Step Into Our Lives At The Funeral Home

Author : Jo Michaelson
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1351841602
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Step Into Our Lives at the Funeral Home written by Jo Michaelson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people are curious about what goes on behind the scenes at a funeral home. Add a live-in family to this scenario, and you'll Step Into Our Lives at the Funeral Home. Shh! Be quiet! There's someone at the door! Don't ever talk about anything you have seen or heard concerning someone's death outside the walls of our home. Mourning families need to know they can trust our integrity and our ability to keep confidentiality. For the author's family, these admonitions were ingrained in the children's minds at an early age. This book gives an insightful view of every facet of the funeral, from the time a death call is received until the funeral is completed. Stories of days in the ambulance business in conjunction with the funeral home are also related. The funeral director's role, the spouse's role, the children's role, and how the children thrived in an atmosphere of death are shared with the reader. How funeral directors cope with stress and how wives cope with their husbands during these times are revealed. Years later, following a tragic death, three people look back and share their stories of moving from despair to recovery. Interspersed through every chapter are stories and vignettes shared by many funeral directors throughout the Midwest, concerning the lifestyle for the family living in the funeral home and true incidents of specific funerals. Some stories are sad. Others are tragic. A few are humorous. Embracing faith, hope, and love is a primary requisite for healing. Intended audience: General readers of all ages, funeral home directors, hospice patients, mortuary students, and people who have had a loved one die by natural means or tragedy.

Author : Caleb Wilde
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062465260
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Confessions of a Funeral Director written by Caleb Wilde and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying

Author : Suzanne E. Smith
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674036215
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book To Serve the Living written by Suzanne E. Smith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From antebellum slavery to the twenty-first century, African American funeral directors have orchestrated funerals or “homegoing” ceremonies with dignity and pageantry. As entrepreneurs in a largely segregated trade, they were among the few black individuals in any community who were economically independent and not beholden to the local white power structure. Most important, their financial freedom gave them the ability to support the struggle for civil rights and, indeed, to serve the living as well as bury the dead. During the Jim Crow era, black funeral directors relied on racial segregation to secure their foothold in America’s capitalist marketplace. With the dawning of the civil rights age, these entrepreneurs were drawn into the movement to integrate American society, but were also uncertain how racial integration would affect their business success. From the beginning, this tension between personal gain and community service shaped the history of African American funeral directing. For African Americans, death was never simply the end of life, and funerals were not just places to mourn. In the “hush harbors” of the slave quarters, African Americans first used funerals to bury their dead and to plan a path to freedom. Similarly, throughout the long—and often violent—struggle for racial equality in the twentieth century, funeral directors aided the cause by honoring the dead while supporting the living. To Serve the Living offers a fascinating history of how African American funeral directors have been integral to the fight for freedom.

Author : Kate Mayfield
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476757283
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Undertaker's Daughter written by Kate Mayfield and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-01-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman describes what it was like growing up in a small town funeral home in Kentucky, where her alcoholic, cheating father was the undertaker during the segregated and tumultuous 1960s. 50,000 first printing.

Author : Mitch Albom
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307414094
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tuesdays with Morrie written by Mitch Albom and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-06-29 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A special 25th anniversary edition of the beloved book that has changed millions of lives with the story of an unforgettable friendship, the timeless wisdom of older generations, and healing lessons on loss and grief—featuring a new afterword by the author “A wonderful book, a story of the heart told by a writer with soul.”—Los Angeles Times “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was his college professor Morrie Schwartz. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn’t you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live. “The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie’s lasting gift with the world.

Author : Gary Laderman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199881243
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rest in Peace written by Gary Laderman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-03-06 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though it has often been passionately criticized--as fraudulent, exploitative, even pagan--the American funeral home has become nearly as inevitable as death itself, an institution firmly embedded in our culture. But how did the funeral home come to hold such a position? What is its history? And is it guilty of the charges sometimes leveled against it? In Rest in Peace, Gary Laderman traces the origins of American funeral rituals, from the evolution of embalming techniques during and after the Civil War and the shift from home funerals to funeral homes at the turn of the century, to the increasing subordination of priests, ministers, and other religious figures to the funeral director throughout the twentieth century. In doing so he shows that far from manipulating vulnerable mourners, as Jessica Mitford claimed in her best-selling The American Way of Death (1963), funeral directors are highly respected figures whose services reflect the community's deepest needs and wishes. Indeed, Laderman shows that funeral directors generally give the people what they want when it is time to bury our dead. He reveals, for example, that the open casket, often criticized as barbaric, provides a deeply meaningful moment for friends and family who must say goodbye to their loved one. But he also shows how the dead often come back to life in the popular imagination to disturb the peace of the living. Drawing upon interviews with funeral directors, major historical events like the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Rudolf Valentino, films, television, newspaper reports, proposals for funeral reform, and other primary sources, Rest in Peace cuts through the rhetoric to show us the reality--and the real cultural value--of the American funeral.

