Kalamazoo Funeral Homes

Undertakers and Funeral Directors

Early Days

In Kalamazoo’s earliest days, there were no funeral homes in the sense that we know them, or even “undertakers.” Families or neighbors washed and dressed the bodies of the deceased, built caskets, and dug the graves. Funerals were held either in the home or in church. Burials often took place in a small cemetery on the home farm. Embalming did not come into common use until Civil War time, no doubt spurred by the desire to bury deceased soldiers with other family members. As that practice spread, and as the population became more urbanized, other arrangements gradually became necessary.

The transition from handling deaths at home to professional funeral directors developed slowly. Often it began with cabinetmakers or furniture dealers who sold caskets, and sometimes branched out into other mortuary supplies. Others started as a branch of livery stables, renting out vehicles to transport bodies and mourners, as did Richard Loveland for a few years in the early 1880s. John G. Garland was the first of the furniture dealer/undertakers listed in the first Kalamazoo city directory in 1860. He continued to be listed that way for most of that decade. There is some evidence to suggest, however, that Edwin A. Carder actually preceded Garland, apparently establishing such a dual business in 1853. He and his son Myron, sometimes along with others, continued in that business until Myron’s death in 1908.

At first embalming was a crude procedure, but the chemicals that were used were gradually refined. By about 1896, the O.K. Buckhout Chemical Company was manufacturing them locally. Training in their use began sometime in the 1880’s, and in 1901, the Michigan legislature passed the first law requiring embalmers to be licensed. The chemicals manufactured by Buckhout were supposedly developed by Oliver K. Olmstead, who was also reputed to be the first local man to establish an undertaking business independent of the furniture trade. His firm was active in the early to mid-1870s, after which he left town for some years, working for John Goodale when he returned.

As undertakers began to take on additional tasks, planning and organizing the activities associated with a death and funeral, a group of these men (and they were all men at the time) formed the Undertakers’ Association of the State of Michigan in 1880 to encourage appropriate education and to raise the standards of the profession. At the second annual meeting, they changed the name to the Funeral Director’s Association of the State of Michigan to reflect the additional duties beyond embalming. By 1913 the association had convinced the University of Michigan to establish a chair of embalming and sanitary science. For many years, the terms “undertakers” and “funeral directors” were used interchangeably. Most firms appeared both ways in the local city directories, but as the field became more professionalized, “funeral directors” became the preferred usage. Undertakers were last listed in Kalamazoo directories in 1945.

So what do funeral directors do?

A brief biography of Anna Joldersma in a 1980 history of the Michigan Funeral directors Association says that around 1917, in addition to caring for her invalid husband and two young children, she “made housecalls, sold caskets, embalmed, dressed and casketed the deceased, purchased garments and altered them, conducted the funeral, drove the hearse and ambulance, washed cars, kept books—yes, and even dug the grave!” Fortunately, she had two assistants and her parents to help.

More recently, Norman Langeland expanded the list: “We have to pull together a service in a matter of days, and do it smoothly and seamlessly. Every aspect, from that first call, to transport the deceased from the place of death to our facility and prepare for the funeral service, to spend time with the family and work out arrangements, coordinate details with clergy, write the obituary, coordinate with the cemetery or crematorium, notify any involved organizations, supervise the memorial service, assist in obtaining survivor’s benefits—it is all pulled together in a matter of days.”

Goodale

The owner of the first funeral home in Kalamazoo, in the sense that we now think of them, was Edward L. Goodale. He was, however, building on a business established much earlier by his father John C. Goodale who had come to Kalamazoo in the early 1850’s to engage in the furniture trade. He made some of the first furniture purchased by the Michigan Asylum for the Insane, which opened in 1859. He was first listed as an “undertaker” in the 1878 city directory at the corner of Main and Burdick, although he soon moved a few doors south on Burdick and stayed there about twenty years.

