My Undertaking In Undertaking

I have occasionally reminisced about some of my first jobs. I spent three weeks working at a Burger King, and then a couple of my high school years saw me employed at my local public library. It was from there that I moved to one of my most memorable and unusual jobs – at a funeral home.

My best friend in those years was Dan, and I had helped him get hired at the library. As high school graduation approached, Dan left the library and got hired at a local funeral home. By that time I was really ready to move on from the library myself and pestered Dan about getting hired there too. He gave me the name of the guy to talk to, and I found myself so employed for the summer.

This was a large family-owned funeral home, and it had quite a few employees. At the top of the heap were the funeral directors. Those were the guys (they were all men in 1978) who worked with the families to arrange services for the deceased. Then, there were the three or four embalmers. They were the ones who prepared the bodies for burial and who expected to be promoted to funeral director someday. I was in the third category, “unlicensed” guys who assisted the others, a group that included those of us called “students”.

“Students” were typically college kids who had an interest in going to mortuary school and learning the business. It turned out that this place had an opening for another student, and I got the job. So, what did a student in a funeral home do? The answer turned out to be just about everything that did not require a state license.

First, I got to wear a suit to work, just like a real adult. Two of us (we were always scheduled in pairs) would clock in at 5 pm. The first job was to fill up every vehicle that was under 3/4 full of fuel and then put them in their garage spot or other parking place. There were four funeral coaches (hearses), a limo or two, and several sedans, plus a couple of vans or trucks. If there were visitations going on that evening, we would assist directing people at the front door or in the parking lot if things were really busy. If no visitations, then we would clean, clean, clean.

After visitations were over we would prepare the room for the funeral service the next day, with lots of vacuuming and setting up of chairs. I spent a lot of time vacuuming. Vacuuming a great big room like that was like cutting grass with a lawnmower – you needed a pattern to follow, and when you started it seemed like you would never finish. We also cleaned bathrooms and emptied ashtrays and trash in the lounge area.

At 11 pm we would clock out, but would retire to an upstairs dormitory/apartment where we would spend the night. Why would we spend the night? Because if the phone rang and there was a need to go to a hospital or nursing home after a death, it was we students would would get up, get dressed, clock in and go there to pick up the deceased’s remains. A call from a private home (far less frequent) involved one student going with the embalmer on duty. Which student often depended on a coin flip or on one guy having a far stronger desire for more shuteye than the other guy had.

In the summer, many would be the day when Al the manager would cut through the night quarters with something like “We have three funerals today, can you guys work?” The job paid minimum wage, but it was my first experience with overtime which paid time-and-a-half over forty hours. “Sure” was almost always my answer, and I would run home for a shower, a clean shirt and then back again, ,where I would park cars for the funeral procession, then would usually drive a limousine or a flower truck to the graveside service. I have never forgotten the week I clocked 83 hours – both for the massive pay check and for how exhausted I was by the end of it.

We students also got the weird jobs, like transporting remains to another city or state for a funeral there, or going to bring someone back to our place for the same. Air travel was expensive in the late 70’s, so it was often cheaper to send two minimum wage lackeys in a Cadillac hearse than it was to fly a body from here to there. One early claim to fame was when Dan and I volunteered to drive to Detroit to pick up the body of a man we were told was on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted List for a series of rapes along interstate highways. The alleged perpetrator had hanged himself in a Detroit motel, and we were to pick him up and bring him back for his family to bury him. That was the only time things were a little spooky. For many years I could boast that I had more miles behind the wheel in Cadillacs than in any other brand of car.

I did have some unforgettable experiences that not everyone wants to experience. Our funeral home was the largest in town, and got calls from police after road fatalities, which made it our jobs to get victims out of their cars and to the morgue. One in particular is a scene I never forgot, one in which a young teen with no license took his father’s Lincoln out for a joyride when the parents were out of town. He was probably having great fun driving through piles of leaves along the sides of residential streets. He was almost certainly not aware of the kid playing in one of those leaf piles, a kid who was dragged to death under the car. I matured a lot that night.

On the flip side, I will say that I never again worked around a bunch of people as fun as those I worked with there. It has been my experience that people in the funeral business have some of the funniest senses of humor of any class of people I have come to know. I suppose you would have to when you are surrounded by death and sadness.

Dan and I were both convinced part way through our first year of college that we were destined to be funeral directors ourselves, and plotted to break it to our respective parents one particular weekend. We both got back to school on a Sunday evening and compared notes, to discover that we had both been told the same thing: “Great idea, but not until you finish college first.” We would both work there for several summers but as time passed and our educations progressed, “neither of us ever got serious about mortuary school.

I think the biggest lesson I took from the experience was that death is a normal part of life, and something that will happen to 100% of us, 100% of the time. I saw the aftermath of death of elderly residents of nursing homes (blessing), unexpected deaths of middle-age people (shock) and terrible deaths from accidents (tragedy). I came to see the human body as something left behind at the end of a life and something that deserved to be treated with some respect out of a recognition that the body had belonged to someone who was known and loved by others. I also came to believe that the common sentiment of “When I die, just throw me into a hole in the ground” is kind of selfish, because a funeral is about everyone being given a time and a place to come and grieve together.

