876578-debord-snyder-funeral-home-crematory-inc

Website Press Release 2011

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:08:39 GMT

Website Press Release 2011

New Website for Kearney A Snyder Funeral Home

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home, serving families since 1940, continued to live up to their reputation of unmatched attention to detail by launching their new website to offer the families of the Lancaster area easy accessibility to resources and information. http://www.KearneyASnyderFuneralHome.com

Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home have just launched their new website to provide families of the Lancaster community with education, support and resources during the loss of a loved one.

Jeremy DeBord, representing the fourth generation of the Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home, added, “We want to remain current and provide our families only with the best assistance, resources and care and our new website helps us do just that.”

Key Benefits of the new website are;

Easy to access information about death, funerals, cremation and grief for members of the Lancaster, PA community.

Ability for grieving families to share obituary information using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms

Giving the community easy access to support and online resources when losing a loved one.

Obituaries and condolences posted on the website for grieving families for an infinite period of time to provide a community grieving place.

Providing Pre-planning resources and information for individuals wanting to pre-plan for their own peace of mind.

About Kearney A Snyder Funeral Home The elegant, Italianate-style mansion on Lancaster’s East Orange Street has been used as a funeral home since 1917. Founded by J. Fred Fisher and purchased by Mr. Fisher’s associate C. Abram Snyder in 1940. Today, third generation Diane Snyder DeBord and Mark C. DeBord and fourth generation Jeremy R. DeBord continue the family commitment of dignity and confidence. While funeral services can be very different today than when C. Abram Snyder served the Lancaster community, the family’s reputation for professional service and attention to detail continues to grow.

We invite you to visit our website for more information at https://www.debordsnyder.com/

Contact Information: Jeremy DeBord (717) 394-4097 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (717) 394-4097 end_of_the_skype_highlighting info@kasnyderfuneralhome.com

To Dust We Return (but implants live on) 2011

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 03:59:38 GMT

To Dust We Return (but implants live on) 2011

Funeral homes sign up to recycle artificial joints left after cremation

Originally Published Jul 03, 2011 00:06

By JON RUTTER

Staff Writer

All money received for recycled metal is donated to charity, said Paul Evans, finance executive for Evans Eagle Burial Vaults.

“The biggest thing, I think, is to find a dignified way to reuse [the implants].” Disposal wasn’t always so decorous, according to Brad Wasserman, managing partner of Implant Recycling. “When we started about 3 1/2 years ago,” he said, the bulk of U.S. crematories, “90 percent or above, were throwing the material in the landfill.” Today, he added, only about 10 percent of the crematories nationwide continue to bury implants on their premises, landfill them or consign them to the medical waste stream. Meanwhile, the remnants are adding up.

U.S. cremation rates have risen from about 5 percent in 1970 to about 32 percent today, according to Funeralwise.com. Surgeons began routinely inserting artificial hips and other metal implants more than 30 years ago, Wasserman noted. “One in eight people in the U.S. has some form of orthopedic material implanted into them,” he added.

Now, many older recipients are dying and being cremated, and their loved ones typically sign over their implants. Tom Ford, funeral director for Andrew Scheid Funeral Home in Millersville, said surviving pieces might include sockets, joints, titanium alloy rods, stainless steel pins and plates, as well as assorted screws and fittings from the caskets that contain the bodies during the cremation process. “They’re not actually part of the cremated remains we return to the family,” Ford said. Hence the pressing question: What to do with Uncle Al’s artificial knee?

Kearney A. Snyder, the first local funeral home to build its own crematory, in 1992, began sending such artifacts to Implant Recycling a year ago. IR was chosen because it’s endorsed by the industry and because its parent company uses the metal to make castings, according to the Kearney A. Snyder father-and-son team of funeral directors Mark and Jeremy DeBord. “Hips, knees, they’re the two main things” salvaged from the ashes, Mark said. Implants are collected and trucked in a sealed box to Michigan, where recyclers separate ferrous and nonferrous metals. “It took us a year to fill up the box,” said Mark’s son, Jeremy. The process “is beneficial to all parties and to the environment” added Jeremy, who said the birth of his 13-month old son, Ethan, moved him to try to make his company’s operation greener. Recycling implants saves raw material and keeps heavy metals out of the ground, where they generally do not decompose, Jeremy added. “We’re still just getting started,” Jeremy said. The first “stipend” from Implant Recycling will be donated to the Power Packs Project to provide nourishment for disadvantaged school kids, he noted. The average compensation per container of implants is $70, according to Wasserman. At the Charles F. Snyder Funeral Home (no relation to Kearney), the crematory that opened last July has “witness” rooms for family members who opt to watch the casket being rolled into the 15-ton burn chamber — or who are bound by religious obligation to initiate the cremation.

