This Month in History: September 1993
For $9.95 (plus 89 cents tax), you could buy the blueprints for your own coffin, in child, small, medium, or large. Wood and labor were not included.
That was the offer in September 1993, when the convention’s newspaper introduced readers to Al Carpenter, a former California Southern Baptist pastor who had traded the pulpit for a two-room mortuary in Alameda.
Carpenter had pastored for 13 years, including four at Alameda Baptist Church and a pastorate in San Lorenzo. In those years, he stood beside many grieving families and watched them spend thousands of dollars on funerals at the moment they were least able to bear it. And he kept hearing the same wish: people wanted to be buried in “an old pine box.”
“I thought, ‘why not?'” he told reporter Carole Hester.
So he sketched designs, checked burial regulations with the Federal Trade Commission, and in December 1992 opened Direct Funeral Services. Along with his do-it-yourself coffin plans, he sold $85 urns designed by a Bay Area artist and the occasional ready-made casket, pickup only.
Not everyone in the funeral industry was delighted. Some morticians began charging families “handling fees” for bringing their own caskets, until the FTC ruled the fees unjust. Meanwhile, Carpenter appeared on television and radio, calls poured in from around the world, and one amused telephone operator noted that his caskets could double as a living-room bookcase.
Carpenter no longer went by “Reverend,” but he described his work as “lightening the load and easing the pain.”
In the years that followed, Carpenter proved that opportunities for ministry abound in the second half of life. In 2017, he founded an electric bike shop in Alameda, which later moved to San Leandro as The Electric Bike Warehouse. By 2022, he had converted nearly 3,000 standard bicycles into e-bikes.
Online listings also connect Carpenter to a more recent Alameda venture called Paws and Pianos. Details are scarce, but given his track record, there’s likely a ministry story there too.
Back in 1993, Carpenter summed up what drove him.
“I believe the ministry of helping people is valid no matter what the venue,” he said.
Do you remember Al Carpenter from Alameda Baptist Church or San Lorenzo? Are you still in touch with him, or do you know more about his later ventures, including Paws and Pianos? We’d love to hear from you.