Author : Suzanne E. Smith
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674267443
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book To Serve the Living written by Suzanne E. Smith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From antebellum slavery to the twenty-first century, African American funeral directors have orchestrated funerals or “homegoing” ceremonies with dignity and pageantry. As entrepreneurs in a largely segregated trade, they were among the few black individuals in any community who were economically independent and not beholden to the local white power structure. Most important, their financial freedom gave them the ability to support the struggle for civil rights and, indeed, to serve the living as well as bury the dead. During the Jim Crow era, black funeral directors relied on racial segregation to secure their foothold in America’s capitalist marketplace. With the dawning of the civil rights age, these entrepreneurs were drawn into the movement to integrate American society, but were also uncertain how racial integration would affect their business success. From the beginning, this tension between personal gain and community service shaped the history of African American funeral directing. For African Americans, death was never simply the end of life, and funerals were not just places to mourn. In the “hush harbors” of the slave quarters, African Americans first used funerals to bury their dead and to plan a path to freedom. Similarly, throughout the long—and often violent—struggle for racial equality in the twentieth century, funeral directors aided the cause by honoring the dead while supporting the living. To Serve the Living offers a fascinating history of how African American funeral directors have been integral to the fight for freedom.

Author : Ralph R. Rossell
Publisher : Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1457557010
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Life of Death written by Ralph R. Rossell and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing up, living in, and working in a small-town funeral home may not be for everyone, but it certainly means life is never dull. Ralph was born the month his father and mother moved to Flushing, Michigan, to work in his uncle’s funeral home. Dinners and sleep interrupted by calls from families were a common occurrence, but so were the heart-warming moments helping grieving families. The Life of Death is a collection of stories about Ralph’s memories of the funeral home, both growing up and then working there as a licensed funeral director for more than 45 years. His tales range from the ironic, such as a widow learns of a secret windfall only after selling the item at a garage sale, to the inspired, when a hard-hearted minister gets an earful about preaching to those who need it and reaches out to the family. Ralph includes humorous stories: a power outage that causes a minister to be late to the funeral of a man who was never on time, a family concerned about the smell of smoke that later requests an area to smoke cigarettes, and a funeral service that is over almost before it begins. And the book would not be complete without a few paranormal experiences. Step through the doors of the funeral home via Ralph’s memory for an unforgettable glimpse into small-town life, the business of funerals, and the very human responses to the mysteries of death.

Author : Deborah DeMatthews
Publisher : AuthorHouse
ISBN 13 : 1456716131
Total Pages : 127 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Life Love Loss written by Deborah DeMatthews and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Mother who's life that came crashing down around her in a blink of an eye!!! A Mother's Worst Nightmare....How does a Mother continue to go on living her everyday life, when her beloved son Joseph, was ripped right out of her heart and life......... My Life With My Son Nothing is Stronger than a Mother's Love I cannot believe when I look up at you, and see a beautiful man that use to be my little boy. I am always in awe, when I see the changes in you, but yet it saddens me because that part of my life is over. Yet all the memories that I have, will still bring all the laughter, and this warmness in my heart, and I will always have tears in my eyes. Since you where a baby up until present time, you have always given me so much joy, and so many gifts, that I cannot even count. I dont think you ever realized all the ones you gave me that where from within. We made so many memories together, but the love you gave me, was something so special it will last a lifetime.

Author : V G Rev Fr Richard a Ege
Publisher : FriesenPress
ISBN 13 : 1460212916
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Finding My Way to Salvation written by V G Rev Fr Richard a Ege and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about our changing world -- the Spiritual content is the important aspect. Finding Truth and migrating to a thought process which helps us to move away from the avarice and greed -- so prevalent today. Understanding the wiles and wickedness of the devil perhaps we can incorporate a true faith that will aid and assist us on our pilgrimage here below. Incorporating the teachings of the Church Fathers and our Lord Jesus Christ -- may we find our way back to that happiness and zeal through a greater understanding of God, Jesus and Mary.