His 1881 listing advertised a “Burglar Proof Self-Locking Grave Vault” to prevent grave robbing, which had been a problem when doctors in training had to provide the bodies they used for dissection in their anatomy classes. Undertaking must not always have provided enough money to make ends meet; in 1892 he added “a fine line of marble and granite cemetery work” to his other services.

His son Edward, who had been in the furniture and undertaking business in Paw Paw, joined his father in Kalamazoo sometime in the 1890s and became a full partner in 1900. After John retired in 1905, Edward purchased a house around the corner on East South Street, which he rebuilt with a chapel, office and show room—the first “real” funeral home in Kalamazoo.

“With a Red Cross ambulance, new funeral car, and floral wagon, it is one of the best equipped undertaking establishments in Southwestern Michigan.” In 1907 his ad offered a “Lady Assistant” as an attraction, apparently to encourage women who did not wish to have their bodies handled by a man. Memorial Day 1917 gave him an opportunity to offer free transportation for anyone wishing to visit family graves who would otherwise have no means to get there. He, too, apparently had a bit of financial trouble. In 1921 he also sold Cunningham Pleasure Cars. At that time, the term “pleasure car” simply distinguished a private vehicle from commercial ones.

Edward moved to several other locations on West Main Street—later Michigan Avenue—eventually winding up at 431 W. Michigan, next door to Truesdale’s Funeral Home, where he remained until his death in 1935. That building was sold to H. J. Cooper, who demolished it and used it for a used car lot. Goodale’s widow, Daisy, and one of his employees, George W. Evans, kept the business going briefly, remodeling the old house on the corner of West Michigan and Allen Boulevard that had belonged to Oscar M. Allen, owner of the Globe Casket Company. By 1937, however, they had closed permanently. The current whereabouts of the records, if they exist at all, is unknown.

VanHalst / Wagar / Wagar & Clark / Avink

Probably the longest continuously running funeral business in the county was founded in 1884 by Cornelius and Belle Woodworth VanHalst. Having previously learned to make caskets, Cornelius worked for John Goodale for eight years before starting his own business. For a brief time in the late 1880s, he was also listed as a taxidermist. Belle was clearly associated with the business from the beginning. All three censuses in which she appears after her marriage list her as an undertaker in her own right. She was reputedly the first female undertaker in the state. When she died in 1924, her obituary said that she “personally handled the cases of women and children and was always considerate of the poor and needy.” At least one person, well-known music teacher Anna Jannasch-Shortt, requested in her will that Mrs. VanHalst should care for her body when she died, although she didn’t get her wish because she survived Belle. The VanHalst’s had offices on East Main Street for a number of years, then moved to S. Burdick and Cedar about 1910, and finally, about 1928, to the northeast corner of Portage and Stockbridge, where it remained for more than fifty years.

Lawrence Wagar, who later served as county coroner for six years, joined the Van Halsts in 1903, married their daughter Sadie the following year, and assumed “entire charge of the business” about 1919. As was common among early funeral directors, he added ambulance service to the business. Belle Van Halst retired in 1922, Cornelius in 1923. A 1925 Gazette article reported that “the motor equipment maintained today by the concern ranks among the largest in the state and includes two ambulances, two hearses and six limousines.”

At some point, Sadie Wagar became a licensed embalmer and funeral director and joined her husband in business. Keeping it in the family, Asher Clark joined the firm in 1934, the same year that Lawrence Wagar died, and married the Wagar’s daughter Ruth, who was also a licensed funeral director and embalmer. A 1931 Western State Teachers’ College graduate, Ruth had taught school in Niles for 3 years before her marriage.

The family continued in business until 1984, when it was sold to H. John and Elizabeth Avink, who also owned the Robertson-Avink Chapel in Schoolcraft. They founded the Cremation Society of Michigan the following year, and continued at the Portage Street location until 1989, when they moved the whole operation to Schoolcraft, where it remains. Asher Clark died in 1991. At the time of his retirement in 1984 or ’85, he served as funeral director for the Sisters of St. Joseph (his sister-in-law belonged to the order). He had also operated the Wagar & Clark Funeral Home in Galesburg in the early 1940s. Records for VanHalst are held at the Zhang Legacy Collections Center, Archives and Regional History Collection, Western Michigan University. Some records for Wagar-Clark are also at WMU, and some are at Joldersma & Klein (see below).

