I have worked as a funeral director for more than 35 years and write regularly about funeral service. Since I wrote my first book, Grave Undertakings, in 2003, there’s been a proliferation of books about funeral service. Funeral directors have many stories to tell, and some of the best are by those who have worked in the trenches and gleaned profound insight into the work that we do. I’m less enamored about the books that are written for sensationalism and excessively hyped. That said, I’m always on the lookout for a good book by a colleague who writes about the work that we do with sincerity and compassion.
This book was given to me as a gift by a funeral director friend from Iowa. He told me he wanted to share the story of another pioneering/inspiring female in funeral service. And, indeed, that was what Mrs. Florence Steffy was. After the death of her husband, a beloved small-town funeral director, Steffy assured her community that the funeral home would continue to serve. And, along with help from her four children, serve she did for forty years. The book is a paean to Steffy, by her daughter, Doris, initially the only one of Steffy’s children reluctant to become part of the family business. She illuminates the challenges her mother faced at a time when women were seldom seen in funeral service, and how she faced them with strength and resilience.
When Florence Steffy's husband died in 1937 she was left with four children, almost no professional skills, and no license to continue the family's funeral business. In an era when people believed that a woman's place was in the home, she decided to go to embalming school and carry on the work her husband had begun. Doris Steffy lovingly chronicles her mother's journey from homemaker to funeral director in this moving memoir.
"It is my wish that this book will give renewed hope to those who have lost a loved one, a better understanding to those who have not suffered…
