Ridgewood Funeral Homes Adapt to New Populations
Posted on 27. Dec, 2009 by Carolyn Phenicie in Immigration, Money and Economy
By Carolyn Phenicie
For nearly 50 years, the Woodhaven branch of the Walsh-LaBella funeral home served over 150 families annually. Now the funeral home has manages, on average, one burial a week.
With an influx of new immigrants and fewer longtime residents remaining in the neighborhood after retirement, Walsh-Labella has lost about two thirds of its business annually, and like many funeral homes in the area, is trying to figure out how to adjust.
“You have to change with the community,” said John McNamara, a mortician at Walsh-LaBella, which has been open since 1959
Once a neighborhood with predominately German, Italian and Irish residents, Ridgewood now has residents with mostly Polish, Eastern European and Hispanic backgrounds. “This neighborhood used to be all German and Irish,” McNamara said. “Now it’s got the League of Nations.”
Currently, the area is about one-third Polish and Eastern European, one-third Latino and one-third German, Italian and Irish, according to Monsignor Edward Scharfenberger of St. Matthias Parish in Ridgewood.
Fewer families are coming to Walsh-LaBella because the new Hispanic population tends to patronize funeral homes that are run by Hispanics or have a Spanish-speaking staff, McNamara said.
Regina T. Smith, who teaches a course in the sociology of funeral service at the American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service, said people want to use a funeral home with employees that understand their culture.
The overall number of people dying in the neighborhood is also decreasing as people retire to other parts of the state or elsewhere in the United States. St. Matthias had five or six funerals a week in the 1970s, Monsignor Scharfenberger said in an interview. Now, the average is two per week.
The church will celebrate a funeral mass in any language the family requests, Monsignor Scharfenberger said. He estimated that for every 20 funerals held, two are in Polish and two or three are in Spanish. There are also four to six per year in German. Those services are usually requested by the families of older people who believe it’s more dignified for the decedent and not necessarily for the language needs of those attending the service, as those held in Polish or Spanish are.
Many families are no longer sending remains back to their home country, said Robert Taylor, a mortician at the Peter J. Geis Funeral Home.
“Years ago we used to ship more to Romania and Yugoslavia. People have become more Americanized [and] they realized they can’t visit the grave if they ship the body back to the old country,” he said. “Plus, the cost is prohibitive.”
The requirements to send remains to another country varies depending on where the remains are being sent, and the cost of shipping the remains depends on the weight of the remains and the destination. Families essentially pay for the services of a funeral director twice, though, because a licensed mortician is required to pick up the remains in the receiving country, Taylor said.
Some families have begun doing the opposite: bringing the remains of family members who have passed away overseas or elsewhere in the U.S. back to be buried in New York. Walsh-LaBella brings in five to 10 bodies a year from overseas, most from Italy, and about 15 from elsewhere in the U.S., mostly Florida, McNamara said.
The trends are not limited to traditional burials, either. Formal acceptance by the Catholic Church in the 1960s plus a growing acceptance by younger people has caused the number of cremations to increase, according to J.P. Di Troia, president of Fresh Pond Crematory.
The trend is not limited to Ridgewood. Recent influxes of immigrant and refugee populations from Burma, Europe and Africa have changed the funeral business in upstate New York, Stewart Williams, a mortician at the Dimbley, Friedel, Williams & Edmunds Funeral Homes in New Hartford, N.Y. said in an interview.
Language is often the biggest barrier.
“You’re needing to always find a translator and just be very patient with families,” he said.
Changes have affected funeral homes all around the country, too, according to Bob Biggins, a funeral director in Rockland, Mass. and spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association.
“It brings challenges to our members, but it also brings wonderful opportunities for them to continue to be beacons of service that our members have been for generations,” he said.