Harrington

About 1895, Carder & Henika, Goodale, and VanHalst were joined by several other businesses, notably that of George W. Harrington. After fighting in the Indian wars in the West and in the Civil War, working briefly with Oliver Olmstead about 1876, then as a traveling salesman for nearly twenty years, Harrington returned to Kalamazoo in 1894 and established an undertaking firm with his son George S. Harrington. After George W.’s death in 1897, his son continued his work for more than twenty years, and was succeeded by his brother Hascall. They worked at several locations, ending in the old house at the corner of South and Westnedge that is now Willis Law Firm. After Hascall’s 1933 death, the building, and probably the business, was taken over by Charles Sumption, who had previously worked for Harrington’s and who then operated a funeral home there until his death in 1948. Joldersma & Klein also briefly occupied it in 1949, presumably during its transition from its East Lovell Street building to its current location on South Burdick.

Truesdale / Truesdale-Ansell

In 1896, George Truesdale, a native New Yorker as were many early Kalamazoo settlers, established an undertaking business at 310 W. Main (later Michigan Avenue) with John E. McIntyre. Undertaking was apparently not to McIntyre’s liking. By 1901 he had become a bus driver, and shortly thereafter left town altogether. Truesdale, however, continued in the profession, his business enduring for more than a century.

He traveled to England and France in 1900 lecturing and demonstrating the use of an embalming fluid produced by the local Boekhout Chemical Company. In 1908, he purchased an Italianate mansion at 425 W. Main (later 445 W. Michigan), built in 1861 by businessman William House, that had previously been occupied by the YWCA. He ran a well-respected business from that building, with its distinctive cupola, until his death in 1942. He had been active in the community, and a substantial bequest from Truesdale and his wife launched the funding for a residence hall for Bronson School of Nursing students, which was named Truesdale Hall in their memory.

Lavelle Farmer joined Truesdale’s staff in 1923, and became owner of the funeral home in 1948 on the death of Truesdale’s wife Nina, who had been active in the business until ill health forced her retirement about 1941. Farmer sold it in April 1959 to Harold S. Ansell, who had been a partner in Estes-Leadley Funeral Home in Lansing. Early in 1961, he opened the new South Chapel, later known as the Chapel of the Pines, at S. Westnedge and Milham Road. David E. Criss and William (Jack) Simpson joined him in ownership in April 1975. Criss remained with the company only a few years.

Over the next few years, Truesdale’s acquired several branch operations in Schoolcraft, Richland and Augusta, but the business started having a rough time in 1985. That March, the funeral home and one of its employees were placed on a 1-year licensing probation for a 1981 cremation of the wrong body. The following month the downtown “Williamsburg Chapel” closed. That building, the last of the fine homes on what was once known as Mansion Row, was demolished and replaced by a parking lot. Late in 1985, the probationary employee resigned and alerted the Ansell family that Jack Simpson was improperly taking money out of prepaid funeral accounts. Eventually he was sentenced to a $2,000 fine, three years of probation and restitution for embezzlement.

Harold Ansell and his son Sam, who had previously been a stock-broker, resumed control of the business and renamed it Truesdale-Ansell Funeral Home in 1990, but it was a shadow of its former self. At its peak, Truesdale’s had handled 600 funerals a year, but by 1986 it was down to 160 annually. After Harold Ansell retired due to ill health, Sam ran the business until his death in late 2005 in a car accident. The family sold the S. Westnedge building and adjacent land to local developers, to be replaced by a Walgreen pharmacy. The WMU Archives and Regional History Collections holds the records for the business.

