Bartholomew Funeral Home is full of wonderful people who strive every day to connect with the community and help make people’s lives a little easier. One of those kindhearted people is Alice Kyle, Bartholomew’s pre-planning consultant. Not a day goes by without her making someone’s day a little brighter.
Kyle grew up in Lake County on a dairy farm and went to Lowell High School. After graduating, she got married and worked at different jobs looking for the right fit. She never saw her future in the funeral home industry coming–one day, she just stumbled across an ad promising to pay her what she was worth, and that was that. She worked in a cemetery for a while, and when she got the opportunity to start doing pre-planning, she took it and absolutely fell in love.
Since then, Kyle hasn’t looked back. She’s been doing pre-planning for nearly 30 years, and almost 20 of those years have been at Bartholomew’s. As a pre-planner, Kyle sits down with people and helps them figure out what their options are after they die and how to fund those expenses ahead of time so that responsibility doesn’t fall back on their loved ones. Pre-planning is incredibly important because it helps ensure that your loved ones get to grieve without having extra financial burden.
There are many reasons Kyle loves pre-planning, but the biggest reason is that her job allows her to help others. It’s rewarding to meet with people and make plans with them that ensure their loved ones will be taken care of.
“I love getting to meet so many interesting people–each family's unique, and they all have different things that they've gone through. It’s nice knowing that, when that person dies, their families aren’t going to be stressed about what's happening because everything’s already taken care of,” said Kyle.
A big challenge Kyle faces in her work is people thinking that they don’t need to do pre-planning or that they can wait. Kyle explains that the younger you start pre-planning, the more benefits there are to it, such as locking out inflation. She also believes that pre-planning is one of the most loving things you can do for your family.
“It’s the greatest gift of love that you can give for your family because you're caring for them even when you’re gone. You might not care about it, but it's your expense, and you need to take care of it ahead of time. You've helped your kids all their life, doing the little things for them like fixing them when they fell and scratched their knees. Why not help on the worst day of their life when you're not there?” said Kyle.
Kyle is incredibly grateful to work at Bartholomew’s with such amazing people every day.
“The people that I work with are fantastic. Michael is a wonderful person to work with–he's very good at his job. He's very compassionate with the families, and service is number one to him. It's nice to know that there are people like him out there that care about families so much. It makes a big difference,” said Kyle.
When Kyle isn’t busy at work helping the community, she’s at home doing crafts. Her favorite type of crafting is ceramics. She creates all sorts of things and holds little ceramics classes in her house for people to come learn a thing or two. In the future, Kyle would love to travel and see more of the United States and continue to spend time with her three kids and three grandchildren.
To learn more about Alice Kyle and the kindhearted Bartholomew Funeral Home team, visit bartholomewnewhard.com.
