By Ashley McCarty
In this week’s edition of “Unsung Heroes,” we unmask the macabre mystery of a funeral director with Bob Wallace of the Wallace-Thompson Funeral Home and Todd Calvert of the Thompson-Meeker Funeral Home.
Wallace has been a funeral director for 34 long years.
“It goes back to when I was really young. We have changed the funeral home configuration out here, but my mother and her two sisters used do live singing back before the tapes and CD’s, everything we have now, and I used to sit in a little cubby-hole here while her and her sisters sang. I have family that’s in this business and we grew up friends with the previous owner’s children. So, I’ve been around it since a really young age, and it just kind of evolved in through family and association,” said Wallace.
While education requirements have changed in those 34 years, today an individual must have a bachelor’s degree, or obtain one while going to mortuary school.
“So, basically, you have to get an associate’s degree — which is what I did at Southern State Community College — then you go to a program which I believe now is three semesters down at the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science. So, you go through their program, and if you don’t have it prior, you will come out of there with a bachelor’s degree in science,” said Wallace.
After you complete their course, a national board exam is taken, wherein upon passing, an apprenticeship at a funeral home is required for one year.
“At the end of that year, you apply and you take a state board exam which is basically operating facilities and laws in the particular state that you’re in. After passing the state test, then you’re issued a license. So, I guess by today, from start to finish it will be about five years,” said Wallace.
Every two years after a funeral director must take continuing education.
“[The process] starts with there being a death somewhere. Let’s say it would be at the hospital. The family would tell whoever is in charge which funeral home they’re going to use. At that time, the hospital will call us, whether it’s 2 p.m. today, or 2 o’clock in the morning. We go and pick up the body at the hospital,” said Wallace.
The director must then assess if the deceased will have a service with a viewing, or a cremation.
“If they’re going to have a service with viewing, then we would do the embalming, because in Ohio to have a service with viewing you must be embalmed to be in contact with the public,” said Wallace.
A funeral director is no stranger to sleep loss.
“So, if you receive a call at two or 3 a.m., by the time you get there and get all of it done, it’s basically time to start the next day, which you do. Then, we’ll make a phone call to meet up with the family and we’ll have them come in and make arrangements. We’ll get all the vital statistics and everything to generate the death certificate, then we have the information for death notices and things we put in the paper. Then we make all the phone calls for cemeteries, ministers, newspapers, flowers, anything that we either provide here or purchase for them outside of here,” said Wallace.
All of the arrangements are made, and after that is done — which is normally the next day — the body is prepared; from dressing, makeup and hair-styling, before being placed in the casket. The following day, services such as visitation and funeral are performed, and the deceased transferred to the cemetery.
The most important part of being a funeral director for Wallace is making sure the services honor the individual, be it religion or hobby; whatever was important to them.
“Trying to create the funeral service that they want, and try to be able to give them all of your attention to small details, to little subtle things that I think is what makes the difference. Especially, I think for myself being here in a small town versus a funeral home in the big city, down there they work in shifts like any other job, but what sets me apart is when you call here, you either get me or my secretary; you meet with me, I do all the work, I do all the services with you, I go from start to finish, and you have me and my staff. In the city, you may meet me today, someone else tomorrow, and someone else may do the service, whereas out here it’s me from beginning to end,” said Wallace.
Being the only director, Wallace said he couldn’t operate without the staff that he has.
“I’m the only licensed director here, and I have staff that helps me. I have the best staff that anybody could have,” he said.
The most difficult services for Wallace to perform are teen suicides, or accidental overdose.
“Anything that has to do with teenagers and extremely young adults. When there’s a death like that, be it accidental or otherwise, those parents or grandparents most of the time are all still living and it kind of undoes the natural part of death where grandparents pass, then your parents, then yourself and then your children. It seems to break the break the chain of events. They are extremely stressful,” said Wallace.
Being a funeral director, Wallace has seen interesting things, especially how different people deal with death.
“Death seems to affect so many different people in so many different ways, and I think one of the interesting things is how I can adapt my personality; to being very professional, or my country self depending on how you perceive and how they’re taking the death in their family,” said Wallace.
Over the years, he has seen the funeral business evolve; from rising popularity in cremations, to even technology. On those late night calls, when GPS had yet to be invented, they kept phone books, county maps and flashlights, which made navigating those unfamiliar country roads an interesting venture.
One of the simplest but most convenient advancements in the industry has been call-forwarding and cellular service.
“Used to, we had to have 24-hour telephone service, now that we can call-forward a phone call — and cell service certainly — those things now allow us to have some freedom,” said Wallace.
Though being a funeral director, one is never fully alleviated from their duty.
“I know me and my wife, even now, if we were coming to your house for Thanksgiving, we would come in separate cars because I get called away all the time. You probably know when you’re going to have Christmas dinner with your family, and you’re probably going to stay there a while, but myself, we have to get up and go if our cell phone or the funeral home phone rings. It doesn’t matter if your kid is graduating high school — or at least with me where I’m here by myself — it doesn’t matter if your three-year-old granddaughter is having a birthday party and she’s ready to blow out the candles. If the the phone rings, off I go; but, I guess phone technology is probably, to me, given me more freedom and more change than anything,” said Wallace.
Wallace is now in his 60s, and while he hadn’t thought about retirement, he acknowledges he is getting older and beginning to ponder the idea.
“I’m concerned about what’s going to happen to my businesses, which I have one here in Peebles, Seaman, and Winchester; I’m concerned that we’re having trouble finding licensed help, and so if I can’t find help, how am I going to find a buyer? I guess my biggest concern is what’s going to happen when I’m gone,” said Wallace.
Wallace said corporations are beginning to buy up funeral homes.
“I don’t know if you’ll get the personal service that I try to provide versus corporate funeral homes with multiple directors and how they will treat people here in the county. Most of the services I have here, I know the families. A lot of them for three generations, and they’ll bring outsiders and I just don’t know what will happen. That’s probably my biggest concern is I want it to continue on — and I’m not saying I’m the world’s greatest funeral director — but I try to give it myself and be personal, and I keep my money here in the county. I buy local and I shop local, and I just don’t know what will happen when I’m no longer able to continue on,” said Wallace.
In West Union, Calvert has had his own successful career as a director. In February of 2021, he will have been a funeral director for 23 years.
“Basically, it started, both my parents were teachers, and at the time the teaching field was not a field to get into. I had done some work with Dave Wilson at Wilson Funeral Home in Manchester, and I just liked the way he did things. He was his own boss, could come and go and yet you were busy and on call, so I just decided that was the route I wanted to take instead of being a teacher,” said Calvert.
Similarly to Wallace, Calvert has his own difficulties with child services, admitting they are the hardest to perform. For all families, though, Calvert makes sure they are satisfied and happy with the services rendered.
“My goal when families come in is to try and make it as easy as I can on the families, take all the burden off of them that I can, do anything I can to make their time during the loss a little bit easier, being able to cope with it a little better I guess, to have their closure that they need. I feel like, if anything I can do that makes it easier for a family, and it takes pressure off of them, and that they can say goodbye to their loved ones, then I’ve done my job,” said Calvert.
Calvert extends his gratitude to the community.
“I want to thank the people of our area for giving me the opportunity to do this. Without them coming to the funeral home, and letting us do their services for them, I wouldn’t have a job. To me it’s a great honor to be able to serve the families, and I hope I’m doing it the best I can, and I hope everybody is happy with what I’m doing,” said Calvert.