I have no regrets on making other choices for my education and career. But I am glad I chose to work there and would not trade the experience for anything. To this day, whenever I am at the funeral, I still feel a little bit of a connection to the funeral director, as if to say “I was a member of your club, once.” It was a good club, and an honorable one. And one that, unexpectedly, was often a place for some fun and good humor behind the scenes.

28 thoughts on “My Undertaking In Undertaking”

  1. This one hit home. I’d heard some stories of the funeral home days, but I think behind the “follow your nose” bravado Dad recalled from pickups accompanied by grizzled veterans, I think the experience deeply unsettled him. He was almost hypersensitive to the smell of baby powder as long as I knew him, for example.

    I think the rest of the funeral process unnerved him as well. Dad didn’t want *anything* done to him after he died. Short of cremation, we complied. He also didn’t want any services, “ecumenical or otherwise.” I learned your hole-in-the-ground lesson when, against his wishes, I was part of arranging a celebration-of-life-type event. It took a lot to convince me to agree to it, and even more to convince his siblings. I’m glad we did, though- it changed how I’ll approach my own plans eventually. Thanks for the thought-provoking read!

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    • That is a tough time, dealing with planning after losing someone you love. And everyone has his own idea of how it should be done.

      And it is funny how the same experience will affect others differently. Your father was the one who always talked about working at a funeral home, and I just kind of followed him there. But then you note that the whole thing unnerved him a bit, while it had the opposite effect on me. I am much less weirded-out about death than I was when I was younger.

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    • I had not really thought about that, but you are right. I think we all tend to remember ourselves as being really mature as teens, but then I grew up and had teens of my own. Maybe I wasn’t as mature as I thought I was. But I know I was more mature than another kid who worked there that first summer – he was a friend of the owner’s kid, and someone who went to my high school. Only later did I figure out that the silver Cadillac sedan doing burnouts in the high school parking lot one afternoon belonged to the funeral home. He did not come back after that first summer.

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  3. Fascinating insight into an under appreciated profession. From your having previously mentioned working at a funeral home, I have always been curious about your experiences there. What you have shared surpasses what I had anticipated.

    I agree about the sense of humor. Years ago, I was a pallbearer. In all my life, I have never been able to successfully tie a tie. Figuring the funeral director could, I pulled him aside to ask for help. As he began, he stated “I’ve never tied a tie on anyone standing up before.” He had a twinkle in his eye as he said that.

    Years later, I was pallbearer again at my maternal grandmother’s funeral. As before, I sought help on tying my tie (I generally have all my ties tied and hanging in the closet; this was a new tie). I relayed the story to Funeral Director #2. He chuckled but topped it, saying “A tie is just the final step; you should try dressing somebody who is lying down.” 

    The people who work in the industry have my perpetual respect (I almost said “undying”). It’s not easy dealing with emotional people on a daily basis and it takes a certain talent not many possess.

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    • I wonder if that experience helped me in law – I always seemed to be good at the task of sitting down with clients and walking them through what we needed to do.

      For a long time I tended to be careful about who I mentioned this experience to. I thought sharing these experiences was a really good way to come off as weird. I am not alone on that – I once spent a few hours in a car with an older lawyer on a case and learned that he too had worked at a FH as a youth. We swapped stories for quite awhile, but then when we arrived at our destination (some depositions with several other witnesses and attorneys) he made it a point to say “Don’t bring up anything about working at a funeral home – let’s just keep that between us.”

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  4. From the title I thought maybe you had a new driving gig with Batesville Casket Co. We saw several casket trucks on our road trip to Spokane the other week.

    Interesting stories, that prove how much more mature you were than me. At that point I was still detassling corn.

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    • I saw Batesville advertising for drivers, but they tend to be long-distance guys, and I am not interested in that. You remind me that my friend Dan (with whom I had worked there, and who was my college roommate for 4 years) somehow got ahold of a cheap, low-end cloth-covered casket. We made it into a bar for our apartment. It never failed to start conversations. He got it from the store room at a high school, where it had been used as a prop in a play. It seems to have come from another kid who worked at the FH for a short time, and he likely helped himself to it from the FH’s inventory.

      I think I would have really hated detassling, but then I have always hated outdoor gardening work. In college, Dan got hired at a FH in the town where we went to school. I tried to follow him, but the only opening they had was for a lawn/landscape guy. I quit after about a month.

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  5. It’s amazing what we learn on our first job. My first job was as a dishwasher/bus boy in a local restaurant, followed by a sales clerk position in my small town’s stationery/magazine shop. That second job made me realize that my proper, upright, Pennsylvania small town resembled Peyton Place under the surface more than anyone wanted to admit.

