My dad is in memory care and has recently been placed on hospice. He is living close to me, but he would like his funeral to take place in his home town (which is over an hour away). Does anyone have an recommendations on what to look for in a local funeral home?
Do you want a wake? Need to schedule time in the evening before the actual funeral for people to view the deceased and talk with you and other family members.
Do you want a casket with a prepared body present? Then, you will need to have a mortuary prepare the body for viewing and move it to where the funeral/memorial is taking place.
Do you want the body cremated? Look for cremation services before or after the funeral/memorial. Ask about delivery of the remains and decide what you will do with the remains.
Do you just need a service? You can have a funeral, memorial, or celebration of life any place that makes you feel like you honored your loved one and gives you peace. It can be in a funeral home, a place of worship, outdoors...
Another option? Check out tissue donations. You can donate organs for transplant. You can also donate tissues for research. In the case of tissue research, the organization collects the body of the deceased, removes the tissues needed for research, cremates the remains, and sends the remains to the family/next of kin - usually at no or very low cost.
You can check with the local one or the one where he wants his funeral and see what arrangements can be made.
No matter what funeral home you chose they are going to charge you by the mile for transport.
One big issue with doing death planning is that most often a funeral home DOES NOT ALSO own the cemetery for where the burial will be. So there actually are 2 costs but you are only dealing directly with the FH. The FH can deal with the pickup, transpo to FH, embalming, visitation/Celebration of Life, noticed in the papers, memorial cards, doing entry to Legacy.com, filing of death certificates BUT there will be a whole other series of costs & regulations related to the cemetery. So if you want a turnkey/ coordinated funeral and burial with 1 invoice, you have to pick one that does both. They are usually called “Memorial Park and Funeral Home”. A quick Google show 2 big ones in OR; both have several gorgeous acres; 1 was a former farm & the other is a whopping 400+ ac. Betcha either will drive over to wherever to provide their services.
The separate burial charges you especially see for Catholic burials as their cemeteries owned by the Archdiocese. Ages ago this was part of being a member of a parish, but not nowadays. Will have costs for their own ground prep, regulations for headstone and which firms are authorized, fee for opening the cemetery or opening a vault, maybe even maintenance fees. Families can be gobsmacked by all this.
Make a post similar to:
"ISO Funeral home recommendations"
You will instantly get all sorts of first-hand experiences and info (and places to stay away from).
Will save you time and effort. It's how I start researching most things local to me.
If you have a trusted facility in your own area they will also often be able to recommend. We have chosen two ourselves given we are 82 and 84 respectively, using the recommendations from across the state when my brother's cremation was so beautifully handled. Not only could they recommend for my area, but had specific people for me to talk to.
Good luck.
Speak with friends in that area, also, if there are still contacts who know dad.
I think NYS recently passed a law on funeral homes doing this , I read they did anyways.
So sorry for what you and your family are going through