Being a funeral director requires the trait of building relationships with families that can make them trust you with the loss of a loved one. At Bartholomew Funeral Home, there are opportunities for people to learn about this position and gain insight on the responsibilities of a funeral director.
Kyle Newhard, office manager at Bartholomew Funeral Home, classifies three major tasks that every good funeral director needs to be proficient in.
“As a funeral director, you’re going to be doing a lot of embalming,” Kyle Newhard said. “You would need a funeral director's license in order to do that. At any service where human remains are present, you’re supposed to have a funeral director there to supervise the care of those remains. The three big responsibilities for a funeral director are preparing the deceased by using the embalming process, making arrangements with families to get everything together for them, and being there to supervise and take care of anything that comes up during a funeral service.”
Bartholomew Funeral Home does a Career Center program for people who are interested in the funeral director position through an internship. However, the bulk of the learning would come from a multi-step process that ensures every intern has a solid educational standing and can absorb the essentials from in-person experience.
“When you get into college, that’s really the first big step for a lot of people in getting into a funeral director position,” Michael Newhard, owner of Bartholomew Funeral Home, said. “There is a year of general studies that the state of Indiana requires before you go to mortuary school. When I did it, there was a requirement of 30 credit hours, which included subjects like math, chemistry, and English. From there, I went into a 12-month program, before another full year of an internship in Indiana. You would need some of these prerequisite college credits, as well as mortuary school and the internship, before you can get accepted as a funeral director.”
Once these requirements are met, it opens the door to becoming a funeral director. Some funeral homes can elect to promote their employees up the work food chain before they reach this position, but the funeral director license expands the number of opportunities.
Madison Biancardi is a funeral director intern at Bartholomew Funeral Home. She has gained a lot of knowledge from this experience and knows it will set her up to become a successful funeral director in the future.
“The entire experience overall has been very educational and engaging,” Biancardi said. “School was hard at some points, but I was immediately passionate about it and wanted to learn whatever I could. Being an intern feels like step one of actualization, and it feels really rewarding to be able to apply my education in a practical setting.”
Biancardi has been interested in this industry for a long time. Once she learned more about what the responsibilities of a funeral director would entail, she felt this was a perfect fit for her.
“For a long time, I had considered using my interest in cosmetology in the funeral industry,” Biancardi said. “The more I looked into it, the more I could see myself fulfilling other aspects of the profession. I’ve always had an interest in funeral culture from a practical and historical standpoint, so it felt natural.”
The role of a funeral director is a responsibility that’s more than simply making arrangements on the day of a service. Kyle Newhard considers the connection with families to be the most essential role.
“A big thing for us is just being able to listen as much as we can,” Kyle Newhard said. “When we have families calling us with questions on the process or how to handle their concerns, it’s important for us to let people air it out and ask questions. A large part of our outreach to the community is just being open. It helps us form a bond of trust within the community, and open connectivity is a point of emphasis for us.”
If you are interested in this field and receiving an education on how to become a funeral director, Bartholomew Funeral Home recommends three schools that people can attend. This includes the Worsham School of Mortuary Science in Wheeling, Illinois, the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science in Finneytown, Ohio, and a program at Ivy Tech Community College’s Indianapolis campus.
For more information on Bartholomew Funeral Home, you can visit bartholomewnewhard.com.