    I’m not sure I would have lasted long working for a funeral parlor at that age. I can see where that position would give someone an appreciation of our mortality. We all, ultimately, meet the same fate. No one gets out of here alive.

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    • It is true that you really come out from under that childhood shelter when you go get a job somewhere as a teen. That job had a wide spread of personalities. Some of them would go on to run small-town funeral homes of their own. But it was also the first time I came across a couple of high-functioning alcoholics. That was also the place I started drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, which seemed to be the only acceptable reason for breaks from work.

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  6. I am very curious about this profession, of which you had an inside view. I have a relative who is a funeral director, and they were able to share some fascinating stories about different funereal customs from different cultures. Some spent lavishly, some were more frugal. Some had specific wishes about the limousines, and their sequencing.

    My own parents’ funerals were more minimalist events, with little visiting hours, followed by a Catholic Mass and burials.

    Your insights here have confirmed to me that you can’t just be a driver at a funeral home, there is handling of the dead required.

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    • Another thing I learned was how segregated the funeral business seemed to be, both by religion and by race. Of the “big 3” locations in the city, one was mainly Lutheran and one was Catholic. Where I worked seemed to get a smattering from those communities, and most of everyone else. There were also 2 pretty large funeral homes that catered to black families, but I remember working a handful of funerals from that demographic. One was at an AME church, where we were invited back to the church basement to share in the family’s meal. The family couldn’t have been nicer to us, and I still remember it as one of the best funeral meals I ever had.

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    • That 83 hours was a one-time thing, that’s for sure. I remember waking up from sleep during that week, and had no idea where I was or where I was supposed to be.

      Is zombie-dom that loophole you were thinking of? I am not sure that would be optimal. But then I have never tried it, so perhaps I am not qualified to say.

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  8. Wow, you are full of surprises. I thought maybe you were low on truck driving hours and now wanted to work at a funeral home on the weekend. Even better, you worked at one when you were young and impressionable. Interesting stories from the back side. Have you started writing your memoir yet? This would be one chapter, DONE!

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  9. This was quite a different gig than Burger King or the library and I am sure the added responsibilities for this job looked good on a résumé. I had a high school classmate that became a funeral director. One of the the daily newspapers did a nice human interest story on him when his wife passed away from a brain disorder, then a few years later, the funeral home where he worked was discovered to have some major unscrupulous practices (sixty-three fetal remains were discovered when investigators were tipped off about this). The funeral home was shut down and he lost his license, but it was restored and he now works at a different funeral home.

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    • I have heard the occasional story about a funeral director who can’t seem to do things the way they are supposed to be done. Those situations can cause a lot of problems, and it is a shame when they happen. I think some people are better at doing the work than they are at running a business.
      The place where I worked is still in business, but heard a few years ago that after holding out a long time, they finally sold out to one of the big companies that seems to run most local funeral homes now. Like every other field in the US, it seems like one more area where small business can’t seem to make a go of it (or can’t resist the lure of money from big business).

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      • Yes, it sure tarnished his reputation. That recently happened here JP when one longstanding funeral home (in business since 1923) has taken over several small, but also reputable and longstanding, funeral homes. I was surprised to learn that. I also understand that less people are opting for funerals, more for cremations and memorial services

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  10. Wow. Kind of a somber note, today. Very interesting, though and I expect the humor is similar to that of E.R. nurses. My wife calls it their “nursey humor” and it takes a bit of getting used to.

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  11. What a fascinating job to have had at such a young age. And a lot of responsibility.

    Buddy of mine worked in the funeral industry full time for 20 years, and still works part time. He says it was the most rewarding thing he ever did.

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    • It really was, and really was.

      I can see how someone could find it to be a rewarding profession. But your comment reminds me of a guy who worked a full-time job in another field who started in our part-time evening/night role because he said he had always wanted to work in the funeral field. He picked a horrible evening to start. There was a fatal accident when an entire family was killed when their car failed to negotiate a curve on a rural highway, and hit a tree. The new guy went out on that call from the coroner’s office and never came back to work after that. One of the guys with him that night told me that he kept saying “I thought it was just about old ladies and flowers”. It often is, but not always.

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  12. Fascinating account, J P. It’s hard to put myself in your shoes when I consider my own plain-vanilla high school and college jobs. I couldn’t think much past fast food opps at that age, followed by internships in my field of study. But I did realize long ago, at the end of the day mortuaries and cemeteries are businesses like most anything else (including colleges). They’re a necessary service and for some people it simply becomes their calling. Couched in those terms it’s not such an unusual profession.

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    • It is fascinating to me how certain people choose to do what they end up doing for a living. The family that owned the place I worked had been running for 3 generations when I worked there, and the 4th generation took over after them (and the 4th generation included a couple of brothers I went to high school with). I would imagine when the business is in your family, there is a much harder pull to follow along than for those like us who might not have a family business to go into. Thinking back, I can see two or three other fields I might have gone into if things had worked out a little differently.

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