Our June issue is out now! Read about Louisiana lady, Anna Wilbert Breaux, a 5th generation funeral director with a passion for saltwater fishing that provides leadership for a historic business with a service mark that dates back to 1850. Up next, Hart’s Mortuary opened in 1899 by a founder that proved innovative from the beginning and they continue that tradition now in multiple locations. Find inspiration in the story of Lisa Scott-Coleman, as the death of her fiancé prompted a major change of career to now providing personal service for her own funeral home. Our June issue is classic Southern Calls mix of exceptional photography and three amazing People, Places and Passions articles, told by our award-winning writers – you’ll read it cover to cover, again, and again! Don’t miss Southern Calls Issue 32, purchase a subscription today or purchase your individual copy of this incredible issue while they’re still available!
PEOPLE – Ann Wilbert Breux
“I believe funeral service is a calling. It’s a gift to serve people, and, in a small town like Plaquemine, it’s nice to know the person you’re sitting across the desk from. My father taught us how to meet the people and to pay attention, and he taught me the importance of being a good businessperson,” she added. Currently, Wilbert Funeral Home serves 250 families a year, with a 20% cremation rate. She credits her father as her teacher and mentor, and “Johnny Boy Wilbert,” as her dad is known, is now retired.
PLACES – Hart’s Mortuary
Founder, Jesse B. Hart proved innovative from the onset and soon added a chapel, anticipating that mortuaries were quickly evolving into full-service funeral facilities. Innately progressive, Hart provided Macon’s first horse-drawn ambulance and later the city’s first automobile ambulance. Joined by brother J. Freeman Hart in 1908, the firm, unshaped by the norms of the era, hired a first female embalmer in 1911, and later both brothers served terms as president of the Georgia State Funeral Association.
PASSIONS – Lisa Scott-Coleman
I ask Scott-Coleman if her fiancé’s funeral is what got her interested in funeral service and she replies candidly, “No, not precisely.” She goes on to explain, “It wasn’t the experience of the funeral, though I’d always been curious about funerals. I wanted to help others dealing with the same feelings.” That’s when she unknowingly started down the path to what would one day become the Lisa Scott Funeral Home, P.A. in Havre De Grace, Maryland.
Order this issue
Southern Calls Issue 32
In stock
Articles Relating to Issue 32
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 medical company, and was about to get married. Scott-Coleman’s fiancé,…
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, Georgia. Originally operated as Keating’s Funeral Parlour, the local…
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 Sunday dinner. The building previously housing the funeral home…
