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[Theme song] This path will lead you to an unholy place, a cemetery [music instrumental]
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Hi and welcome to, Beyond the Grave. I'm Anna Swenson
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and I'm Haley White. This is the inaugural episode of our podcast and we are
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so delighted to share our love for all things spooky, and
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maybe you'll also find it interesting. In today's episode we wanted to highlight
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a conversation we recently had with a funeral director and also just
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like to work in that environment. So Anna, when you think of a funeral director
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what is the image that pops into your mind? Usually I think of
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like an older person, maybe a man or woman kinda decrepit-looking with white hair,
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might be a vampire. [laughter and wheezing] That's pretty accurate
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honestly; however, this wasn't the case with Jake Halstead who is a funeral director
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at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. Jake is the opposite of what
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you would envision a stereotypical funeral director to be like:
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first off he's younger in age, he has a wonderful personality, and an overwhelmingly great
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sense of humor. His passion for his career is inspiring and in our conversation
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with him it really really showed. In this episode will cover how we came
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into this profession funny stories the lifestyle of a funeral director and
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shows thoughts on cremains floating in outer space. What's up Elon Musk! Before
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we go on, we would like to preface this podcast episode with a cautionary warning due to some intense details
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and sensitive topics in regards to death. We hope you stick around and
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enjoy!
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Typically what is your general lifestyle like? This job isn't just
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you know, a nine to five job, it's actually more of a lifestyle. So that's one thing that I've
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found that for people coming into this career. They're like " Oh you know I'm gonna work at a funeral home you know nine
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to five and hang out with you know cool you know tell my friends I'm a mortician
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well actually yeah that's part of it and you get that title and you know you can earn that and some people
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think it's weird some people think it's respectful but it's
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not just something you come to work and you go home and enjoy normal life. I can't come here and meet
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family and then go out drinking at the bars around here and make a fool of myself because I might have just served
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one of those families that I'm out drinking with now. Or if I make a fool of myself
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or I'm just being dumb in public, I have to keep in mind that I might be seeing
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this person tomorrow for their deceased loved one. We're on-call twenty four hours
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a day every day of the year there's no such thing is a really true day off
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for anyone in the funeral business. So what do those on-call hours look like?
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So it's all situational, so obviously you can't really
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control when, where, or how someone passes, at least not in the state of Indiana.
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So say it's 2 in the morning, I'll get a call on my cell phone
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from our answering service saying "hey Jake there's been a passing" and then they'll
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text me the information. Of course. So they'll send me everything they've gathered
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from whoever has called them in. However it is tough for a funeral director to go
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out and removal at 2 a.m. and then to meet the family the next morning
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with you know, no sleep. So that's how the smaller funeral homes operate. At Crown
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Hill like I said, thankfully I don't have to do that. We have a transfer team so I'm able to go ahead
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and talk to the family over the phone at night, send out our transfer team to pick up the deceased,
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and bring into them our care. Then I can continue to get my rest come in the morning and be fully
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rejuvenated to meet that family. When you've gone out on these removals, what is that like?
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It's different each time like I said every case is different
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and it's really kind of a humbling experience.
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First off, you're being let into someone's house that you've never met before so these
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people are trusting you, and they've never met me all they know is
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that I work for the funeral home. You walk in and then you introduce yourself
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and then you just kinda talk to them, and you don't want to jump right into "alright you know, where are
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they? Let's go pick them up?" At least that's not how I do it
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or recommend people to do that. [laughter] Typically you would walk in, introduce yourself,
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and then find out who the next of kin is, or who the person who made the phone call is because sometimes
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the spouse they might not even want to talk to you. They're just
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like "Hey call the funeral home and you guys just handle it." So really it just depends.
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Typically it's a very quiet time. Unless it was
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expected or that the person has been sick for a while. Sometimes we call those
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a blessing in disguise. If someone's been terminally ill or something, really that
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passing is kind of a blessing for everybody. The person the longer in pain or anything
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and you can definitely tell the difference between those families when you first walk in and get there because they're more like "Hi
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nice to meet you!" but for the ones where it's kinda unexpected or
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if they've been married for
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sixty or seventy years, in those cases it's more just kinda
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like the person is just lost and you're there to guide them when you can.
