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Date: 1/10/2023
NORTHAMPTON – Growing up in a family that owns a funeral home business is an unconventional experience, especially when that business is the same place you spent your formative years as a child.
Jay Czelusniak grew up in his grandparents’ house on 173 North St. in Northampton, a spacious and fluorescent domain where a game of hide-and-seek was just as common as spending time with other families who had just lost a loved one. The location was home, but it was also the spot where his grandparents and father continued to cultivate a funeral home business.
“When me and my sister were little kids, we were always running around,” said Czelusniak in a recent sit-down interview with Reminder Publishing at the 173 North St. location. “It took us a while to realize that not everybody’s grandparents’ house had dead bodies in it.”
Czelusniak’s unique experience growing up in a family funeral home business is what led him to the man he is today, a fourth-generation owner and licensed funeral director who still runs the Czelusniak Funeral Home business at the exact spot he grew up in. At this point, he has been operating the home as the director for over two decades.
Over that time, Czelusniak cultivated a network of like-minded funeral directors in the area through his founding of the Western Mass. Independent Funeral Directors’ Association and now serves on the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association (MFDA). His recent inclusion on the latter makes him only the second funeral director on the statewide board representing Western Mass.
“We as funeral directors are trying to help each other,” said Czelusniak, of the MFDA. “We’re trying to promote our businesses and promote moral and ethical running of our businesses….we’re looking to see what the future trends are, too.”
Background
Czelusniak Funeral Home was founded in Easthampton in 1910 by Walenty Czelusniak, who raised three sons – Frank, John and Edward – around the funeral business. John, Edward and Frank ran the business once Walenty passed.
Under Frank’s direction, the funeral home expanded to an open storefront in Northampton around 1930. In 1950, the home relocated to its current location on North Street – a converted three-story home. Keeping with the family tradition, Frank’s son Robert joined the business and handed the reigns to his son Jay in the late 1990s. Jay has operated the home ever since.
“Growing up, just learning from my father and grandfather, they didn’t tell you specifically what they did and why, you just saw it through their conversations with families,” said Czelusniak. “Just watching them was a great way to learn the business.”
Living inside a business that operates around-the-clock 365 days out of the year made things interesting for Czelusniak. He remembers splitting time with his father and grandfather during holidays while each would work around the home. The unique circumstances bred a congenial atmosphere where outside families who needed their services would eventually become part of the Czelusniak family.
“It was normal to share our holidays and birthdays with our families,” said Czelusniak. “My grandfather would always call [clients] our families.”
Czelusniak said he remembers the early days when he would help around the home any way he could, like parallel parking cars before he knew how to drive or completing other odd jobs in and around the home.
“Back then we had a smoking lounge downstairs, and one of my first jobs was to hold my breath, go downstairs and open all the windows to get the smoke out,” he said. “I would take the nip bottles from under the cushion that the guys brought in. That was my first job.”
Despite the daily exposure to the funeral home business, Czelusniak initially never felt he would operate the entire spot. He went to the University of Vermont, traveled, and then attended Lynn University to receive his associates in mortuary sciences.
“I wasn’t planning on going into the business,” he said. “It‘s just kind of one of those things that happened by fate.”
Czelusniak was planning to move with his college friends out to the West Coast to go into finance but after taking the necessary exam and working full-time at the home with his father, he developed a reverence for meeting with families.
“I liked actually helping out and running the funerals instead of just parking the cars and doing all the little parts,” said Czelusniak.
Taking over
Although he fully took over in 1998, Czelusniak said his father, who is now 86, always assists where he can. “Being a family business, my father still gives me advice and helpful pointers,” said Czelusniak, with a laugh. “He’s still always asking me how’s it going.”
Running a family business presents some minor quibbles but developing lifelong relationships with these families who experience a difficult loss is ultimately fulfilling.
For example, Czelusniak told Reminder Publishing about an encounter he had in public with a former client who utilized the funeral home in the past. “I was in Stop & Shop just grocery shopping, and a wife saw me, starting crying, gave me a hug and said, ‘I wouldn’t have made it through without you,’” said Czelusniak. “That’s when, for the first time, I really knew what my father and grandfather did and how important it was.”
“These people are our families, truly,” he continued. “It’s been very fulfilling getting to know everybody from around the surrounding areas and really helping them get through things.”
The changes in the business
Like other industries, the funeral home business has changed in recent years. According to Czelusniak, cremation continues to be one of the most popular options when someone passes – a far cry from Czelusniak’s early years in the business when the Roman Catholic Church dominated, and ashes were not allowed.
“In our area especially, you also have a lot more people thinking of green burials and worrying about not just the land use but whether building and transferring the caskets impacts of climate change,” he added.
COVID-19 also hit the funeral industry strongly, as many people were forced to initiate services online and over the phone. With capacity limits implemented, many people were not even allowed to say goodbye to someone in person.
“We had to shut down…we’ve never got shut down in the history of the funeral business,” said Czelusniak. “To tell people, ‘No, you can’t have something…it was the most foreign thing I’ve ever had to do. My job is if you tell me we need this done, I tell you, ‘Yes.’”
The unprecedented period threw everyone in the industry for a loop, as many people in the industry found it difficult to take care of families when they could not even see them. “That was a strange concept,” Czelusniak added.
Since then, the homes have returned to a state of normalcy with more people understanding the importance of congregating for the celebration of a loved one more than ever. “We’re seeing a real resurgence in gatherings and calling hours because people realize you need that connection,” Czelusniak said.
The present and future of the business
Czelusniak has made an impact in the funeral business beyond just his own home. He started the Western Mass. Independent Funeral Directors’ Association to network with other independent directors in the area.
“In Western Mass, we have a lot of the small, locally-owned funeral homes,” said Czelusniak. “At the time, a lot of the continued education [for directors] was based out of the eastern part of the state…we weren’t being represented, and it was hard for us to leave our business and travel across the state for continued education.”
Because of this, Czelusniak worked with other directors to develop their own education seminars out in Western Mass. The meeting eventually became a nice sounding board for independent directors to bounce ideas and get to know each other.
“The last few years, the continued education has been done online a lot more…but we’re still able to help everybody,” Czelusniak said. “We just want to help out any way we can.”
Now part of the MFDA, Czelusniak hopes to be a viable resource for all funeral directors across the state while simultaneously brainstorming legislation that would be beneficial to the public and industry.
“It’s an honor being invited to the board,” said Czelusniak. “It’s a time commitment, but it’s worth it for me to be able to lend my expertise and also continue learning.”
By only being the second person on the board representing Western Massachusetts, Czelusniak said it is important for other directors to understand that they can reach out to him whenever they have an issue or other questions. In other words, the Czelusniak family tradition is now branching out with hopes of bringing forward-thinking changes to an ever-evolving industry.
“Funeral directors from Western Mass. have a right to call us and tell us what they need, and we can be their representative at the state level,” he said. “We want everyone to be heard.”