Raymond Loewen

Raymond L. "Ray" Loewen (born June 27, 1940 Loewen also had a brief political career, serving as an MLA in British Columbia in the late 1970s.

Early life Loewen was born into a prominent Mennonite family in Steinbach, Manitoba in 1940. His uncle founded Loewen Windows, while his father, Abraham Loewen, founded the Loewen Funeral Chapel in Steinbach in 1931, the first funeral home in southeastern Manitoba. Loewen attended high school at Steinbach Collegiate Institute, playing hockey and football and after high school completed a theology degree at Briercrest Bible College in Saskatchewan. He ran Loewen Funeral Chapel in Steinbach for five years, before moving to Fort Frances, Ontario in 1967 and ultimately Burnaby, British Columbia in 1969 where he purchased two more funeral homes. The original Loewen Funeral home in Steinbach burned to the ground in 1976 and was later rebuilt at a different location. A cairn in Steinbach commemorates the spot of this original funeral home.

Political career In 1975, Loewen ran for office in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. He won the election and represented Burnaby-Edmonds from 1975 to 1979 as a Social Credit MLA.

The Loewen Group Growth of the Loewen Group As of the early 1980s, Loewen owned a small handful of funeral parlours, including the original location in Steinbach and several in British Columbia, with Loewen mostly focusing on other real estate investments. After Loewen's brief political career and downturn in the BC real estate market in the early 1980s, however, he refocused on the funeral business, establishing the Loewen Group and purchasing 45 funeral homes in western Canada.

O'Keefe lawsuit In 1995, Jeremiah O'Keefe, a funeral home operator in Mississippi represented by Willie E. Gary sued the Loewen Group in a breach of contract suit.

Jurors concluded from internal Loewen memos and other evidence that the deal, never completed, had just been a ploy to string Mr. O'Keefe along while keeping him out of the funeral markets Loewen was seeking to dominate. After the O'Keefe verdict in 1995, Loewen remained CEO of the Loewen Group until 1998, when he sold his shares in the company.

The Loewen Group filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999 and, in 2002, it was restructured as the Alderwoods Group. In 2006, Alderwoods board of directors sold Alderwoods to Service Corporation International (SCI), an American funeral corporation.

In 2008, Loewen's Twin Cedars estate in Burnaby, British Columbia, was listed for sale at C$25 million, and was sold June 2012 for C$9.948 million.

Legacy Ray Loewen was portrayed by actor Bill Camp in the 2023 legal drama film The Burial about the O'Keefe case.