The walnut planks used to make Caroline Found’s casket grew for 120 years in a quiet northeast Iowa forest. Tucked away behind a hulking limestone monastery, the tree was prayed over by the monks of ...

All told, Trappist Caskets produces an average of 35 caskets a week. Although not all of the monks came to the abbey with prior woodworking skills, they and the new monks joining their ranks "are ...

Trappist Caskets offers two models -- simple and premium. Simple caskets are smooth on all sides. Premium caskets feature complex raised-panel joinery and shaped lids. Both come in two shapes -- ...

DUBUQUE — Like most people, Trappist monks and nuns in the Dubuque area have to find ways to pay the bills. Without much funding from their orders, their dioceses or the Vatican, the monks of New ...

Stepping out of their usually reclusive lifestyle, Trappist monks at an Iowa abbey plan to sell their handcrafted wooden caskets to the public for the first time since the retreat was founded in 1849.

'Easter resurrection is the whole point': What casket-making means to Iowa monk Trappist monk Brother Joseph Kronebusch says hand-building caskets adds grace to families' difficult times. "People can ...

PEOSTA, Iowa -- Some monks make cheesecakes to supplement their income. Others breed German shepherds or market Tex-Mex food. But the 36 monks at the New Melleray Abbey are marketing a more novel item ...

DUBUQUE, Iowa — Like most people, Trappist order monks and nuns in the Dubuque area have to find ways to pay the bills. Without much funding from their orders, their dioceses or the Vatican, the monks ...

PEOSTA, Iowa - A cold southwest wind blew over the rolling Iowa countryside Thursday morning as about 20 people stood under a gray sky solemnly listening as Cistercian Trappist monk Alberic Farbolin ...

A Trappist casket is boxed for loading. In the middle of the night, a driver hauling a 53-foot dry van pulls into a truckstop. Soon a hearse pulls up behind the trailer. The driver gets out of his cab ...