McHenry Funeral Homes - About Tradition and Comfort

McHenry Funeral Home: About Tradition and comfort

Reprinted from the Daily/Sunday Review

By Nancy Coleman

An angel kneels by the fireplace. On the mantel three more angels hover, their feet facing a white covering with yet more celestial beings and trumpets woven into the threads.

And listen. You can hear them! Or at least you can hear someone's gentle harp and guitar music, floating on the air. It's a room of comfort. And peace.

This is the front living room at McHenry Funeral Home, in Wyalusing. For years the McHenry's have been seeking to offer friends and neighbors peace during the turbulence, comfort during the sorrow. 'If I can make it easier for them to get through, "John McHenry says - he wants to.

All in the Family

John's a third-generation funeral director. He runs two funerals homes, in Wyalusing and Dushore, carrying on a family tradition. John's grandfather Ralph J McHenry ran a furniture store and livery. He also made caskets. So he decided to become a funeral director, got his license in 1926 and worked in Ulster. After he died his widow sold the business and moved to Harrisburg. John's father, Russell P. McHenry, grew up in Harrisburg. After serving in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War, Russell took his GI money and enrolled in the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science.

"I think he was trying to follow in his father's footsteps," John remarks.

Russell graduated in 1952. In 1959, he bought the old Holcombe Funeral Home in Dushore. "I still have some chairs with the name on it!" John says.

By this time Russell was married, and he and wife Barbara had four children including John. Two more were born in Dushore. Russell was busy. Besides running his business, he served as Sullivan County deputy coroner, then coroner; sat on borough council; opened a little print business; ran Sullivan County's first ambulance; and became a charter member of the Endless mountains Transportation Authority.

"That was the kind of stuff he liked to do!" John says.

For young John, funerals, coroner's calls, the ringing phone, planning ... were all part of life. It could be hard. "When I was growing up it was really difficult for us to go away on vacation," he remembers. These were the days before cell phones and pagers. "When you called the McHenry Funeral Home, you got a McHenry," he says.

As a young man, John sought other paths. He joined the Air Force. Later, he worked in the printing shop and as a Daily Review pressroom employee. There, he met his wife, Sheri, the head typesetter. "I never saw anybody that could type that fast!" he declares.

John later worked at Elmira Quality Printers, then with an associate formed a printing business in Corning. The 80-hour weeks, though, were finally too much. He needed a change.

In the meantime, Ken Kerr had called Russell to see if he'd buy his Wyalusing funeral home. Now Russell wasn't getting any younger - but why not? He bought it.

Then the question came up: "Why don't you come back and work with me?" Russell asked John.

John remembered those childhood days. "My big thing was ... I wanted to be able to have a life, too." But if they worked together, they could fill in for each other. Both could get time off.

"I was 30 years old," he says. "I was old enough to understand ... what I was going to have to deal with." So John decided to become a funeral director.

A new career

He attended Penn State classes at Wilkes-Barre and Towanda and got a degree in business, with minors in marketing, management information systems and accounting.

Then he went to Simmons Institute of Mortuary Science in Syracuse, finishing the 1 1/2-year course in one year. It was hard. "I had a goal set," John says.

At Syracuse, he was amazed at all the 18 and 19 year olds in the course. "You could just tell they had absolutely no idea what they were getting into!" John declares. Statistics show that five years after graduation, only 30 percent of students are still funeral directors, John says. Ten years after, only 10 percent.

"It's a specialized kind of business and it takes a special kind of person to be able to do what we do."

John and Russell worked together. "we agreed that we could disagree," John explains. Barbara died of cancer several years ago. And in March 2004, after a stroke and a battle with emphysema, Russell, too, passed away.

Today, John owns both homes - Russell P. McHenry Funeral home, in Dushore, and McHenry Funeral Home, in Wyalusing. John, Sheri, and their three children live in Wyalusing.

John serves as director in Dushore, and an old friend, Arthur Schmidt, supervises the other location. Sheri works along with them.

Today's business

"I like the rural setting," John says. But he fears for smaller funeral homes. Big companies swallow up many and push the rest out of business.

And losing the small homes would be sad. John believes there's a difference between big and small. City funeral homes like what he saw in Syracuse, he says, have specialist focusing on embalming, directing and so on - a family goes from one person to another, with no continuity. "And that's one thing I really disliked!" John says. Those funeral services follow a certain pattern, with no room for change. "There's no personal touch to it!" John declares. A smaller home, though, can tailor services to the family wishes. In a rural area, "We're here for our community," and for families, John says. Like any profession, funeral homes have seen changes. For example:

Time and place. Services are more apt to be in the funeral home, rather than a church, John says. And now, funerals and viewing are often the same day. "It's just a convenience thing," he says. Or, families will schedule weekend services, so guests don't miss work.
Cremations are more prevalent.
Veterans. We've all heard the World War II vets are passing away. John actually believes we've lost so many, the trend is slowing. Eventually, we'll see more Korean War vets passing on.
The overall death rate is supposed to double over the next five years, and in the next five ... double again.

The Baby Boomers will contribute. "That what's going to be one of our big increases," John says.

But as time passes, John's job stays the same: Understand what a family wants, what a family can afford. Be a director and a counselor. "You have to be a friend," he says.

"I treat every family that we deal with as if they were my own," he says. He understands.

Some final advice

"Pre-planning is pretty important," John states. "It gives a family a chance to sit down and openly discuss how they'd like to detail their services."

If a family waits, "It's so easy to forget something or overlook something," John says. Do it now. Or maybe you don't like even going to funerals. Many don't. But you're not there for the deceased, John points out. You're there for the living.

"All somebody is looking for is support," he says. "They want to know that you care about them." Friends should go. "It's important for them to be there."

And that's what John, and McHenry family, tried to do. Help and be there.