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It's really humbling experience. You have to go into a different mindset too,
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say it's one where it's unexpected, which is usually the case, you can't allow yourself
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to feel like the sadness that you're surrounded by because they're
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they're looking at you for direction they're looking at you "Okay. What happens next
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what do we do?" and yeah you can be empathetic but
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you don't wanna be sympathetic. If you become sympathetic, which is not a bad thing,
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but you're going to be just as sad and as lost as these people you're serving. However
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if you're empathetic, you understand what they're going through and you're able to help coordinate
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and direct them, then that's a whole new experience with the family. They're able to pick up on
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and be like "That funeral director was as emotional as us." But if you're there and help guide and
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direct them. That's more of a "Oh wow that director really helped us through this
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process and really made it a smooth transition for us."
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So, it's kind of odd to be in this business. How did
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you get into it? So I actually started when I was
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in high school. My grandfather was making his pre- arrangements. He had pancreatic
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cancer and the funeral director came out to the house that's down in Mooresville, Indiana.
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Anyway I just happen to be helping him with yard work, you know being the nice little grandson
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that I was, and he paid me. [laughter] Bu I came in to get some water and overheard
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the conversations that they were having and I was like, "Well that's interesting!" I got curious.
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So I went and sat down and listened to what the funeral director and my grandfather were saying and
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at the end of it, I started asking questions. And then the funeral director was like "Well Jake, do you have your driver's license?"
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"Yes sir." "Do you have a job this summer?" And I said "No sir." "Well would you want to come work for me?" Then I said "Okay
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sir." That was really my first ever job ever, working for the senior home.
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So he (the funeral director) saw what I was doing with the landscaping. And so that was my first
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job at the funeral home. I was doing the landscaping and the flowers and also taking care of all the maintenance
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and everything. Then essentially they then actually worked me indoors to where I was then helping out on visitations and services, you know
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being a greeter. From there, I then started helping out what we call the removal transfers.
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Then I start helping out in what's called the preparation room, or the embalming room. I'm getting
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experience there, didn't embalm or anything but I just kind of helped
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with dressing and stuff like that. Stuff that you don't have an embalmer's license for.
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Then after that I just kinda took off with it. I start jumping around
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looking for different funeral homes. I got picked up by the biggest one
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in Indiana actually. They helped me get through school and did my internship
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with them and eventually left there. Now when you're
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meeting people for the first time, or hanging out acquaintances how do
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they react when they find out that you're a funeral director? I get a lot of different
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responses. Usually I'm out with friends or something and they're introducing me to their friends or meeting
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new people. They never guess that I'm a funeral director. That's like the last thing they would guess
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and a lot of that too is because the industry is changing and we're just now starting to see a lot of the younger people
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in there closer to my age come in and start you know being funeral directors. A lot of people at least in
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my experience, when they think of a funeral director they think of the old white haired or gray haired man
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or woman that kind of is little creepy and weird. Then when people meet me they're like "Oh well we meet you Jake and you're like
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happy!" [laughter] Yeah you know I'm a normal person I just work in a funeral home.
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Yeah it's changed my family conversation and they comment on how our dinner conversations have changed. Our
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dinner conversations changed once I got into the business because then you know you can share
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stories and be like "Oh this happened today and oh my gosh you know this happens."
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So what are some of the dinner conversations? So this is when I was working at Flanner
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; there was a younger child that passed away and his
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family didn't want him to be alone in the funeral home overnight. So they did the traditional,
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what we call, visitation service. So since again the family didn't want the child to
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be alone, I had to stay the night. I didn't have to but I was given the opportunity
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to stay the night at the funeral home with the child. I stayed in the same room
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as him all night and just brought up the couch and slept .about two feet away from him
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The family came in the next morning and I was still asleep. [laughter] They didn't want to bother
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waking me up, which I'm still upset about to this day but I didn't fall asleep until
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you know midnight just because those couches weren't the most comfortable, but the family appreciated
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so much that you know I stayed at the funeral home and did that for them. They actually live around where I live
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now and if I see them in the grocery store, they'll come up and be like, "Jake! How are you doing?" And
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actually a majority of the families where they see you outside of work, they will usually come out and just be like
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"Hey how are you doing? It's nice to see you somewhere outside of the funeral home." Additionally,
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do any of those dinner conversations that you have with your friends or family
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and include ghosts? Do you believe in ghosts? Honestly I don't really have an answer to that because
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there's some stuff that personally I have experienced
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but I'll try to logically be like "Okay this happened because of this." Then sometimes
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there are times where I don't believe that was the case. There's been times when I've been at certain cemeteries
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and then you can hear your name being called and think that it is kinda weird.
