BETHLEHEM, PA - "Basically it’s a person coming through the door on the worst day of their life..."
Death and the business behind it, aren’t just for the boys anymore.
"We always kind of joke here that bad news comes better from a female than it does a male, that we seem to connect with people a little bit better and say things maybe, in a nicer, gentler, way that it makes people feel a little bit more comfortable with everything..."
Felicia Wiedemann is the Funeral Director at Downing Funeral Home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 50 years ago it was unlikely a woman like her would run a funeral home. But today, there are more females than ever before in mortuary management roles.
"There’s definitely still that little wall there," Wiedemann explains, "If I’m going and I have one of my part-time guys with me and we’re standing there to bring someone out of their own home, they will tend to look at the man versus looking at me. And they’ll say, nope, nope, she’s the one in charge and I’m like yeah, I’m going to be the one to meet with you and just kind of politely take over the conversation and they still do tend to look to the man even when my boss is here and I’ve made all the arrangements."
Traditionally, the male-dominated world of funeral services has been a “family” profession with funeral homes being passed down from one generation to the next. Now, having to battle the notion that women are too squeamish or too emotional to deal with death, women like Amy Keller Thomas, who serves as the Funeral Director of Keller Funeral Home in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, have proven not only can women handle death, they can run the business behind it too.
"You don’t say anything, you show them. Honestly, because you can’t convince people with words. So, it was, I’m here, if they wanted to talk to my dad, my dad is not available and you show them that you have the information just as much, you know exactly what’s going on. They kind of can’t deny it after a while. But you have to stay firm. A lot of the people around here that run the church cemeteries, they’re older gentleman. They definitely were not used to it," Keller-Thomas tells PBS39 News Tonight Reporter, K.C. Lopez, "I did have some initial push back; not much--I should say most were wonderful but there were a couple that only wanted to speak with my father and finally, they would go on vacation and it was me, that was it. So, things had to be done and after a while they got used to [it] and now everyone jokes that I’m the one in charge."
Less than 40 years ago, only 5% of funeral directors in the United States were women. Now, close to half (43%) are female and they make up more than 60% of mortuary science students across the country. But what has drawn women to the industry of death? And more importantly, what makes them so good at it?
"Women have been in the background in the preparation of the dead since the beginning of time," says Patricia Werner, "They’ve always been in the compassionate role, I would say, of taking care of the dead, washing, dressing, reposing them. Laying out of the dead has always been something women have been doing. It wasn’t until the Civil War when we starting see embalming in this country, as we know it today, when we had embalmer surgeons. And the embalmer surgeons of that time were men. So of course that took the role of preparing the dead away from the women…"
Patricia Werner is an Assistant Professor in Northampton Community College’s Funeral Service Education Program. She’s been a Funeral Director for 26 years and began teaching here at NCC 8 years ago. But since 2012, the makeup of her classrooms have changed...
"The classroom has changed over those several years and has diversified. When I first began teaching the majority of students were male. They were also from multi-generational funeral homes. Today, the dynamics of the classroom is much different. 70-75 percent of the classroom now is consisting of females interested in pursuing this profession and most of the students, almost all of them, are not from multi-generational funeral home families," says Wener, "The change in the dynamic has been quite refreshing, from my perspective. When I entered the profession, there were women that were Funeral Directors, there have been women Funeral Directors since the turn of the 20th century. But we’re starting now to see that trend change. And it’s refreshing, as I said, but it is also extremely rewarding for me, from my perspective, to be able to help these young students."
As one of only two programs like it in the entire state of Pennsylvania, NCC’s Funeral Service Education program is nationally ranked among the top in the country and is no easy one. NCC’s rigorous program requires student’s study state and federal funeral law so they fully understand the logistics of running a business. From embalming to accounting, and on top of that, there’s the psychology of sorrow.
"We actually have a class that’s called responding to the bereaved. And in that class we take a look at how individuals actually grieve and then we take also a look at how different people groups grieve based on age, their stations in life," Tony Moore explains, "Students take many business courses along with science course to prepare them for the funeral services core. I refer to funeral service core as those courses that are directly related to the profession itself."
Tony Moore is the is the Director of Allied Health and Sciences at NCC. He says the decline of burials and the rise of cremation has celebration of life type events replacing traditional funerals. And with less Americans affiliated with houses of worship, funeral directors are now stepping in to manage event timelines and multitask several parts of end-of-life goodbyes. Having communication skills, compassion, and a desire to comfort those coping with death while balancing organizational and event-planning skills is what Keller Thomas says, makes women the new face of “deathcare.”
"There are so many little things that go on behind the scenes and during services that so many people don’t realize--they don’t realize how many hours really go into a service," Keller-Thomas explains, "It’s finding luncheon places, finding caterers, helping organize all of that even if it’s not here we participate often in places that might want to just have it at a fire hall and have a celebration of life or something like that."
Both Keller-Thomas and Wiedemann are NCC graduates. And while their studies here in Bethlehem have lead them to running their own funeral homes today, it’s their unique upbringing, experiences and intuitions that have caused them to thrive in this unusual industry. For Wiedemann, that means being one of two funeral homes in the state to have a certified therapy dog on-site. The Allentown native says being open-minded to the changing needs of families lead her to train Ketchup to join the nationally recognized Alliance of Therapy Dogs.
"I can see when ketchup is reacting towards someone in that positive manner of hey, you know, that person wants to see me, Wiedemann tells Lopez, "We go and do different visits at local places, hospitals and nursing homes and stuff. I think people are a little more open to a woman walking in to a room and saying hi, would you like to see a therapy dog and so that happens when we are out and about and in the funeral home."
For Amy Keller-Thomas, the friendships and sisterhood formed during her studies helped her build relationships and connect with people; two skills a good funeral director needs to be successful and two skills most women naturally thrive at.
"We really all connected," says Keller-Thomas, "We would all do things outside of class together, even though we were all different ages; there were some that were just starting college, there were people that were ten years older than me at the time. But we just had this common connection and we really got along well inside and outside of school."
But in all, the women we spoke with agreed on one main thing; a funeral director’s job is to help those dealing with grief. Something women are naturally great at and these female Funeral Directors are ready to put the old idea that women are too sensitive or too emotional to run a Funeral Home, to rest.