Driving Our Economy Forward: Keith Monuments

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Family-owned businesses are still an important part of America’s economy.

One such company here in Chattanooga is dedicated to providing clients the best possible service they can.

Sheila Keith is the current owner of Keith Monuments.

“Keith Monuments was started years ago in the 1960s by my father-in-law, Cleveland Keith, and he had six sons. It was called, back then, Keith and Sons, because he wanted his sons to work in the business with him. He started out in his backyard making monuments because he wanted everybody to have an address. And thus, the logo, large enough to serve, small enough to care. He was able to get a building where he could start making monuments. And thus, he ended up on Third Street,” Keith explained. “There were some other places in between, but Third Street is where I actually met my father-in-law and met my husband, Jerome Keith. So, in 2008, when my father-in-law, Cleveland Keith, passed away, my husband Jerome Keith, along with some of the other brothers, kind of took it on. And then in 2016, my husband passed away. And that’s when I actually started to takeover the company and play a part.”

The company says it takes about 8 to 12 weeks to finish the monument after it has been approved.

“When I took over Keith Monuments, I had never owned a company before, and so to know all of the things that needed to be involved, I actually found the Small Business Development Center, and they have a lot of classes,” Keith added.

We asked Keith what kinds of monuments they have done and what she is proud of.

She explained, “The first one that I was able to work with, Booker T. Washington State Park, Levan Gardner asked me to make a monument of Booker T. I was asked by the unity group Eric Atkins to do the United States Colored Troop Monument. And that was really some history for me, because I didn’t know that there are over 880 plus United States Colored Troop members that are buried in the Chattanooga National Cemetery. I love to do different types of monuments, specialty monuments. So, I have some now that people are asking to have a torso. And so, we do that. I don’t like to say no, that we can’t do something. I’ll actually research it. So now it’s actually to expand the business even more and to let the folks know that we are here in the community. And the thing is just carrying on what my father-in-law wanted to do.”