What they don’t see is the recycling process that begins after the jet engine roar of the natural-gas burner subsides and the fire brick cools. Funeral Director Charles “Chad” Snyder III explained the steps: Certified crematory operators raise the 6-inch-thick door and use long-handled tools to rake the ashes forward. After a hand-held magnet is used to draw out small metal pieces, the remains are consolidated and placed in an urn. Prosthetic limbs are sometimes destroyed along with the body, Snyder said. If not claimed by family members, he added, the limbs are in some cases reused by rehab centers. Pacemakers, which can explode in a cremation chamber, must be removed from bodies before cremation. “Everything else burns up,” Snyder said. Except those implants. They’re temporarily stored in a heavy-duty metal bucket in a room near the witness room. Snyder declined to name the local recycler his company uses. Evans, whose company has operated a crematory since 1990, said it has always recycled implants. “We do [retain] a recycling company” based in the county, Evans said. He referred questions about the company, which he said he could not name, to David Deihm, manager of the Evans cremation division. Deihm was on vacation and could not be reached for comment last week. “It makes sense” to recycle an implant, Evans said. “You should use it” to benefit others.

Gen-Yers Prepare to Lead Their Family Owned Businesses (2010)

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:50:20 GMT

Gen-Yers Prepare to Lead Their Family Owned Businesses (2010)

Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home … Now in Its Fourth Generation

This year, the Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home is celebrating a milestone – its 70th anniversary. Owners Mark and Diane DeBord are also celebrating the fact that their oldest son, Jeremy, has decided to join the family business.

Who knew that when Diane Snyder was crowned the homecoming queen at McCaskey High School in the early ‘70s, she would become a licensed funeral director? Or, that the football/basketball player – Mark DeBord – whom she wished could have been her escort for the occasion would follow the same career path? At the time, neither entertained such ideas. After graduation, the high-school sweethearts traveled their separate ways. Diane enrolled at Drexel University, where she majored in food nutrition. “I wanted to work in a test kitchen,” she recalls. A year later, Mark was close-by – at West Chester University – where he was a recreation major. Still, the two missed seeing each other on a daily basis and so, Diane transferred to West Chester.

As Mark came to be viewed as part of the family, he began helping out with the family business. It was Kearney who suggested that he consider becoming a funeral director. With an eye to the future – more women were seeking professional careers – he encouraged Diane to follow Mark’s lead and attend mortuary school, as well. “The more we thought about, the more it made sense,” she says. “We both enjoy working with people, so we agreed, but we paid our own way,” Diane recalls.

Mark explains that the exclusion of women from the industry was related to brute strength – women lacked the ability to move bodies. “So often, a funeral director had to move a body by himself,” he explains.. “Most women just didn’t have the strength to do it.” Modern-day equipment and helping hands make the job much easier.

Even in the early stages of the women’s movement, Diane found herself in the minority at school. “There were 135 people in my class and of them only two were women,” she says. “Now, I understand classes are split 50/50.”

“Women bring a new dimension to the business,” Mark notes. “A lot of times, widows appreciate being able to discuss things with a woman.” With both of them holding credentials, the DeBords, who were married in 1976, at that time were believed to be the only licensed husband/wife team of funeral directors in Lancaster County.

Husband and wife teams, however, are not a new phenomenon. Historically, according to Mark, funeral homes “were mom-and-pop operations” that saw the wives of funeral directors play critical roles in their businesses, as they took care of office work, answered telephone calls and greeted the guests of their clients when they arrived for viewings and funeral services. “My mother was my father’s secretary,” Diane reports. “She’d take the summers off and I’d fill in for her.”

The DeBords bought the business from Diane’s father in 1988 (the transfer of real estate relating to the business took place in 1995). The second-floor residence became home to the family that included the DeBords’ three sons: Jeremy, Randy and Luke. The roof of the portico was transformed into their play area.

