More than providing a service, it’s giving a gift

Being a funeral director is not for everyone in terms of a career choice, but Peter Stoycheff, Terra Hill and Joan Currie, funeral directors at the Sault’s locally-owned and operated Northwood Funeral Home, shared with us why they do what they do.  

The funeral industry has been a lifelong experience for Peter, a Sault native who has been a licensed funeral director for 25 years, but he has been involved in the business for 32 years in total.

“I started when I was 14 as a groundskeeper, washing the cars, painting, jack-of-all-trades at another local funeral home, as a summer job,” Peter told SooToday.

Peter then studied Funeral Service Education at Toronto’s Humber College, as did Terra and Joan (Humber being one of only two Ontario colleges which offer such training, the other being Sudbury’s College Boreal).

He then went to Thunder Bay and Dryden before settling back home in the Sault in 1995.

“Working at a funeral home was all I knew really, so I thought it would be a good career fit for myself…it’s a calling,” Peter said.

The business offers something different every day, all three Northwood funeral directors agreed, stating they meet new families and new situations with each funeral they are entrusted with.

Compassionate as they are, how do funeral directors deal with the grief of sorrowing families? 

Do they tend to take that grief home at the end of the day and bear it themselves, after taking care of the bodies of people of all ages, from children to centenarians?

“You learn to turn it off, and I work with a good team. We’re all here to support it each other too, as well as the families,” Peter said.

What does the trio like best about their profession?

“I like working with the families, sitting down with them and hearing their story, the story of their deceased loved one, and then just fulfilling their wishes and at the end of the day you get a nice big hug from them…sometimes you get treats from them,” Peter smiled.

“I’ve worked in other jobs, but (like Peter) I was 15 when I started in the funeral industry (as a high school student on a co-op placement), and you don’t take home the bad, you take home the good,” said Terra, also a Sault native who received her professional training at Humber.

“It’s not something I chose, it chose me. I’m able to fulfill this, and not many people can do what we do,” Terra added.

“When you’re on a co-op placement you do get a little bit of viewing experience (of deceased people) just to know if that’s something you can deal with, it’s a sacred area, and you get to learn a person’s loved one is their most prized possession. You get to shadow the funeral director, attend church services and see all the different roles they play.”

“What intrigued me to come into the funeral world was the cosmetics, I wondered who does the cosmetics and all the preparation on the deceased, so I did my co-op here,” Terra said.

“(I enjoy) seeing the reaction of the family, when they’re able to see their family member restored back to a healthier looking state in the casket, it gives them peace of mind. They’re able to see them no longer in their hospital gown and ill, they’re dressed in their Sunday best and remember them that way. It’s closure for the family.” 

Being a funeral director is definitely a multi-task profession, involving preparation of bodies, going through necessary paperwork, setting up caskets in the visitation room, floral arrangements and more, said Terra, who has worked at Northwood for seven years.

Joan hails from Cambridge, Ont., and, like Terra, began her funeral industry experience as a high school co-op student before attending Humber College, and has been a funeral director for 11 years.

She has been with Northwood since 2007, after working in southern Ontario.

Joan said one of the most rewarding aspects of the job is when families decide to have open casket funerals for their loved ones.

She said she takes that as a sign she has done her best, and then some, to restore the familiar look of an individual as they lay at rest.

“When families say to me ‘thank you for what you’ve done’ after a funeral, I thank them too, because they gave me an opportunity to be with them at a special, important time in their lives. It’s not just providing a service, it’s giving a gift,” Joan said.

“It’s not a job, it’s my passion, it’s my world. I have two families, my family at home and the families I serve at work. We all feel that way.”