Kei­th Bel­grove, the fifth-gen­er­a­tion leader of Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home, of­fered a deeply per­son­al and re­flec­tive ac­count of his fam­i­ly’s lega­cy that be­gan well be­fore T&T gained in­de­pen­dence in 1962.

To­day, as the na­tion marks 63 years since that defin­ing mo­ment, Bel­grove looks back on how both his fam­i­ly busi­ness and the coun­try have evolved to­geth­er.

The ori­gins of Bel­groves are root­ed in re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion. The com­pa­ny’s sto­ry be­gins with an en­slaved woman from the Bel­grove Plan­ta­tion in Bar­ba­dos.

Af­ter eman­ci­pa­tion of slav­ery in the Caribbean, she mi­grat­ed to Trinidad around 1867 and set­tled in San Fer­nan­do. While the ex­act date of her ar­rival re­mains un­doc­u­ment­ed, records in­di­cate that she lived at 30 St James Street, San Fer­nan­do where she laid the foun­da­tion for what would be­come a mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional in­sti­tu­tion.

Her son, Joseph Archibald Bel­grove, for­mal­ly es­tab­lished the busi­ness by plac­ing a sign at 88 Cof­fee Street on Au­gust 15, 1888, a date that the fam­i­ly has em­braced as the of­fi­cial found­ing of Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home. Joseph Archibald be­came the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion, fol­lowed by Von Re­ich Bel­grove (al­so known as Joseph) dur­ing the era of the First World War. Li­onel Leonard Bel­grove, Kei­th’s fa­ther, took over next, and then Kei­th him­self en­tered the busi­ness in 1962, co­in­cid­ing with the year of the coun­try’s in­de­pen­dence.

Bel­grove re­calls that he was on­ly 12 years old when he be­gan as­sist­ing his fa­ther af­ter school.

His ear­ly du­ties in­volved man­ning the of­fice while his fa­ther worked in a locked room down­stairs, ap­ply­ing a mar­ble-like fin­ish to cas­kets, a trade se­cret at the time. Kei­th would call his fa­ther up­stairs when cus­tomers ar­rived, and be­fore long, he was han­dling arrange­ments on his own. Though his fa­ther nev­er praised him open­ly, his silent ap­proval spoke vol­umes. That qui­et en­cour­age­ment set young Bel­grove on a life­long path of ser­vice.

The year 1962 marked more than just per­son­al be­gin­nings for Bel­grove; it al­so rep­re­sent­ed a new era for the coun­try. As Trinidad and To­ba­go gained in­de­pen­dence, there was a grow­ing spir­it of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. The Bel­grove fam­i­ly em­bod­ied that mo­men­tum. That same year, Li­onel Bel­grove pur­chased 109 Cof­fee Street, ex­pand­ing their base.

He al­so sent his el­dest son, Reynold, to New York to be­come the first qual­i­fied em­balmer and fu­ner­al di­rec­tor in Cen­tral and South Trinidad. A few years lat­er, Reynold re­turned with his qual­i­fi­ca­tions, el­e­vat­ing the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the busi­ness.

Kei­th Bel­grove fol­lowed in his broth­er (Reynold’s) foot­steps, study­ing Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion in New York in 1970. Up­on his re­turn in 1972, he recog­nised the need for tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise and went back to be­come a cer­ti­fied em­balmer and fu­ner­al di­rec­tor by 1974.

With his el­der broth­er hav­ing moved back to New York, Bel­grove as­sumed lead­er­ship of the busi­ness and ush­ered in a new chap­ter of growth and mod­erni­sa­tion.

Re­flect­ing on the past six decades, Kei­th re­calls the ini­tial scep­ti­cism sur­round­ing em­balm­ing.

The phrase “kitchen clean” was coined to de­scribe the im­mac­u­late pre­sen­ta­tion of the body, clean and touch­able enough for fam­i­lies to kiss their loved ones good­bye.

Re­flect­ing on the evo­lu­tion of fu­ner­al ser­vices, Bel­grove shared can­did in­sights in­to the ris­ing cost of fu­ner­als and the on­go­ing chal­lenges in the in­dus­try.

He be­gan by not­ing that 50 to 60 years ago, a fu­ner­al could cost as lit­tle as $900, with the more elab­o­rate ones priced be­tween $3,000 and $4,000. To­day, the eco­nom­ic land­scape is very dif­fer­ent.

“Even now,” Bel­grove’s ex­plained, “a fu­ner­al can be as low as $7,500, be­cause the gov­ern­ment pays $7,000 un­der So­cial Ser­vices, and the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme (NIS) pays $7,500. Some of the new­er fu­ner­al homes use this fig­ure to ad­ver­tise low prices, but the re­al­i­ty is that a ba­sic, prop­er­ly done fu­ner­al ac­tu­al­ly costs the fu­ner­al home about $10,000 to put out.”

He em­pha­sised that while $7,500 may be quot­ed to at­tract fam­i­lies, un­ex­pect­ed add-ons of­ten in­crease the fi­nal price, a com­mon tac­tic he warns against.

At Bel­groves and across most pro­fes­sion­al fu­ner­al homes, a ba­sic fu­ner­al av­er­ages around $15,000, though many fam­i­lies ex­pect to spend be­tween $20,000 and $25,000.

For those seek­ing more per­son­alised or elab­o­rate arrange­ments, costs can rise to $40,000, $60,000, or even $70,000, de­pend­ing on the fam­i­ly’s wish­es.

The ex­ec­u­tive point­ed out the re­al-world fac­tors dri­ving those prices: “You’re see­ing us use pro­fes­sion­al ve­hi­cles, one of which costs $1.5 mil­lion to im­port be­fore you even rent it out. Add to that the fa­cil­i­ties, in­sur­ance, trained staff, uni­forms, it’s a very ex­pen­sive ser­vice to pro­vide.”