When the boys were primed to enter high school, the family moved to Hempfield, where Jeremy became a 1st team all-district basketball star. With Luke’s graduation, Mark and Diane didn’t relish the role of empty-nest suburbanites and decided to move back to the funeral home. “We have always loved living downtown,” Diane says.

They also liked the fact that the move would better enable them to spend more time with Diane’s parents, who live just next door in the stone house that is as unique architecturally as the funeral home. The business had also grown, due to the inclusion of an on-premises crematory that was added in 1992. “Opening that was a challenge,” Mark says. “We went before zoning in 1990, but board members didn’t understand the concept. We dropped it and spent the next two years educating them on the matter.” Thirty-five percent of Snyder’s funerals involve cremation. “That’s the state average,” Mark notes. “The average is higher in the Western states and in Europe.”

The business grew once again in 2006, when Mark and Diane DeBord acquired the Richard A. Sheetz Funeral Home in Rohrerstown. “Dick Sheetz came to us,” Mark explains. The overture “came out of nowhere and took us by surprise,” Mark relates. As is the case with many of the smaller enterprises, Richard A Sheetz’s was anticipating retirement and his children were involved in other careers. “At first, we thought, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ but the more we considered it, we saw it as a good move,” Mark recounts. “The business was well respected – it’s so well established that we have no plans to change the name – and it has served a growing area. It has proven to be a good addition to the business.”

The acquisition was carried out in a very friendly manner. Despite the sale, Mrs. Sheetz continued to live in the residence and even helped with funerals by greeting guests of clients. However, late last year, she moved to a nearby retirement community to make way for a new tenant – Jeremy DeBord and his wife, Candace, who welcomed their first child to the family in late April.

After graduating from Hempfield, Jeremy enrolled at Millersville University, where he earned a degree in business administration and met Candace, who had grown up in the Midwest but moved to Lancaster when her father became the pastor of a local church.

He then earned his master’s degree from the University of Phoenix and accepted a job with Ingersoll Rand, which was acquired by Volvo Construction Equipment. Three promotions – the last being regional manager for the Southeast region of the United States – in three years took the newly married couple from Harrisburg to Shippensburg to Asheville, North Carolina and, finally, to Tampa, Florida. “We were moving too much,” Jeremy remarks. On top of the moves, he didn’t get to see enough of his wife because his territory required him to constantly travel. “I was living in hotels,” he says.

Jeremy’s fast climb up the corporate ladder served as proof that he could succeed in business. “My goal was to prove myself to myself,” he explains. With that accomplished, he and Candace wanted to find a remedy for their homesickness. He talked to his parents about the possibility of joining the family business. They were thrilled at the prospect that a fourth generation would be joining the business and carrying on the family name. “My dad was very excited to hear the news,” Diane reports.

While he was living in Tampa, Jeremy enrolled in a Colorado-based mortuary school. “I could do part of my courses online,” he explains. “Plus, flying from Florida to Colorado was convenient.” (To become a licensed funeral director, a candidate must complete a two (2) years of college, a year of mortuary school, a one-year internship and then pass the state and national boards.) Jeremy graduated from mortuary school in May and will take his boards in August. He will then begin his internship at Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home in an effort to “apply what I’ve learned.” Not only will he have to impress his parents, but the six licensed funeral directors who are on staff, as well (each has an average of 30 years of experience in the industry). “We consider our personnel to be our strongest asset,” Mark says. “Randy L. Stoltzfus and Michael J. Proch, two of the funeral home’s talented licensed directors, will play a particularly integral role in teaching Jeremy what he needs to know using their many years of experience.”

In the meantime, Jeremy has been assisting his parents and the staff as best he can. “I enjoy working with people and I’m finding it rewarding to work with people who turn to us [for funeral planning],” he says.

Mark and Diane especially appreciate Jeremy’s grasp of modern technology. Both laugh as they recall “the old days.” Diane says she can remember taking her turn of waiting by the telephone, should her father be needed. “The phone had to be covered 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” she recalls. Mark points out that high-tech began to make its impact through pagers. “I can remember being at one of my son’s soccer practice or a game and have my pager go off,” he reminisces. “I’d have to get in the car and find a pay phone somewhere. Thank goodness for cell phones!”

They also are excited by the “fresh ideas” Jeremy has in regard to marketing and advertising, and are learning about the younger generation’s preference to conduct research via the Internet, specifically through company websites and sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Newspapers have also gone high-tech and publish obituaries online and furnish online guestbooks. Still, Jeremy says that old-fashioned methods such as word-of-mouth and family traditions produce the best results. But, with so many newcomers calling Lancaster home, it’s essential to reach out via technology.

