Roger Thomas, the baby’s dad, graduated from FINE in the fall of 2005.

Satisfaction in serving those in grief

Mortuary students say their work isn't macabre, it's rewarding

By Robert Carroll, Globe Correspondent  |  May 4, 2006

Set back in an industrial park within earshot of Route 1 traffic, the two-story brick box in Norwood offers little clue to what lies within. Only small white letters on a windowless black front door tell a visitor that this is a place where death defines the mission.

Inside are antique embalming tables, centuries-old wooden caskets -- and instruction in the fine art of embalming.

Funeral Institute of the Northeast Mortuary College is one of only two mortuary schools in the state, and one of just 54 in the United States. While each spring other area colleges turn out the doctors, lawyers, and teachers of the future, FINE graduates nearly 60 of tomorrow's licensed funeral directors. Tuition is $30,000 a year and courses range from basic business practices to grief psychology, restorative art to body preservation.

Former high school chemistry teacher Laurence Magner deftly guides students through the embalming process. In his 12-desk classroom, just down the hall from the funeral museum room, Magner, 60, stresses the need to read each body correctly. ''They need to know how to handle a body if it's fat, skinny, young or old," he says. ''Every body decomposes at a different rate. You want to do your best to preserve it for viewing."

Students must learn this chemistry in order to become licensed directors, he said. And each year thousands do. According to the US Department of Labor, in 2004 there were approximately 30,000 licensed funeral directors earning annual salaries of $26,000 to $85,000, depending on experience. That year, just over 31,000 funeral homes were in business coast to coast.

At FINE, cofounders Louis Misantone and Lyn Prendergast oversee a faculty of 18. Misantone and Prendergast, who are married, opened the institute in Westwood 10 years ago, with their friends Bill and Joanne Sperr. That first semester saw a class of seven students. In 2004 they moved the school to its current 15-room site at 150 Kerry Place in Norwood.

''It's come a long way," said the gregarious Misantone. ''We knew there was a need and we filled it."

While some may think morticians dress only in black to match a gloomy personality, nothing, according to one FINE graduate, could be further from the truth.

''When I was a kid I delivered flowers for a florist in my town," said Glenn Burlamachi, who five years ago left his lucrative position as co-owner of an electrical contractor business to attend FINE in pursuit of a ''life-long dream" of being a funeral director. ''My favorite deliveries were always to funeral homes. I can't explain it. There was always an allure there. I always wanted to know what went on inside a funeral home."

Upon graduating from FINE a year ago at age 40, he purchased the MacRae-Tunnicliffe Funeral Home in Concord. ''Now I look forward to work every day. It's not depressing," he said. ''What we do is very important and very rewarding."

''People come in our front door at the lowest point in their lives," he said. ''Death brings out the function and dysfunction in every family. My job is to make a tough process easier for the family. If I've done that then I've done my job. I've never been so satisfied."

In order to graduate, students must help local funeral directors through at least 10 funerals. The students assist with the embalming, work with grieving families and even make sure the casket and flowers are perfectly positioned.

''We don't send you out until you are prepared to handle everything there is to handle in a funeral," said Prendergast, proudly pointing out that in 2004 over 95 percent of the FINE students passed the National Board Examination. ''It takes a special person to comprehend all that there is in this field."

It is also a job that many seek, according to Rockland funeral home owner Bob Biggins, who is the president of the National Funeral Directors Association, based in Wisconsin. ''Enrollment at mortuary colleges is strong," he said. ''Many people see becoming a funeral director as a second career."

FINE's students come from all walks of life to learn the skills of embalming, restoring the body to its pre-death form, and the art of reconstructing a face.

That topic is taught in a brightly lit white room near the back of the school, where students are given a photograph, a large ball of wax on a stand, and carving utensils. Misantone said this process is critical for directors who will inevitably have to work on a body damaged by disease or trauma.

The teaching also reveals a quirk of human nature.

''What we've found is that no matter how many times the student looks at the picture they tend to make the wax in their own image," Misantone said. ''You can figure why. Whose face have we seen more than our own?"

Prendergast, like her staff and the students, is fully aware of the stigma carried by funeral directors. Too often, she said, the public looks at them as morose people.

''Most are very happy people," she says, ''with personalities and normal lives."

Like Lynn Roberts Reed, who one night a week drives nearly four hours from her home 60 miles north of Portland, Maine, to Norwood to attend classes. The 44-year-old funeral home owner is within a semester of earning an associate's degree in mortuary science.

''I grew up in a family that ran a funeral business," she said. ''That doesn't mean I was different. Like all my friends, I hated horror movies and thought Dracula slept in every coffin. But once it's all explained to you, you understand that death is part of life."

''We're not these moody and spooky people. We're real people with a passion for making it easier on those going through the worst time in their lives. It's so rewarding to help someone out when they need it most."  

© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company