Immediate Need
If you have immediate need of our services, we're available for you 24 hours a day.Obituaries & Tributes
It is not always possible to pay respects in person, so we hope that this small token will help.Pre-Arrangement
A gift to your family, sparing them hard decisions at an emotional time.Order Flowers
Offer a gift of comfort and beauty to a family suffering from loss.Embalming
This is probably one of the most popular question a funeral director gets asked.
Embalming and other types of preservation have been recorded in history as far back as the Egyptians. Back in those days, only the wealthy were embalmed, or "mummified", as it was known then. And history has shown that the Egyptian mummies were well preserved for thousands of years. Over the years the procedure has changed many times to what we now know as modern day embalming.
We use embalming today for two primary reasons - to allow adequate time between death and burial to observe social customs such as visitations and funeral services, and to prevent the spread of infection. Cosmetic work is often used for esthetic reasons.
Modern embalming now consists primarily of replacing the fluid through the arterial system with disinfecting fluid. Embalming is only required by law in certain cases.
Why do we embalm?
Embalming is primarily done to disinfect and preserve the remains. Disinfection is important for all who have to handle the remains, and for the public safety of our communities. Secondly, it has been a tradition to have a period of visitation of the remains. This is known as the wake or visitation hours. Friends and family gather to view the remains and pay tribute to a family member or friend that has died. We gather to console the family on their loss, and to express sympathy to them. There are constant changes going on chemically and physically within the remains that change the looks and other qualities that we are accustomed to seeing. Embalming acts as a hindrance to this, and gives us the time needed to pay respect and express our sympathies.