Staying abreast of industry innovations is also important and many funeral directors accomplish that by attending industry-sponsored conventions through which the latest products are displayed. “There are so many things out there!” Mark reports of products that are being made to personalize a funeral and memorialize the person who has passed. One such product that is on display in the Selection Room at Kearney A Snyder Funeral Home is a red-and-white urn that is made specifically for the die-hard (no pun intended) Phillies fan. The bereaved can now remember a loved one through keepsake jewelry – Thumbies – that are made using the fingerprint of the deceased.

Community involvement is also important to the DeBords. “We feel we need to give back in both time and resources,” Diane says. In that effort, Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home has served as a major sponsor of Spring Fling, a fundraiser for Hospice of Lancaster County, which is held at Gibraltar each year. Diane has also served on the board of The Samaritan Center and enjoys volunteering by singing at Willow Valley as well as a number of other retirement communities. Mark is currently on the board of the Boys and Girls Club, former trustee of Lancaster Country Day School and a former board member of the Rotary Club of Lancaster. He is also a member of the Funeral Directors Association on the local, state and national levels. Jeremy, meanwhile, has also become a member of the Rotary Club of Lancaster, and he and Candace are involved in church activities.

For more information about the Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home, visit www.kasnyderfuneralhome.com

Only in Lancaster …Uncanny Coincidences

As boys, Mark DeBord and Chip Snyder attended Camp Snyder, the land for which was donated to the Boys and Girls Club by Diane DeBord’s grandparents, C. Abram and Ruth Snyder.

Jeremy DeBord and Chad Snyder were both born in 1981 (Jeremy in September and Chad in August).

Jeremy and Chad attended nursery school together at First Presbyterian Church. Both recall playing at each other’s homes.

Mark and Diane DeBord assumed ownership of the Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home in 1988, the same year Chip Snyder became the owner of the Charles F. Snyder Funeral Home

Jeremy DeBord and his wife Candace welcomed their first child Ethan Ryan DeBord (possibly the 5th generation) on April 28, 2010. The date just so happened to be Chip and Doreen Snyder’s 31st wedding anniversary.

Final steps: A Look Inside a Funeral Home (2004)

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 04:45:48 GMT

Final Steps: A Look Inside a Funeral Home (2004)

Originally Published Dec 07, 2004 08:56

By Susan Baldrige

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“In the funeral profession,” said Mark DeBord, “we take care of the deceased, there is time spent there. But more time is spent with the living. I get fulfillment being able to help those people.

“Sometimes people come in and say, “Can I do this?’ or “Can I can do that?’ I tell them, “You can’t do anything wrong.’ It might not be what other people would do but no two funerals are exactly alike.”

That’s for sure.

DeBord has buried a beloved motorcycle with its owner and cherished pets with their keepers. He has honored just about every other request, unusual or not.

But the couple is not too keen on undertaker humor.

Diane DeBord said when she was growing up, she noticed people joked about her family’s business until someone in their family died.

“Then it wasn’t funny anymore.”

The funeral home has strict guidelines of respect and reverence for the deceased.

“It’s not just a dead person,” said Diane DeBord. “It’s someone’s grandma.”

Guided by that policy, the very first thing the funeral home does when someone has died is to make sure they have the right person by verifying with family members or a nurse.

The body is brought to the funeral home and “set up.”

Mark DeBord, or the other two licensed funeral directors, Dominick Adamo and Bill Boyd, close the eyes and cross the arms of the person.

“We like to do the process as quickly as possible. There is an issue with rigor mortis. It becomes not as easy to do the work.”

If the death is suspicious or if there is a crime scene, the coroner’s office gets involved, said DeBord.

“We don’t have refrigeration here,” he remarked, “but we use the county morgue if that’s necessary, as do most of the funeral homes.”

The “operating room,” as they call one of the lower rooms of the funeral home, is indeed hospital-like.

The room has light green walls and a gray cement floor. A super-clean antiseptic smell hangs about in the air. Ceiling lights and track lighting brighten the room until it is nearly as illuminated as a hospital operating room.

Kitchen-type cabinets hold bottles of fluids, instruments, cosmetics, sheets and undergarments.

Several tables are in the room.

