|
|
|
Photo by Elliot J. Sutherland/The Ottawa Herald
Craig Dengel of Dengel & Son Mortuary, Ottawa, stands by as the Rev. Ron James of Pomona Assembly of God Church gives a word of prayer Wednesday morning at Oak Hill Cemetery near Quenemo during a graveside service.
|
Funeral home workers put life into the business of death
Helping in difficult times
By BRIAN WILLIAMS, Herald Staff Writer
|
|
Death is a part of life.
When it happens to a loved one, the loss becomes personal.
That’s when a funeral home can become a place of solace.
“We just try to help and serve,” Brian Janssen, Lamb-Roberts Funeral Home director, Ottawa, said. “This is a service position.”
Being there“When you know that you’ve really helped someone through a difficult time, I get a lot out of that.” Craig Dengel, Dengel & Son Mortuary director, said.
Dengel grew up in the business. His grandfather, Louis, opened a mortuary in Ottawa in 1944 and his father, Craig, started in 1963.
Dengel said it still pleases him when older people tell him that his grandfather would be proud of him.
“The great thing about being a funeral director is you get to become part of their family,” Janssen said about the people they serve.
“That’s what I love. I love people. People are very interesting. Each individual lives a different life,” Janssen said.
In learning about people’s lives and their histories you get to experience the life they lived, he said.
Janssen grew up in Ottawa and used to ride his bike past the funeral home that still bears Bob Roberts’ name. Roberts attended his church, so one day Janssen stopped in to see about a job. He began his junior year in high school in 1988 washing cars and mowing.
“The doors here were always wide open. There was a purpose why this has worked out the way it has,” he said. “I’ve seen the intangible side of how special it is dealing with people at that particular time of their life.”
Changing times“It’s not just suit and tie like in the past,” Janssen said.
Dengel said in previous years funerals were very standard, almost “cookie cutter-ish.”
That has changed.
“Now funerals have become more personalized,” Dengel said.
Services are planned to represent whatever was meaningful to the deceased, Floyd Greenwood, who started in the business in 1964 at Abilene, said.
“Now-a-days folks will have pictures, tribute videos, special music that’s meaningful to them,” Janssen said.
“Thirty or 40 years ago you would’ve never have thought about bringing in a favorite motorcycle or tossing a saddle over the casket,” Greenwood, who has been at Greenwood-Roberts Funeral Home in Overbrook, since March 15, 1971, said.
“We want to provide a service that is meaningful to them,” Dengel said. “Whatever they desire, we’re there to arrange that.”
“I actually have pre-planned my own funeral. I have certain songs I want that represent me — certain poems, certain quotes,” Janssen said.
“That’s what we do; we try to make every time the most meaningful service possible,” Janssen said.
The business side“I hate the business side,” Travis Farwell, Lamb-Roberts Funeral Home, said. “The business side is very difficult when you are dealing with death.”
At a funeral home, plans have to adapt to the ring of the phone.
“It just depends on what comes through the phone line,” Dengel said.
“A typical day consists of numerous phone calls, heaps of paperwork and good communication with family members planning the services for their loved one,” Benji Hanks, director of Wilson’s Funeral Home, Wellsville, said.
“In addition to that, the preparation of the deceased for viewing by the family and community takes up a great deal of time. Even if a public or private viewing of the remains is not part of the family’s services, preparing the deceased for whatever means of final disposition is time consuming,” she said.
Calls to cemeteries, churches, florists and insurance companies are also part of the job, Janssen said.
“We’ve got several irons in the fire,” Dengel said.
Tough timesDealing with death daily can be hard.
“When someone passes away, there is someone — or many — who experience that loss,” Hanks said. “Sometimes that reality is almost unbearable to the bereaved, and it is difficult to see that pain.”
“You don’t ever get ‘used to’ death,” she said. “I hear that quite frequently. I get asked how long it was before I got used to ‘it.’”
“Although it’s a normal part of life, the feelings associated with a death, loss and grief feel anything but normal,” she said.
“It’s always difficult to hear and see someone in pain. There’s no ‘getting used’ to it,” Hanks, who has been in the business 14 years, said.
A child’s death is the hardest to take, Dengel said.
“Our whole staff struggles with that,” he said. “Probably most people don’t know we’re affected because we’ve learned to mask it so well.”
Farwell is still affected by the services he handled for a 3-year-old girl who succumbed to a battle with cancer in 2007.
“I was amazed how much that little girl affected the community,” he said.
For the viewing her father had built a castle out of cardboard because he had always referred to her as his princess. Pictures of her were placed on the castle and you could see how cancer had affected her as she grew older, Farwell said.
“I have learned a lot from a 3-year-old,” Farwell said.
He said he still has a copy of her memorial service on his refrigerator at home.
“You never stop learning from people.” Farwell said.
“We do this as a community,” Janssen said. “We mourn as a community and we take care of our loved ones as a community.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