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I've only had that happen twice and one of the cemeteries was down in Kentucky but there was no one
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present that would have known my name, other than the family and they were all gone. So it was just kinda like a weird
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situation. There was one instance where sometimes we'll listen
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to the radio while dressing people or doing a transfer
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and have soft music playing. Well there's one instance when we were getting someone ready and
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you know Marilyn Manson? Well that artist
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came on the radio. The person we were getting ready was like a hardcore Catholic,
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and this never happened before, but all of a sudden the power to the radio shut off as soon as
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this Marilyn Manson guy started singing, the electricity started having issues in the room and we
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literally like all kinda freaked out. Like "Woah what's going on?" and
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we couldn't get the radio to work or anything after that. Then after we had the person
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fully dressed and out of the room where they're supposed to be, the next day
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we had no issues with the radio and we never had any other issues with it ever again after that. So it's
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kinda just like we all got this feeling like "Wow this person really did
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not want that music playing." [laughter] How has working in this industry
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affected you? What it did for me at least was it made everyone
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equal. So at an early age, because you know in high school you got your cliques and all that kinda
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stuff, but especially again with me doing this as early as I did kinda became
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a loner. I would sit back and I see that all these groups of people that would
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conform together. You know you have your jocks over there, your skaters over here, and
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I was just an early age it opened my eyes to know that we're all just kids. Like, there's
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no difference and I wouldn't know why these guys are even are arguing about. It just kind of made a lot of
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material things just seems insignificant. What makes this job worth it for you?
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I love meeting new people! That's one of the aspects, is you know you get to meet
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hundreds if not thousands of people every year. The big thing for me
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is when you are finished with the services and you lay someone to rest,
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know you get people coming in and doing funeral arrangements that are going through all different types of stages
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of grief. So if they're in anger stages. I have been called an asshole,
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soulless, heartless, but that's just them again
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in the anger moment and the same people that call me these names, at the end of
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the process, they're the ones giving you a hug afterward saying thank you or apologizing.
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The men usually don't apologize but they'll shake your hand and say "You get did good." [laughter]
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That's the big thing, most rewarding thing is that the end, is where,
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especially if they're like cussing you out during the arrangements, you gotta learn just to take with a grain of salt
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and not cuss them back out. [laughter] But
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you know they're going through a rough time and you gotta put yourself in their shoes. Like I said, be empathetic
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and just remember what it was like for you when you lost your loved one and then kinda you know just go with it.
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I guess the majority the time though most people give you a hug and it just really
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reaffirms why you're in this business and it's to help these people through one of the worst times in their lives.
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I like to make people smile and laugh and with the arrangements,
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you know how to judge the room and see. With some families you can joke around with and not like fully
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or make snide comments or if they start teasing
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you a little bit you know you can banter back and forth. My icebreaker is just "My name is Jake."
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They always bring up the Jake from State Farm. I mean, sometimes I do wear khakis. So that plays
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right along with that and I can usually judge right off the get go if someone says "Oh Jake! from State Farm!"
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and if they look at my pants and they're like "Oh you're wearing khakis!" then I can automatically tell that this is a family
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that I can be a little more loose with and I can probably build more of a little more relationship right off
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the bat and just make it kind of like this lighthearted arrangement. Then you have the ones
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are like "Okay we wanna get done and get this over with." and those ones you have to adjust and again,
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meet their needs because there is nothing wrong with them wanting to do that. I just
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naturally want to go ahead and make them laugh and smile. But for that person,
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the best thing for me to do would be to not do that and just to help them get through this as quickly as possible.
