Short story: I don't recommend that you use this funeral home. Their advantage is that they offer low prices. However, in my opinion that advantage is outweighed by their unreliable provision of services in a critical time of need. And I make that judgement as someone who is low income and struggled to pay for my mother's funeral expenses.
Longer story: In January 2014, I contacted Purse Funeral Home from California where my mother was in hospice and close to death. Her dying wish was to be buried back in Michigan where she grew up. She had no money to pay for this, and I did not have much money myself. After multiple phone and email contacts with the owners of Purse Funeral Home in Tecumseh MI, Barry Purse and his mother Marilee Purse, I called to enter into a contract with them. I expected a contract would be emailed/faxed, a deposit made, etc. Instead, Barry told me that final payment would be due the day of the funeral, and no contract was needed.
This seemed strange to me, but because I was not sleeping more that a couple hours a night and had never arranged a funeral, I was not at my best, and accepted his answer. I was just given the phone number to call when my mother died.
When my mother died 5 days later, Purse Funeral Home (and the CA business they contracted with) took possession of her body, arranged for transport, etc.
Per prearranged agreement, the funeral was going to be postponed so that all family could travel to MI in the winter weather. In the meantime, I was in contact with the cemetery because I needed to complete paperwork showing my mother had a legal right to the family plot. The cemetery told me the burial had to be completed by a certain time.
I communicated with Barry Purse about the cemetery regulations. Bottom line: he wanted the funeral in the afternoon because he had to drive a distance to the location of the funeral. The first question I asked in my first phone contact with the Purses was whether the distance was too far for them to travel, and they said "No". At any rate, he wanted an afternoon funeral, I did not care what time of day the funeral was, but the cemetery said burial had to begin by 2:30 pm.
Barry emailed he would get there between 12:00 and 12:30 and take some time to set up. I very politely emailed that I thought that would cut the time too close, and asked if he could arrive between 11:30 and 12:00.
In response, Barry Purse emailed me at 9:21pm MI time and said "call another funeral home to accommodate your schedule". In this same email he then said that I had to pay him half of the fees, though he had not performed half of the work. Due to this strange and erratic behavior I lost all confidence in Purse Funeral Home. I found another funeral home and contracted with them to take over the case.
When the 2nd funeral home called to arrange to pick up my mother's body they were told it would not be released until payment was made in full with a cashier's check.
It is my understanding that refusing to release my mother's body unless I paid the amount they were demanding violated funeral home regulations and/or laws. I did in fact have to pay the amount of money they were demanding by cashier's check (and had to fedex it overnight) before my mother's body was released.
My motivation in writing this review is to try to prevent someone else from having to go through the turmoil that I did.
Barry and Marilee Purse of Purse Funeral Home took advantage of me at a time that I was vulnerable. I am writing this so that they are not able to do this to others. read more
