In 2008, the Museum of Funeral Customs closed due to lack of revenue. Former curator Jon Austin says he was personally devastated by the shutdown of the place into which he’d poured so much research and personal dedication. However, today finds him continuing to educate the public about funeral history. He’s one driving force behind the Abraham Lincoln Funeral Coalition, which will reenact the funeral procession and entombment of the sixteenth president on the 150th anniversary of his death in 2015. He also presents demonstrations simulating early embalming techniques at museums and public events. “I observe many ‘lightbulb moments,’” he says, “when visitors connect what they know about their own funeral and burial experiences with what I tell them about the techniques and profession in the 1860s.”
The tornado of 2008 set Oakland Cemetery back a year in its restoration efforts, producing some $1.5 million in losses. At the same time, the great storm was one of the best things to happen to Oakland. “It created an awareness,” says director of volunteers and special events Mary Woodlan. “People said, ‘Wow, that place really is fragile, isn’t it? It’s worth saving.’” With help from state and national emergency management agencies and waves of volunteers, the cemetery was repaired. These days, membership is up, and the future of the historic cemetery looks bright. Of course, it’ll be years before its famous canopy looks anything like it once did; the storm felled more than one hundred trees, mostly oaks. But Mary points out that the uprooted trees were quite old and some of them dying. Storms are nature’s way of housekeeping. “And we found that for several years after—I mean, long after we were like, ‘Oh, my gosh. We are over that storm,’—the media would still be like, ‘Well, what about that tornado?’” She throws up her hands and laughs.
Kevin Kuharic left his position as restoration director in 2010. He now lives in Colorado.
Sarah Peacock is still noted for her ultrarealistic work as a tattoo artist, but a motorcycle accident in 2009 that almost killed her husband sent her into an emotional tailspin. “It took me a long time to realize I was experiencing post-traumatic stress about it,” she says. Later that year, she tattooed a realistic nipple onto a woman who had undergone reconstructive breast cancer surgery. That woman referred her to friends, who referred her to more friends, and now Sarah is the go-to tattoo artist for a leading reconstructive surgery clinic. Three or four days each week, she tattoos one of these clients—in the morning, before the regular tattoo business opens. “I ask them to cover my basic costs if they can afford to—but if they can’t, I’ll do it for free.” She says that shepherding her husband through a traumatic medical experience gives her a deep rapport with these women. “Also, I live with my husband’s scars on a daily basis, so their scars don’t faze me.” The whole thing has changed her outlook and her business, too, which now sponsors a number of charity events. “It’s changed everything right around.”
In 2012, Anne Gordon retired as a police chaplain in order to have more flexibility in her schedule for mission work. In the past five years, while traveling in Haiti, Kenya, China, and Mexico, she has instructed at a girls’ orphanage, taught English to pastors and Bible students, and helped build a medical clinic. On mission trips, she’s a firm believer in asking locals what their needs are and then doing the work to fill them, “rather than the old-fashioned western model of, ‘This is what you’re doing wrong, and this is what we think you should be doing.’”
In August 2011, a routine blood test diagnosed her husband, Bob, with Stage 3 colon cancer. He decided against any treatment and, after surprisingly little pain, died seven months later. Anne says that in those last months, his faith in God gave him a fabulous sense of humor about his condition. “Someone would wave to him as he was going on a walk, and he’d respond with a wave, ‘Oh, yeah. Dead man walking!’”
She still works as an on-call chaplain for the funeral home. “Being a chaplain, I have the freedom to interact with people of different denominations, as well as nonbelievers. It’s tremendous to have that freedom. To reach and out and touch someone of a different culture, to be able to reach out and say, ‘Here, let me help you through this,’ to me that’s important. We’ve got to stop putting labels on people. That’s why I enjoy doing it.”
Oana Hogrefe quit her day job to become a full-time photographer of children and families in 2009. She still takes memorial photographs a couple of times a year, but not nearly as often as she used to, citing the long emotional recovery time. Now she gives away a photography package each year to a family facing serious medical challenges. She also shoots a calendar whose proceeds go to a children’s charity.
Lesley Cullen has retired and lives the “beach bum” life, which includes a great deal of swimming and biking. She is happily remarried; she is now Lesley Mushalla. “And you think that when you remarry, you’ll just move forward, but it’s not exactly like that,” she says. She still has hard days, especially in August, the month her late husband, Bill, died. However, she also says that in the years since his death, she believes his soul has frequently visited the people he loved in life.
Seven months after seeing his wife’s artificial coral reef ball placed on the ocean floor, Bob Allen died of brain cancer. His family returned to South Carolina the following fall to place a reef ball made with his ashes next to that of his wife.
After more than five decades of working at Wilkerson and Sons funeral home, Don Wilkerson retired in 2010.
Lenette Hall still runs the Urngarden and still says she’d like to quit. Last year, she had record-breaking sales every month.
Mary Wilsey continues to tend the roadside memorial for her daughter Brittany, but not as assiduously as she used to. An onerous struggle with depression makes visiting either the memorial or the little country cemetery that houses Brittany’s grave “like taking ten steps back.” Right now, she’s doing a little bit better; she says her sons pretty much keep her going. “I hope that eventually I’ll see her. But at least I don’t wish that it was today.”