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Has your grandfather passed? He has. I was actually at Indiana State University
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studying grief psychology when he passed. So originally
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when I graduated high school and I left that small town funeral home. I went over to Indiana State and
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I wanted to get my psychology degree so I could do funeral directing and offer grief
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counseling. However I learned I could get my mortuary degree
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in half the time I could get my psychology degree. I was like shoot, I'll just go ahead and get
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my mortuary degree and then if I want to go back in school to finish up my psychology degree
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I'll just use the funds I make from being a funeral director to do that. So while I was at ISU was
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when he passed during my freshman year of college.
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So about seven or eight years ago now.
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Well it was rough. Personally just because was it my grandfather and I was really close with him and I felt
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horrible that I wasn't there because I just saw him the day before and I could have stayed
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because he died on a weekend. But I went back to go to a party at ISU and he told me to go back and
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so just for me personally I was like wow, like I could've been there when he passed but instead I was being
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stupid. That for me made it
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real hard and actually I still regret that to this day but when I came back
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to help with the services, so they did use the funeral home where he had made prearrangements for,
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and they let me help coordinate the service: let me close the casket and let
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me do a lot of kinda behind-the-scenes work,
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which was awesome just to have that experience and know that be able to see that
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from the very beginning to the end is that my grandfather was well taken care of.
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I will say though during the visitation I kind of just went numb
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everywhere, which most people and most families do anyway when they were close.
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After I initially want numb I went to work mode. I didn't want to sit there with people saying "Oh Jake we're so sorry for your loss."
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So instead I was like, my grandfather is just around the corner here.
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I actually ended up being more of a greeter during the visitation service just because that felt like
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the natural thing for me. If I did sit down,
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I would start getting all antsy and that's when all the emotions you know would pick
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up and then I would start greeting again. Did your background studying psychology
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in university help at all with the passing of your grandfather. Well
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that was another thing. I could tell what was happening and what I was going
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through and instead of just dealing with it, I was it was like no I don't I don't wanna deal
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with it, I'm just gonna internalize it and work. I did a great job of that until the end
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of the service. When people started passing by the casket one last time, I lost it.
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I just bawled like right in public front of this huge church and
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it was kind of embarrassing looking back just because like I had I thought
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like I'd been the strong one for my entire family the whole time because they had been coming to me for questions and
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organizing stuff. Then you know at the end is when it just
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became overwhelming and just kinda hit me all once like a tidal wave. Once we got out the cemetery
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I was back to normal. I think
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it helped with learning psychology and working in the funeral business you
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get really good at internalizing things. So like
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even in my personal life something can really tick me off or really upset me but you'll never
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know just because I'm so adept at not showing emotions or anything.
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For these families you can't. So like if the family says something that really offends
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me, which really nothing should offend any of us because we're funeral directors and
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we're exposed to everything. [laughter] But if someone did say something that was very offensive, you just have to
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internalize that. You can't you know say the same thing to that person because they're going through a rough time and
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you don't know the story. You know how people are like "You don't know me." Well clearly we
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don't know you. So if you were to say something and it angered me, I'm not gonna
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tell that to you because I'm helping you through one of the worst times in your life.
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And I might not agree with your opinion but I'm not gonna voice that. I just say okay and move on. [laughter]
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So what do you do to cool off after a long day of funeral directing?
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Actually I have walked the entire length of the cemetery. It took me about two hours
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just so I did like the outer part. We do a lot of like 5ks and stuff there here so
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that's fun to do too. So there is a grave out there that has two broomsticks
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that are stuck into the ground on either side and I'm trying to figure out what the story is on
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that. Usually that's either for someone that wiccan or something
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some kind of faith. There's interesting sights you can see from people putting
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memorial items on their graves. So this is kind of a funny question but have
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you seen any peculiar people around the cemetery? Ones that you call the cops
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on? Well during the race day (Indy 500) we did get some peculiar people out here that
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apparently thought the race and the parties were here in the cemetery. [laughter] But again everyone
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you know grieves and celebrates life differently. So these people they
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were at the person's gravesite who they lost a loved one for and it was raining
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outside. I remember this because I was driving by and I was like "what the --?" they had a bunch of beer and I thought it was Natural Light
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they were drinking and they were taking their shirts off and dancing around this grave and I was just like, okay whatever.
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You see some interesting stuff out here. There are some crazies that come through but that's just anywhere you work really.