As the com­pa­ny evolved, hir­ing more staff, im­prov­ing fa­cil­i­ties, and rais­ing ser­vice stan­dards, prices nat­u­ral­ly ad­just­ed. In­no­va­tion re­mained con­stant. Af­ter the pass­ing of Dr. Er­ic Williams in 1981, the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty be­gan to call more con­fi­dent­ly for cre­ma­tions. At the time, ob­tain­ing a cre­ma­tion per­mit took three days.

Li­onel Bel­grove lob­bied for re­forms, help­ing re­duce that process to mere hours.

To­day, 63 years af­ter in­de­pen­dence, Bel­groves stands as a mod­el not on­ly in T&T but across the Caribbean. The com­pa­ny has sup­port­ed the de­vel­op­ment of fu­ner­al ser­vices in Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent, and oth­er is­lands by shar­ing best prac­tices, tech­nolo­gies and stan­dards of care.

But the jour­ney was not with­out ob­sta­cles.

In the years fol­low­ing in­de­pen­dence, the fu­ner­al in­dus­try car­ried a heavy stig­ma. Some peo­ple were in­clined to cross the street to avoid pass­ing a fu­ner­al home. Re­cruit­ing ed­u­cat­ed and pro­fes­sion­al staff was a ma­jor chal­lenge. Many ear­ly em­ploy­ees came from un­der­priv­i­leged back­grounds, and his fa­ther was known for his un­wa­ver­ing stan­dards. The CEO in­her­it­ed that same dis­ci­pline, en­sur­ing Bel­groves al­ways up­held the high­est lev­els of ser­vice and pre­sen­ta­tion.

The com­pa­ny’s phys­i­cal ex­pan­sion tells its own sto­ry of progress. From 88 Cof­fee Street, Bel­groves moved to 94, then to 107 in 1956, and 109 in 1962.

New branch­es fol­lowed in Ch­agua­nas and Point Fortin in the late 1960s. Un­der Kei­th’s lead­er­ship, they ex­pand­ed fur­ther in­to Trinci­ty, To­ba­go, and more re­cent­ly, Port of Spain. Bel­groves al­so launched the first pri­vate cre­ma­to­ri­um in Trinidad and To­ba­go and now op­er­ates four across the coun­try. Recog­nis­ing the need for dig­ni­fied bur­ial grounds, they es­tab­lished a pri­vate, land­scaped ceme­tery in Trinci­ty, next to their fu­ner­al home and cre­ma­to­ri­um, of­fer­ing a seam­less, full-ser­vice ex­pe­ri­ence for fam­i­lies.

In 1988, as Bel­groves cel­e­brat­ed its 100th an­niver­sary, they in­tro­duced be­reave­ment coun­sel­ing, the first and still on­ly fu­ner­al home in Trinidad and To­ba­go to have a full-time, qual­i­fied grief coun­sel­lor on staff. The com­pa­ny al­so con­ducts ed­u­ca­tion­al sym­po­siums on plan­ning and wills, help­ing fam­i­lies nav­i­gate dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions be­fore loss oc­curs.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the busi­ness was test­ed in ways it had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced. Bel­groves re­mem­bers the trau­ma many fam­i­lies en­dured, with loved ones tak­en to hos­pi­tals and nev­er seen again and with cre­ma­tions con­duct­ed un­der strict pub­lic health man­dates. One young man, just 19 years old, lost his fa­ther, grand­moth­er, and grand­fa­ther in quick suc­ces­sion. The emo­tion­al toll of such loss­es still lingers.

Even in cri­sis, Bel­groves adapt­ed. They had al­ready be­gun prepar­ing for live streamed fu­ner­als, and COVID-19 pushed them to roll it out na­tion­wide. In a spir­it of uni­ty, they shared their tech­nol­o­gy with oth­er fu­ner­al homes, help­ing raise the in­dus­try stan­dard for every­one.

Bel­grove has al­so been a tire­less ad­vo­cate for reg­u­la­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

In 1974, he found­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first fu­ner­al ser­vices as­so­ci­a­tion. He lob­bied for manda­to­ry cause-of-death cer­tifi­cates, which im­proved health safe­ty and al­so en­sured ac­cu­rate na­tion­al death reg­is­tra­tions, aid­ing in­sti­tu­tions like the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion.

How­ev­er, the post-COVID land­scape brought a new wave of chal­lenges.

The num­ber of fu­ner­al homes in the coun­try bal­looned from 67 to over 100, many of them op­er­at­ing with­out ba­sic fa­cil­i­ties or over­sight. Com­plaints have surged, with fam­i­lies re­port­ing mis­lead­ing pric­ing and sub­stan­dard care.

The CEO has writ­ten to gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Prime Min­is­ter, urg­ing them to en­act li­cens­ing laws to pro­tect the pub­lic and up­hold in­dus­try stan­dards.

As he re­flects on the com­pa­ny’s jour­ney from its hum­ble be­gin­nings be­fore In­de­pen­dence to be­com­ing a na­tion­al and re­gion­al leader, the ex­ec­u­tive sees Bel­groves not just as a fu­ner­al home but as a trust­ed in­sti­tu­tion wo­ven in­to the cul­tur­al and emo­tion­al fab­ric of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Af­ter 63 years of post-in­de­pen­dence ser­vice, the com­pa­ny re­mains ground­ed in its mis­sion: to of­fer dig­ni­fied, pro­fes­sion­al, and com­pas­sion­ate care to every fam­i­ly it serves.