Joldersma & Gilman / Joldersma & Klein

Edward and Anna Joldersma

The oldest firm still operating under some form of its original name, although not under the same ownership, is Joldersma and Klein, originally established by Edward and Anna Joldersma in 1913. Edward had previously been associated for a few years with his father John. John’s father Cornelius had also been an undertaker. Edward and Anna were shortly joined by Anna’s father Adrian (known as Ed) Gilman, and the firm became known as Joldersma and Gilman. Early in 1917, Edward fell at the funeral home, suffered a concussion and never fully recovered. Anna essentially took over the business and was licensed that year, only the second woman in Michigan to do so.

The firm continued to be known as Joldersma and Gilman, although Gilman, who was a boilermaker by trade, was apparently an inactive partner. Originally located on Portage Street, the firm purchased the lovely old Rush McNair home at the corner of Lovell and Henrietta Streets in 1923 and opened for business there in June. Edward finally died of his injury in 1925. At the time Anna was the secretary of the Calhoun and Kalamazoo County Funeral Directors Association and was also the chair of the state association. The following year she married one of her assistants, Paul Klein, and the firm has since been known as Joldersma and Klein.

Joldersma and Klein

Various ads and stories illustrate the trends in funeral equipment in the 1930’s. A 1931 ad for Joldersma and Klein included ambulance service, and a pipe organ at the funeral home. In 1937 it “added a Packard funeral coach to its service. The new coach is trimmed in Burgundy mohair and had chromium plated fixtures, rubber rollers of the casket table are noiseless, and the casket may be taken out of the car from either side or from the rear. It is equipped with shatterproof glass throughout. Joldersma and Klein Company now maintains two funeral coaches and two ambulances.”

Many funeral homes include multiple generations of the same family. Joldersma and Klein was no exception. Edward and Anna’s daughter Arlene got her license in 1941, and except for a few years after her marriage when she lived out of state, she worked at the funeral home at least part time for many years.

In 1942 the Upjohn Company purchased what was described as “Kalamazoo’s most beautiful funeral home,” which was adjacent to its headquarters, although Joldersma and Klein continued to operate on the Lovell Street site for several years, conducting nearly 6000 funerals in the 26 years that they occupied it. They moved to their permanent location at 917 S. Burdick in 1950. The short-lived Wiessner and Feyen Funeral Home had owned the new site in the ‘40s, which had originally been the home of the Comer Tanis family for 50 years.

Anna continued to run the business after Paul Klein’s death in 1961, and was awarded the Distinctive Service Award by the Michigan Funeral Directors Association in 1969. She finally retired in 1975. After her death the following year, her daughter Eleanore and her husband Marvin Clark took over the operation of the funeral home until Jerry Oele purchased it in 1980. In 1988, Joldersma and Klein acquired the records and pre-need contracts of the former Wagar and Clark Chapel. Oele is semi-retired but continues to serve as a consultant to brothers Dan and Gabe Adams who succeeded him in 2009.

Field

In 1912, after Joldersma & Son, but before it became Joldersma & Klein, Clarence M. Field started a business here. He occupied several locations, the last ten years in the old Stephen Cobb house on the northeast corner of S. Westnedge and Academy. He left the city about 1929 to establish a funeral home in Detroit. His father, Dayton Field, after having farmed for some years and serving as Kalamazoo’s city milk inspector, also went into the funeral business in 1916. Why the two men ran separate funeral homes in the same city is not clear. Dayton’s funeral home was located in a handsome old home on West Lovell, just west of Rose Street, until his death in 1938. As did a number of other funeral homes, he also ran an emergency ambulance service. Despite being a licensed funeral director herself, his widow Harriet did not continue the business. An attorneys’ office occupied the building until it was demolished in the mid-1950s to make way for the Kalamazoo Police-Courts Building.