Some of the tables are used for dressing and preparing bodies.

There is a sink that has a long hose for shampooing hair.

The embalming table is porcelain, with a small trough running on either side of it.

The next step is to clean the body. Mark DeBord thoroughly washes the deceased with soap and water. The water runs down a small trough on the table and into a holding tank.

The holding tank is a biohazard container that is picked up at the funeral home, just as it is in a hospital.

Next, the hair is shampooed.

After that, embalming may be done but is not required by law and may not be necessary if the body is going to be cremated.

“The purpose of it is to preserve the body for viewing purposes and for the service,” Mark DeBord said.

Embalming is a two-step process.

A small incision is made in the neck into the carotid artery. The embalming fluid, which is a chemical preservative, is injected into the artery.

Then the blood is drained through the jugular vein.

“It’s not gruesome,” he said.

Diane DeBord does most of the hair styling. She was taught by her sister Jill, a stylist for the living. Next comes the makeup, a skin-tone undercover and a little added makeup for women.

“We don’t like to use a lot of cosmetics,” said Mark DeBord.

They color and cut hair as the family wishes, they said.

“We had a daughter request that her mother have her hair colored, and even though she was about 90 years old, she didn’t look 70,” said Mark DeBord.

“It makes me feel good when people comment like “that’s just how I remember my grandfather.’ It makes me feel the effort is definitely worthwhile,” Diane DeBord said.

The DeBords like relatives to bring a recent picture of the deceased, so they can get the hair and makeup right.

Mark DeBord said the funeral home uses both over-the-counter makeup brands and others specially ordered through funeral supply houses.

“We’ll use Mary Kay or anything,” he said.

They like to use a woman’s own makeup, if possible.

“I feel like I can help people through the process,” said Diane DeBord. “I can give comfort to the family members who are left.”

There is comfort here, symbolized by the box of tissues in every room of the elegant Victorian building. The DeBords order tissues by the case.

The one thing that always shakes these two professionals to the core is the death of a child.

“One of the first families I ever served,” recalled Mark DeBord, who was first licensed 24 years ago, “was a young couple that had a child that died. We privately set up a rocking chair in the holding room and let the couple rock the youngster and take the time that was needed.

“The child was about the same age as my kids at the time,” he added. “The experience made me appreciate life more and realize how important family is.”

Two years later, the couple had another son, and they called DeBord to tell him they named him “Mark.”

“That always stuck in my mind,” Mark DeBord said, “The little things you do that can really help people.”

The DeBords are strong proponents of viewings, private or open.

“It just gives the family a chance to say goodbye,” Diane DeBord said.

There are very few circumstances in which the DeBords will recommend against a viewing, such as for the victims of horrendous accidents.

“I always give them that choice, however.” Mark DeBord said. “It’s up to the family.”

They said people handle death in many different ways, so they do not think of special requests as odd. They just honor them.

“People can pretty much do what they want,” said Mark DeBord. “Like putting things in the casket. For instance, someone may have had a dog that had died and was cremated and the family wants the remains in the casket. Fine.”

But the DeBords’ most unusual request came from the family of a young man killed in a motorcycle accident several years ago.

“They wanted the motorcycle buried with him, partly because they did not want anyone else to get hurt on the motorcycle, and he loved his motorcycle.”

The couple said although death is often associated with ominous and frightful images in books and movies, they see a trend toward more openness and acceptance of the idea of death.

“I credit a lot of that to hospice,” said Diane DeBord. She said the program does a good job of counseling the families of the dying.

Both Mark and Diane said they enjoy their job, although neither one started out wanting to go into the business.

Mark DeBord first got a degree in recreation, and when he went to pick up Diane for their first date, passed by the family’s home because he didn’t think anyone would live over a funeral parlor.

“I think it’s something you have to be around enough to get comfortable or grow up in a family like Diane’s,” said Mark DeBord.

In their early 20s, they decided to go back to college together _ to mortuary school. And they’re glad they did.

“People might think recreation and the funeral business are complete opposites,” said Mark DeBord. “But in both you are helping people, that’s what we like to think we’re doing.”

“With actually not starting in the business, my views certainly have changed about death,” said DeBord. “It’s going to occur for all of us. I think that it isn’t something that I personally sit and worry about. Am I afraid of death? No. But am I ready for it? No. I’d like to grow a little older, and when the time comes, hopefully I will be able to face it.”