Where they liked to be. The dog. The lake. The barn they rebuilt twice. That is usually where the design comes from, and it is a much easier conversation than picking a shape out of a book.
Then we draw it, you look at it, and nothing is cut into stone until you are happy with what you are seeing.
The part of the stone that is actually about them.
Names and dates say who. An etching says what they were like. Each of these was drawn by hand and cut into premium black granite, which is the only stone that holds this kind of detail.
Deer at the cabin
Three whitetail under the oaks, the cabin behind them. The bark, the leaf cover and the coats of the deer are all separate textures, and each one has to be built up differently by hand.
Pheasants off the fence line
Cut into the polished oval of an upright. The birds are caught in the second they break cover, which is the moment anyone who has walked a field in October knows.
The house on the water
Somebody's place, etched from their own photograph. Every window, every rail of the porch, the flag on the pole. Families bring us the house far more often than you would think, and it is usually the right choice.
Bighorn ram
On a slab with the natural rough edge left on it. The curl of the horn is where the hand work shows: it is all in how hard and how often you go back over the same line.
Cabins in the bare woods
Cut across the shaped top of a stone, so the tree line follows the curve of the granite rather than fighting it. Winter timber is harder to etch than summer timber, because there is nowhere to hide.
The rooster
Not everything belongs on a stone as a landscape. Sometimes it is one bird off the farm, at the size it deserves, and nothing else.
We also do personalised portraits, etched from a photograph you bring us. Those are not shown here, because they belong to the families they were made for. Ask and we will show you examples in person.
An illustrator who ended up working in stone.
Jeff Furrow is a Hastings native, Hastings High School class of 1993. After school he went to Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids and took a degree in illustration, graduating with honors in 1999.
He started Furrow Family Monument after that. In his own words, making memorials was where he found he could put his creativity and his liking for helping people into the same job.
The wildlife on these stones is not clip art bought in from a catalogue. Jeff hunts, fishes, hikes, kayaks and camps, and the deer and the birds are drawn by somebody who has spent a lot of time looking at them.
He runs the shop with his wife Mandy. It is the two of them, which is why the phone gets answered by the person who will be doing the drawing.
Member, Monument Builders of North America
BBB of West Michigan · Barry County Chamber of Commerce
Four steps, and you approve the drawing before anything is cut.
Call or come in
Bring the cemetery name, and photographs if you have any. If you do not have the plot details we will chase them up with the cemetery.
We draw it
Shape, stone, lettering and the etching, drawn out for you to look at. Change anything you like at this stage. It costs nothing to change a drawing.
We cut it here
Lettering and etching done in our own shop, by hand where it needs to be by hand.
It gets set
Delivered and set at the cemetery, to whatever that cemetery's rules require for size, material and foundation.
What we make, and what we can do to a stone that is already there.
The second half of that list is the part most people do not know they can ask for.
- Upright monuments
- Companion and family monuments
- Flat markers and bevels
- Slants
- Benches
- Mausoleums
- Cremation memorials
- Cremation urns
- Bronze markers and plaques
- Pet memorials
- Personalised hand etchings
- Personalised portraits
- Porcelain pictures
- Flower vases
- Cemetery lettering
- Adding a date to an existing stone
If what you need is not on that list, ask anyway. A small shop can do a lot of things a catalogue cannot.
Three things move the price, and none of them are a secret.
We will give you a real figure once we know these. Ask us early. Nobody here minds the question, and it is better answered at the start than at the end.
Size and stone
How big the cemetery will allow, and which granite you choose. Black granite costs more than grey, and it is also the only stone that takes a fine hand etching.
Shaping and carving
A plain die is one price. A rock pitched natural edge, a shaped top or a carved emblem is more work in the shop, and it shows in the figure.
How much etching
A single emblem is quick. A full landscape with timber, water and animals in it is days of hand work. The drawing is the thing you are paying for.
The things nobody tells you.
Can you etch a photograph I have?
Yes. A house, a boat, a tractor, a dog, a person. Bring the clearest copy you have and we will tell you honestly whether it will hold up at the size you want it, before you commit to anything.
Clear and well lit matters far more than recent. An old photograph that is sharp will etch better than a new one that is blurred.
Why does it have to be black granite?
Because the etching works by breaking the polished surface so the marks come up pale against the dark stone. The darker the granite, the more contrast you get, and the more detail survives.
Lighter stone is perfectly good for lettering and for carved emblems. It is just not the right ground for a fine etching.
Can you add a date to my father's stone? Somebody else made it.
Yes. Cemetery lettering on an existing stone is ordinary work for us, whoever originally supplied it. We match the lettering that is already there.
Does the cemetery have to allow it?
Cemeteries set their own rules on size, material, and whether upright monuments are permitted in a given section at all. That is why we ask for the cemetery and section early: it decides what is possible before anything else does.
Tell us where the plot is and we will find out what is allowed there.
Do I have to decide everything now?
No. Nothing is cut until you have seen a drawing and said yes to it. Plenty of people come in once, go away and think, and come back weeks later. That is a normal way to do this.
Are you nearby?
We are on East Railroad Street in Hastings, and we work with families across Barry County and the country around it. If you are further out than that, call and ask. We would rather tell you than have you wonder.
Jeff picks up the phone.
There is no switchboard and no sales team. It is a family shop, so the person who answers is the person who will draw your stone.
Furrow Family Monument
811 E Railroad Street, Hastings, MI 49058
(269) 908-3327
jeff@furrowfamilymonument.com
Jeff and Mandy Furrow
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Call before you drive over, so we can be sure to be here and not out setting a stone.