Part 1:
Well. Howe Mortuary in Longmont is now at the bottom of my list for any future funeral arrangements I need made, after the completely disgraceful, disrespectful, and outrageous debacle last week involving the death of well-known Longmont philanthropist Stewart Golden, a wonderful man worthy of far, FAR better care than he received.
Let's review ...
The first obituary submitted to (and published by!) the Longmont Times-Call listed Stewart's son Reggie as the decedent.
Ponder that for just a second. "Reggie Golden, of Longmont, passed away ..."
When you work in the funeral industry, you're working customer service. Every detail matters, and mistakes are inexcusable --- particularly obvious mistakes that everybody in Longmont and the surrounding area reads in the newspaper.
The paper reprinted the obituary the following day with the name corrected, but honestly, that kind of error is just ridiculous.
Then, the initial obituary for Mr. Golden (the CORRECT decedent, this time), published on Howe's website, was so rife with errors in punctuation, grammar, syntax, sentence structure, and vocabulary that it made my eyes water. I counted six misplaced (missing, rather) commas in the first paragraph alone. It's of absolute importance that the funeral home carefully edit the obituary (whether a member of the family, a friend, or someone at the funeral home writes it) before its publication to ensure that the deceased and his/her family/friends are represented as respectfully as possible. I was appalled.
And the funeral services. Good grief, I've never been to such a three-ring circus in my entire life. And all because funeral director Jeff Howe wanted to grandstand.
The services were held on Tuesday, September 9, 2014, at 10:00 a.m. at LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont. Anyone who knew Stewart, and anyone who knows Longmont, and anyone who knows that church, which is enormous, already knew that there would be at least 1,000 attendees for Mr. Golden's service. After all, he was a man who deserved to be honored that much.
Apparently, the staff at Howe's was completely oblivious to how important Mr. Golden has been to the Longmont and Northern Colorado communities.
There are four or five entrances into the sanctuary at LifeBridge, from all sides. A single set of doors was open for mourners to enter, and there was one table set up outside those doors with just two available sign-in sheets.
Allow me to reiterate. Only TWO people could sign in for Mr. Golden's service at a time, and then enter through the SINGLE set of doors available for entry.
Imagine the last time you flew into or out of Chicago's O'Hare airport, or Denver International Airport, or Los Angeles's LAX. Picture the number of people you saw crammed together while in one of those airports.
That's about what the line of mourners extending all the way out to the church parking lot looked like as they waited --- ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes --- to be allowed inside the sanctuary.
Atrocious. Every set of doors should have been available for entry. Every set of doors should have been manned appropriately. Every set of doors should have had at least one table nearby, with ... shocking ... perhaps three or even four sign-in sheets available for mourners.
Simply atrocious.
Worse surprises were still to come.
If at least 1,000 people were going to attend the funeral of an extremely prominent and well-loved individual, wouldn't you assume that the funeral home would have taken great pains to ensure that there were enough program folders for everyone at the service?
You would be wrong in your assumption.
Howe's ran out of programs after just a few hundred people. There were dozens left without program folders for the service, which is unconscionable. How much can it really cost a funeral home to print enough folders? What if the family had wanted a few hundred extra folders after the service --- as mementos, or perhaps to mail to family and friends who could not make the service? I certainly hope Howe's did not charge the family for the extra folders they no doubt had to print in order to satisfy the family's needs.
As bad as those atrocities were, the coup de grace was yet to come.
My personal favorite:
When it was time for the family to enter with the casket, Jeff Howe himself burst unceremoniously through the side door at the front of the church and shouted at the mourners to "please stand up as the family enters!"
Can you spell TACKY with me?
Howe's should have arranged for someone to emcee the service, someone who could very quietly, respectfully, and with great dignity take a microphone at the front of the church, ask attendees to stand as the family entered, and then told attendees that they might be seated afterwards.
Too much to ask? Apparently.
TO BE CONTINUED! read more
