were private schools and to meet the licensure requirements of two academic college years in addition to one year of mortuary college, this time at U of M was necessary. Most of those private colleges are now gone and have become part of community colleges that offer an AA degree with an “all in one” approach to mortuary science education. This is a much better way, in my opinion. During that time, my interest in funeral service increased as Bobbie and I lived in the upstairs apartment of Livingston & Malletta Funeral Directors in Missoula. While working previously for the City of Libby during high school, my main job was taking care of the cemetery. During that time, I worked with Mel Vial, the mortician with our local funeral home. I learned much about funeral service from him but based on negative experiences he had in funeral service, he attempted to try and talk me out of it. “What the hell do you want to do this for?!” was his favorite counsel. “It’s a big world out there, and there are lots of other opportunities besides this,” was another. You can see how well I followed his advice. While living at Livingston & Malletta, John Malletta noticed my extreme interest and desire in funeral service and encouraged me to go to mortuary college as soon as possible. In late December 1974, Bobbie and I headed for southern California, where I enrolled in the California College of Mortuary Science at Los Angeles (now part of Cypress Community College), living upstairs of a small, family-owned mortuary in the downtown district. The semi-retired owner and his son operated the place, and the elder became a wonderful mentor to me in embalming, funeral directing, public relations and funeral service in general, based on his many years of experience. We need more mentors in this profession. I will forever be grateful for the patience, encouragement and teachable moments and more that he so generously gave to me. In December 1975, I graduated with fellow Montanans John Michelotti from Billings and Bill Carter from Plains. During our absence from Montana, John Malletta acquired Geraghty Funeral Home in Missoula. Upon our return, he placed me at that location, which was managed by Fred Nelson. In retrospect, I feel very blessed to have had more excellent mentorship at that point in my career working under the direct supervision of Fred, a well-experienced funeral director and embalmer, along with John Malletta and occasionally Tom “Tim” Geraghty, both past presidents of MFDA. In 1976, we returned to Libby to work for Mel Vial, who had acquired the Gompf Funeral Homes of Libby and Eureka. (I think at that point, he was glad I ignored his advice.) We also started our family: we had two sons and later assisted in raising two nieces and a nephew, all of who were the same age group as our sons, thus becoming our own “Brady Bunch.” It was a very happy memory for us. Later, I became the manager of the business and then acquired ownership of it in 1992 in partnership with my wife, Bobbie. Ownership comes with long hours but has many rewards as well if you are willing to work for it. During this time, we began to renovate our facility, a ninety-year-old wood frame structure; there were almost no plum walls or square corners, and every wall we opened was like Pandora’s Box. We began to wallpaper our chapel when we discovered two days later we would need it the next day for a service. So we parked the kids in sleeping bags in the lobby and worked all night to get it done, with finish time the next morning at 6:30 a.m. Those times will either bring you closer as a married couple or lead to homicide. We settled, thankfully, for the former. My unending thanks during this process to my associate (and later successor) Steve Schnackenberg, an experienced carpenter, for his assist. During my tenure as a funeral director and coroner in this territory — stretching from the Canadian border to the Idaho panhandle and from Libby over to the Flathead County line — it is not too much for me to say that this has been the experience of a lifetime. Distances between locations make things hectic, and winter driving can be fraught with difficulties, but when leaving one of our locations for home after a service, there is this incomparable sense of satisfaction CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 Pub. 1 Issue 2, 2022 15
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