Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 22, 1993 TAG: 9308220064
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Step behind the scenes at the Roanoke Valley's oldest and largest mortuary and the first thing you learn is while it might be OK to joke about one day being late for your own funeral, you must not be late for someone else's.
Arrive at 8:20 a.m. and you'll be there just in time to watch an entire fleet of silver hearses, vans, and luxury sedans file out of the parking lot at Oakey's downtown chapel.
If you're late to the company's daily 8 a.m. assignment meeting, you've in essence missed that day's work.
"Missing the meeting where we distribute the assignments is like standing out on the field when all the other players are in the huddle," said Allen Simpson, the general manager.
Managing the logistics of assigning 96 employees and 22 cars to conduct the day's six funerals at four chapels requires the split-second timing of a trapeze artist.
Miss, and you'll be sent home and told to return another day.
The lesson: Be on time. Precisely at 8 a.m.
Behind the rooms filled with reproductions of antique furniture and custom-made draperies is the employee lounge and the dispatch room.
It's here that they gather to drink coffee, watch TV and mercilessly rib one another.
"This is about as close as I'll ever get to a Corvette," sighed Stuart White settling into one of the leather easy chairs.
White is one of about 15 men gathered in the lounge. Some are funeral directors. Some are shift supervisors and funeral attendants.
They're the ones who make things happen. Yet you pay virtually no attention to them when you attend a funeral.
They meet you at the door of the funeral home. Or at the cemetery and direct you to the grave site. They rush the flowers from the funeral home to the cemetery so the burial plot is ready before the mourners arrive. White joined Oakey's about two years ago, after working for Emery Worldwide Air Freight, when jobs in that field became scarce.
"It's different. You do deal with a lot of raw emotion," he admitted, standing near the gate of the cemetery directing visitors to a service.
Earlier, when B.P. Simpson said he'd be back later to share everything he knew about the funeral industry, White looked over and said, "I guess that oughta take a couple of minutes."
When they're together - and not scrambling back and forth from chapel to cemetery or medical examiner or health department - there's a lot of laughter. In their impeccable attire they could be a group of bankers or doctors or lawyers gathered for lunch.
"Maybe on the days that Elvis Presley or John Lennon died, we ought to get time-and-a-half," pondered Sammy Oakey, jokingly searching for anything that could be considered a legal holiday for the funeral business.
But there are no holidays in this business.
"When it snowed so hard earlier this year, everything else closed," recalled White.
Not Oakey's.
"I didn't have four-wheel drive," recalled Paul Casey, funeral attendant, "so they put chains on a limousine and came out to pick me up."
If you're a rookie to this drill, it's not the bodies or the caskets that seem to catch you off-guard.
But the things that they say - which are the very same things people say every day - somehow make you smile when you hear them inside a funeral home.
"Have fun!" chirped Mary Lantz, a secretary, when we picked up some paperwork related to a death certificate.
"I'm just checking to see if my name's in here," explained Joe Jamison, when caught scanning obituaries in the newspaper. Jamison, who will soon be 79, has been a licensed funeral director for more than 50 years.
"We've got five hearses, five vans, six lead cars, two limos, and one Subaru," counted Withers Forrest, who with Danny Bailey, runs Oakey's motor pool. Cars are washed after use every day. When there are a lot of funerals, Forrest and Bailey start washing at 3 a.m.
The garage behind the building is also where well-worn funeral home furniture goes to retire. It's filled with things you'd probably find in your very own garage. A lawn mower. A child's pink bicycle.
"Oh, I am so sorry to see you" is how Sam Oakey greets out-of-town relatives when they arrive at Oakey's to make funeral arrangements.
"Sometimes you find yourself nodding and saying you understand when often you don't understand at all," explained Allen Simpson after guiding the family to their seats at the cemetery.
Rookies also learn that, even in the funeral industry, there's politically correct lingo. From behind the wheel of a silver hearse, Richard Routt, a funeral director, explained that it's not called a hearse.
"It's a coach," said Routt.
And that room where the family picks out a casket?
"It's not a showroom, it's a selection room."
There's a quiet, yet firm respect for those who passed away. When there is someone in the casket, they are referred to as "he" or "she." Never "it." Never "the body."
When it comes time to close the casket, the family's wishes concerning things such as jewelry or eyeglasses are checked and double-checked.
Oakey's workers have seen people buried in choir robes. With golf clubs. With cigarettes and chewing tobacco.
"One man was buried in his bib overalls with a pint of liquor tucked in his pocket," recalled Routt.
Before he was a funeral director, Routt ran a milk route for Meadow Gold Dairy for 18 years. When his youngest daughter headed off to college, he embarked on this second career.
"It was just something I always wanted to do," he said.
"I love the smell of the Roanoke City Market this time of year," said B.P Cunningham as he rode in an Oakey's van through downtown. "Makes me want to go home, make a peach cobbler, and buy a half-gallon of ice cream."
B.P. knows his way around a kitchen. "You reallyhave a way with a ham," complimented White.
"My dad was an Army cook," explained Cunningham. "He taught me ham."
There's a great deal of quiet grace between the funeral home's employees.
Glenn Wood, White's shift supervisor, describes him as "a very gentle man."
When something needed to be done, White was usually the first one to jump up and volunteer. He criss-crossed Roanoke many times on this day.
To Oakey's South Chapel on Brambleton Avenue. To the cemetery to unload flowers and greet people at the gate. To Salem to pick up forms from a medical examiner. To the Roanoke County Health Department to file a death certificate. Back out to one of the chapels to pick up a woman to take her to the crematory.
Earlier at the cemetery, many cars breezed right past this man, like customers in a department store who didn't want to be bothered by a salesperson.
"When I first started, sometimes things would bother me," he admitted. "And sometimes I couldn't really explain it or put it into words either.
"The reward is doing whatever you can to ease the family's pain," he added slowly after a moment.
"That's what makes it good work. And it is good work. It is."
by CNB