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People Articles

Mitchell’s Journey

Mitchell’s Journey

I drove by your building a hundred thousand times and never once noticed it. Why would I? Death is what happens to other people. And when you have young children, mortality is the last thing on your...

Rhonda Keyes Pleasants

Rhonda Keyes Pleasants

Before reading any further, pause for a moment and reflect on your career, regardless of your age or your job title. Reminisce about opportunities that were afforded to you, both past and present....

Kenneth W. Poe

Kenneth W. Poe

First generation funeral directors are fearless. With either none or very little familial connection to a funeral home, stories vary widely as to what initial interest or curiosity eventually...

S. Todd Rose

S. Todd Rose

As chief of the Air Force’s Casualty Headquarters, Todd Rose is charged with a mission unlike any other in the United States Air Force. When an airman is killed, wounded, injured, or even takes ill,...

Anna Wilbert Breaux

Anna Wilbert Breaux

Fifth-generation Funeral Director Anna Wilbert Breaux has spent her life learning the funeral profession. As a youngster, her first classes were held around the dinner table when relatives came for...

Kristin Tips | San Antonio, Texas

Kristin Tips | San Antonio, Texas

“Can you imagine a day when the world’s first drive-in funeral theater would be in the headlines? Or imagine a time when thousands of people at home would choose to watch a televised life tribute...

The CEO | Christine Pepper

The CEO | Christine Pepper

At first glance, you might recognize Christine Reichelt Pepper from photos in The Director magazine, where she has been featured alongside an abundance of funeral directors past and present. Others...

Places Articles

Snyder Funeral Homes

Snyder Funeral Homes

More than 100 years ago, Ora O. Snyder worked as a horse keeper for undertaking establishments. Known as Orrie to friends and colleagues, his early exposure to funeral service consisted of...

Bibber Memorial Chapel

Bibber Memorial Chapel

The air smells briny and gulls caw overhead. In the distance, against the backdrop of an iron-colored horizon, a few hearty lobstermen trawl the sea, braving the frigid temperatures. It’s snowing...

Stevens Mortuary

Stevens Mortuary

Stevens Mortuary occupies the historic Cedar Grove estate nestled in north Knoxville, Tennessee. When one arrives at the mortuary, surrounded by flowering dogwood trees, the stately antebellum era...

Cremation in America

Cremation in America

America’s “Modern” Cremation Movement It was a cold and rainy December day in 1876 when the modern cremation movement in America made its debut. In the small town of Washington, Penn., Dr. Francis...

The Heritage of Hart’s

The Heritage of Hart’s

Just prior to the dawn of the 20th century and nearly two decades following Reconstruction, Jesse B. Hart founded his modest mortuary in a small, single-room structure on Mulberry Street in Macon,...

Funetorium | All Things Funereal

Funetorium | All Things Funereal

Attila Bethlenfalvy stands out in a crowd of funeral directors. With his gauged ears, shaven head and bushy, peppered beard, Bethlenfalvy doesn’t look the part, and he’s not a funeral director,...

The NFDA Story

The NFDA Story

A BRIEF HISTORY OF NFDA SPANNING THREE CENTURIES Come, gather, come, gather, ye knights of the grave,A welcome awaits you right royally brave;Our fields they look fresh and our brooklets they...

Passions Articles

After Life Mortuary Services

After Life Mortuary Services

The year is 1961. The Soviet Union has just successfully put Yuri Gagarin into space—and brought him home again. The Soviets are winning the space race. President John F. Kennedy immediately begins...

Jim Kurtz

Jim Kurtz

We probably have never met, but you may have seen me before. I was that little guy watching funerals from the steps of the Catholic school across the street from Galloway & Sons Funeral Home in...

Jack Backer

Jack Backer

At first glance, John Willmott “Jack” Backer, III – age 16, tall, handsome, varsity tennis player and straight-A sophomore at Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky – appears to be a typical teenager...

Dancer to Director

Dancer to Director

It’s raining in Far West Dallas, hard enough for rivulets of water to ooze through cheap, wooden window and door frames and down the water-stained walls of housing projects clumped together along...

Lisa Scott-Coleman

Lisa Scott-Coleman

It was 1990 and Lisa Scott-Coleman was in the kitchen busy making dinner, unaware that her life was about to take an entirely different trajectory. She had a good job, a management role for a...

Author-Undertaker | Todd Harra

Author-Undertaker | Todd Harra

“It’s such an honor to be able to walk with people during their time of need,” said Todd Harra, vice president of McCrery & Harra Funeral Homes and Crematory in Wilmington, Delaware. “But I...

A Man of Many Skills

A Man of Many Skills

Fountain National Academy of Professional Embalming SkillsSpringfield, Missouri The call came in from another state: an innocent bystander had been caught in the middle of a shootout. There would be...

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