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What do you even do for those people? Well
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entertain their questions and do anything you can for them. So I'm lucky
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in the sense like I said the senior home and the cemetery are separate entities. So if they're
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asking me cemetery questions, which they usually are, I don't have the answers anyway. So I just kinda
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just redirect them to someone on the cemetery side of things. [laughter] like "Oh someone at the information desk will help you. Okay. Goodbye."
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[laughter] So how do you think people cope, or even you cope
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with being in this professions since perhaps it's maybe emotionally
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taxing? So there's a lot of drinking for funeral
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directors. There's actually a lot of companies even too, that
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one of the highest problems with funeral directors, is alcoholism. However
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personally, I like to do walks. I just bought my first house back in July.
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That's where I get a lot of my emotions out just working around the house and doing landscaping.
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Was this lifestyle working as a funeral director and the funeral business hard
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to adjust to? It was at first. You kinda get used to it after a minute.
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It always changes to cause then if we get like a heavy caseload, I might not get
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that day off and then okay, well I'll take this day off instead and well if we're then still busy you just don't get that
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day off. So it's affected my personal life a lot when it comes to
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like making new friends and having a relationship because you kinda
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you almost have to be with someone in the business or a nurse or something who understand the crazy
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on-call hours and the "Hey I can't make this, this happened." or "Hey I'm sorry I can't make the Christmas
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party this happened." You know? If you don't have someone that's understanding like that, then it's like well there goes that.
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Can you date somebody outside of the business? It can't happen. Regards to what
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you said with the relationships, because a lot of people that happen nine to five job they just think "Oh you work for the
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funeral home." Most people aren't fully educated on the coming and goings
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of it. So if you make plans to get with someone you're dating
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and they want you to meet their parents and come around Saturday for lunch it's like "I have a funeral to attend to." "Oh okay."
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Well then the third or fourth time that happens and you know if they're not in the business, they don't understand, or
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aren't the kind of person that can adjust their lives to yours like that, then that relationship isn't
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going to work. Another peculiar question I had was, what are some
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interesting ways cremains can be laid to rest?
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In regards to that we do, we have the capability to shoot me remains up in the space now too. I've
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had some families recently started inquiring about it and they just lowered all the costs so
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that it's now more affordable for people in the Midwest. Like shooting the cremated remains up and then
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they fall back to Earth in their capsule. There's another one where they're sitting in orbit
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for ten years and disintegrate coming back into the atmosphere. Then there's another one where they'll shoot it out to
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the moon and then the final one where they're sent on their eternal voyage. Yeah there's
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people who have brought in like Jack Daniels bottles and they want that to be the urn.
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Were those past funeral directors?
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No, no, people get those are usually just people you find. Those are usually the ones you call the cops on if you see them out in the cemetery. Just kidding. [laughter]
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So really anything can be considered an urn as long as it's in its original container with
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seals. So I guess that you can do that, I actually once had a family bring in a shoe box.
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So that technically was considered and urn
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that one was a while ago and was a little weird. Oh! So you asked about interesting cases and
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this just refreshed my memory. I had someone calling in asking if
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they were allowed to consume the cremated remains because she wanted her spouse to be inside
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of her again. So uhhh that was um so
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my response was, "Um I don't know." [laughter] I guess it's not
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technically considered cannibalism because it's no longer human flesh
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or even human DNA at that point. However I wouldn't call
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around or keep telling people that's what you're doing. [inaudible cutoff, laughter] What's something
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that surprised you about the outside world since you started working as
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a funeral director? Has your perception changed at all? So death is the one thing
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that are we all guaranteed, but it's the one thing that we're also the least educated on.
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What advice would you give to people who are thinking about getting into this profession? If
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you think you want to be in the business you should definitely shadow or research it. For
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example I started my mortuary class with thirty to forty students. We ended up
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finishing with close to sixteen to twenty. Of the sixteen to twenty only
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six of us are still in the business. You either dedicate your all to it or nothing
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at all. Hey!
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Thanks for joining us on our inaugural podcast journey.
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We'd like to extend a thank you to Jake and to Crown Hill Cemetery for taking time out to entertain
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our odd questions. We hope to post more
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episodes in the coming future. And remember, [in unison] stay spooky!!!