Donovan / Betzler-Donovan / Betzler

Donovan’s

Another funeral home which has been in continuous operation for nearly a century was established in 1922 by John F. Donovan Sr., who had previously worked with funeral directors in Kalamazoo, St. Louis, Missouri, and Traverse City and had also been a salesman for the Constantine Casket Company for a decade. Initially located on S. Park Street, he moved about 1931 to 447 W. South, a Victorian mansion built in 1878 by local cigar manufacturer David Lilienfeld, a building now known as the Kalamazoo House Bed and Breakfast. He remained there until his death in 1955, after which his nephew Charles J. Donovan acquired the firm and managed it for about twenty years. In 1975 Roy Betzler, who had managed a Detroit-area funeral home, joined Donovan as an associate. When Charles Donovan retired about 1979, Betzler remained as owner.

Betzler’s

For some years the firm was known as Betzler-Donovan, but eventually Donovan was dropped from the name. By 1985 he was able to build a new 8,000-square-foot brick building on Stadium Drive in Oshtemo Township. Twenty years later, it nearly doubled in size. In 1991 son Scott joined the firm. A few years later, Scott started an auxiliary business Precious Pets, a pet cremation service, and later added a therapy dog to greet and comfort clients. Betzler’s further extended their services in 2003 by joining the Life Story Network, which produces multimedia presentations to help families preserve the memory of loved ones. Betzler’s holds the records for Donovan’s.

Langeland

Marvin Langeland

In common with many early funeral directors, Marvin Langeland’s father Henry sold caskets from his general store in Overisel near Holland. Henry encouraged Marvin and his brothers to enter the undertaking business. After working with his brothers in the Holland area for a few years, Marvin opened his own funeral home in November 1934 at 139 East Lovell Street, which had been the home and office of Dr. Edward Ames. They did 34 funerals in their first year. One of the first was for Mrs. Ames, in what had been her home for almost 30 years.

Within a year or two he moved his business to its current location at 622 S. Burdick. He was shortly joined by his brothers Fred and Dennis. Unfortunately, Fred died of complications following surgery in 1940, but Dennis eventually became a partner and president of the firm. In 1964 a second chapel was built on East Centre Street in Portage. Later they added branches in Climax, Comstock, Galesburg and Oshtemo. By the time that Marvin Langeland died in late 1997, the firm was conducting 800-900 funerals per year. His son Ken said of him that he “was good at passing on his professional skills. He was a good teacher.” Marvin and Dennis’s children and grandchildren continue to be active in the business today.

Redmond

Within a month of Langeland’s opening, Arthur W. Redmond Sr. and his wife Lucile founded another of the long-running local funeral homes at 330 N. Westnedge, where it remained for many years. They sold it to their son Arthur Jr. and his wife Barbara in 1965, although they continued to work in the business for several more years. Art Jr. spoke of his father’s compassion and care for the people that he served and recalled that he used his ambulance service to drive new mothers and their babies home from the hospital free of charge. Art Jr. founded the Parchment-Redmond Funeral Home in 1976. His young daughter Martha joined them in 1981 and purchased the business from them in 1995. When the facilities on North Westnedge became too cramped, Martha relocated in 2001 to a building at 4100 S. Westnedge, which had been built three or four years earlier by a national chain which was unable to compete with the long-established locally owned firms.

Blakeman, Cady, Sumption, Patton

For reasons unknown, 1935 was a good year for funeral homes. Bernard Blakeman, Phillips Cady, Charles Sumption and Prather Patton all began new businesses that year. Blakeman’s, at several locations on West Lovell, had the shortest tenure, closing in 1943. Bernie Blakeman’s 1999 obituary said that he continued as a licensed embalmer for thirty years, but he does not appear to have been employed as such in Kalamazoo. Phillips Cady fared better in a house on Academy Street behind First United Methodist Church. As late as 1943, he still found it appropriate to include a “lady attendant” in his ads. He also ran an ambulance service. When he retired in 1968, he sold the property to the church for its expansion.

