Would the long time owner of three funeral homes (mortician)have any weird personality quirks?

I don’t have qualms about anyone who owns three funeral homes, I would worry more about the guy who volunteers to help with the embalming.

I know three funeral directors and their boss the owner of a third generation Funeral Home. All are pretty normal.

I wouldn’t think so. Perhaps they lack the usual aversion to dead people, but I don’t know if that’s really a “quirk.”

Morticians, forensic pathologists and medical people of all sorts deal with dead people every day. They all have pretty normal personalities although you will find nut cases in every profession.

The only quirks I would anticipate would be a sound talent for operating 3 businesses and a practical accommodation with the realities around death.

I wonder about the folks who do the actual cremation. That would give me nightmares….but I imagine it’s done in such a way that you don’t actually see the body going into the flames.

That’s exactly right. I think a cardboard coffin conceals the corpse as it disappears into the furnace.

I have a friend who for a couple of years earned extra money collecting corpses and delivering them to the mortuary at $150 a pop. He was creeped out at first, but adjusted quickly. Curiously, once he had the job down to a routine, the only thing that brought back the creeps were the rare occasions when the stiff turned out to be someone he knew.

My uncle back in the early 1950’s, while going to school on the GI bill worked odd jobs. One was working for a funeral home. My mom invited him for Sunday afternoon dinner, he said yes. He showed up driving the funeral home’s black Chevy delivery van. We got through with the meal. We sat around for awhile and my uncle looks over at my mom and says, “I guess I should Mr. Jones over to the church for his funeral tomorrow.” My mom almost lost it.

@stanleybmanly “I think a cardboard coffin conceals the corpse as it disappears into the furnace.”
How about the actual (wooden) coffin; would that not keep the body better out of sight?
Cardboard would be gone in seconds, thus exposing the body, I would think?

you can choose to burn an overpriced wooden coffin (and some do), but it would be cheaper to rent an expensive coffin for viewing and religious services then wrap the corpse in layers of $10 dollar bills for burning Witnessing a cremation is not like a public execution. The coffin is transported length wise on a belt to the chamber door where it is transferred to rollers, quickly enters the chamber and the door (or double doors) drop vertically to seal the retort. The heat is so intense that whether very hard wood or cheap cardboard, the floor of the coffin has been consumed by the time the doors close. Since the door to the chamber is not much larger in height or width than a coffin, the viewing glass (if there is one) is relatively small. And the view itself is comparable to staring into a blast furnace.

You would almost think that there must be a buzzing second hand market for coffins.
The insurance I have at the moment barely covers a carton coffin, I think, and they probably have to deliver me with UPC.

There are few industries so necessary, yet so little understood as the funeral business. It would never occur to most people to rent a coffin, and the industry itself vigorously pushed the enactment of measures
outlawing the practice.

We once had a customer of ours from the mower shop buy a coffin from his mother from a damn garage sale.

The funeral homes I’m familiar with are run with personalities more like fine hotels and real estate sales people.

If you act too out of the norm in the funeral industry—even if you are too ‘nice’ and ‘helping professionish’ you will creep people out. You cannot act like a priest, counselor, or mortician in the funeral industry.

Albeit, most funeral homes are very comfortable, comforting places. Best damn cup of coffee in town in most cases. And the historic furniture and flowers and all…

~Not intending to sidetrack your question but thought you might like to watch this delightful little mini doco made by someone I know about make your own coffins

@Aster : ... what particular personality qualities or quirks would you expect them to have…?

1. A passion for gold fossicking using a miniature metal detector

2. An aficionado of rose garden fertilising using an unusual NPK plus combo

3. The ability to keep a straight face

4. An ethereal attraction to black and the diethyl solvent to prove it

5. An avid cork collector

6. A wicked sense of humour and a three headed dog lover

7. Assiduous attention to detail eg. always having change for the toll

8. A somewhat wooden delivery

9. A measured demeanour

10. The last person you want to meet but you do anyway

I dont even know. That’s why I asked. Possibly #10.

I think she just was making a comment on the fact that human nature tells us to avoid death, and to avoid dead people. Does it take a certain kind of person to step willingly into a job where they have to deal with death intimately, every day? I can’t even stand open casket funerals. I will move heaven and earth not to have to walk by, and somehow try to avoid offending others at the same time!

Off topic I know but I thought one of the most apropos funeral home names was one I passed in Houston decades ago. It was called “Dedman Funeral Home”.

@Adagio (the link did not work for me) The priest that performed the wedding ceremony for my wife and I made his own coffin.

Carpentry was his hobby and he custom built it out of oak. He had also equipped it with shelves and used it for books and knick-nacks in his living room until he needed it.

He died in 2009, over thirty years after marrying us and after having moved for several different postings around the state. I wonder if he was actually buried in it.

We have a drug store in town called Grave’s Drugs.