Content area
Full text
Few things in life are sure, but whatever else happens, we're all going to die. And when we do, somebody else has to do something with us -- soon.
Helping the living take care of the dead has been the business of funeral directors at Klaehn, Fahl & Melton Funeral Homes for over a hundred years.
If making a living out of dying seems like a morbid way to spend your life, just ask Gary Klaehn, Stanley Fahl, or Larry Melton. They'll tell you their work is not at all morbid: it's vital. Their business is life, not death.
"The funeral service is the start of the grieving process,", says Klaehn, president of the firm which was founded by his family in 1876. "We help others through the realization that one they love has died."
People aren't always ready to accept the mortality of a loved one, no matter what the circumstances of that person's death. Although properly preparing and disposing of corpses is fundamental to the mortuary business, it is by no means the only concern.
"We're not working on a job," Melton says. "It's a way of life."
The mortuary business has been a way of life for five generations of the Klaehn family. Gary Klaehn, who recalls romping through the halls of the 420 W. Wayne St. funeral home with his six siblings after Sunday church services, became a part of the family business as a natural outgrowth of his experience and education. After graduating in 1973 from Eastern New Mexico University with his bachelor's degree in business administration, Klaehn became manager of the family business, operated at that time by his father, William R. Klaehn. Three years later, he went to mortuary school to acquire his funeral director's license.
As does Gary Klaehn, Stanley Fahl and Larry Melton -- company vice-presidents since 1988 -- have childhood ties to the mortuary business.
Fahl, when he was 13 years old, did odd jobs for the local undertaker, his father's partner in a funeral home and furniture store in Denver, Indiana.
"A kid who worked in a funeral home was kind of a celebrity," Fahl recalls. "I learned to be a people person working with the undertaker and my father." After going to...