Charles Sumption, mentioned above, was another who first appeared in the city directories in 1935. He continued his business until his death in 1948. Prather Patton was the first black funeral director in Kalamazoo, running a funeral home, first on Cooley Street and later on West North, until 1957. Little is known of him, but he and Daniel J. Patton, who owned a funeral home in Battle Creek, were related to the Patton Brothers Funeral Home family that has operated similar businesses in Tennessee for nearly 140 years. After Patton closed in 1957, there was no other black owned funeral home in Kalamazoo until Robert S. Harper Jr. opened one on Douglas Avenue in early in 1969.

Harper

After Patton closed in 1957, there was no other black owned funeral home in Kalamazoo until Robert S. Harper Jr. opened one on Douglas Avenue in early in 1969. Harper founded the last of the long-running funeral homes in the city; it has now flourished for fifty years. Originally working at funeral homes in Detroit, he came to Kalamazoo because he saw a need to serve the black community here. He initially opened in a house next to the fire station on Douglas, later occupied for many years by Pierson Realty Company. The business grew so rapidly that it needed to expand its facilities within two years. His request to rezone a property a block south on Douglas was granted by the Kalamazoo City Commission, on the recommendation of the Planning Commission. Although the zoning request did not quite fit into the established city plan, the commissions wanted to encourage local black business owners. Their decision was justified, since twenty years later, Harper’s built a new facility on the same site, and moved the earlier building to a different location. Robert Harper’s children continue to run the business.

Whitley

Jerome and his wife Shenise Whitley began the Whitley Memorial Funeral Home in 2007 in the old Redmond Funeral Home on North Westnedge (see photo of this building in the Redmond section above). The only other black-owned funeral home in the city, it is, with the exception of the national chain mentioned above, also the only other funeral home to be founded in the city since Harper’s . It serves Greater Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and surrounding areas. Jerome Whitley had served an apprenticeship with Langeland’s for several years. Unfortunately, he died young in 2015, but Mrs. Whitley has been able to keep the business going.

Why be a funeral director?

Given the more somber aspects of their profession, one would be tempted to think that funeral directors might be somber people, but the opposite thing seems to be true. Almost all of the funeral directors for whom we have information were active in their churches, professional and civic organizations. Martha Redmond said, “We have a normal life like everybody else. We go out and eat, play golf and go dancing. ” Her family enjoys swimming and picnicking. Marvin Langeland raised American Checker Giant Rabbits in his leisure time and judged rabbit shows both locally and nationally. Marvin’s son Ken was a member and business manager of Singing Crusaders Men’s Chorus. Scott Betzler is an enthusiastic golfer.

Why do people choose to become funeral directors? The job can be physically taxing, and emotionally draining. The hours are long and unpredictable. How do children who want to be fire fighters, teachers, astronauts, journalists and designers grow up to help families deal with death? Many start by doing small chores in a family business. Arthur Redmond Sr. “started by helping my father carry flowers.” His daughter Martha pulled weeds for gumballs and later cleaned the funeral home. Washing cars and mowing lawns was Roy Betzler’s introduction to the field. Once exposed to the profession, they all stayed for more or less the same reason: their compassion for people at a difficult time in their lives. Dina Harper put it this way: “I have always liked helping people, which is what we are about. As funeral directors we take the burden from families who come to us and put it on our shoulders. …We are on call to serve our families. For three to four days they are our responsibility, and we feel very protective of them. When they are pleased, we are pleased. We know we did our job.” “…neighbors helping neighbors” was how Norman Langeland once put it. “It is the most rewarding part of the services the Langeland family offers.” Agreeing, Roy Betzler chose the field because he wanted to help people.

Written by Catherine Larson, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, March 2020, with thanks to Art McNabb for the inspiration and information that he contributed. Last updated 11 February 2025.

See also our series of web pages on county cemeteries.

Undertakers and Funeral Directors

Following is a summary of undertakers and funeral directors who have worked in the city of Kalamazoo. Even fairly early on, there were similar businesses in other communities in the county, but they are outside the scope of this paper.