From services attended by somber mourners to laughter-filled celebrations, the nature of how we honor departed loved ones has changed over the decades. Janeth Peterseim reflects on 60 years in the funeral business.

“It’s not the dead ones that will hurt you, it’s the live ones,” Rollie Peterseim counseled his daughter-in-law, Janeth, during her first weeks at the funeral home.

The Williamsburg-born 27-year-old, now living in Tipton, had been enjoying the early years of her marriage and her career in banking.  But all of that was about to go topsy-turvy.  Short’s mother was ill and his father ready to retire, so Short was going to purchase their funeral home.  The couple was moving to Kalona.

“I did not want to move to Kalona,” Jan, now 87, admits. 

She was expected to leave her job at GMAC, an auto loan financer in Cedar Rapids, pack up their mobile home, and begin a new life assisting her husband at Peterseim Funeral Home. 

She dragged her feet.  Short urged her to get the packing done so they could move the mobile home to its new location, but she didn’t.  One day she came home from work and the mobile home was gone.  Angry, she spent the night with her parents.

“It all worked out,” she says now, which may sound like an understatement if you know her.  For the past 60 years, she has been part of the bedrock of the funeral home and Kalona.  She has served generations of families at their most difficult times, as well as been deeply involved in community-shaping organizations such as the Kalona Historical Society and Kalona Area Chamber of Commerce. 

The News recently caught up with Jan and asked her to reflect on her six decades at Peterseim Funeral Home.

When Short and Jan took over the funeral home in 1963, things were very different than they are today. 

To begin, there wasn’t much money in it.  Jan commuted to her banking job in Cedar Rapids for a year because she had a good position and “we certainly needed the income too, because there was nothing,” she says.  Short took other jobs, including working at the turkey plant, selling cars, and helping farmers to make ends meet. 

But things picked up, Jan left her job, and she and Short started a family.  They moved out of the mobile home and into the funeral home, where the kids grew up and Jan went to work. 

“At that time, we were just the two of us running the funeral home,” Jan says.  “I could sit down with a family at the time of need and go through all of the obituary things with them, and even go out with them to make their selections and all.  And then the law changed to where you had to be a licensed funeral director.  Well, I’m not a licensed funeral director, I’m just a helper.  So that meant Short had to do almost everything.”

Back in those early days, “People were really hesitant to bring a child into the funeral,” Jan says.  “I really have always encouraged it.”

The Peterseims made an effort to be open with children about what they were doing and why, so that kids would understand.  When, for example, a casket was left above ground at a gravesite after a service, kids “didn’t ever know what happened to grandma after we left.”  So the Peterseims would “have the kids come and sit and [we would] talk to them, so they would know what’s going to go on when we leave, and where they can come back to honor their grandparents.”

“The whole concept of funerals has changed in the 60 years that I’ve been around,” Jan says.  “Now I feel like it’s more service than it was then because you do more now.    Back then we did the embalming, had the visitation, and then it was over.  Now I feel like we’re involved with a family all through.”

“And then, the biggest help that has ever happened is the computer,” she adds.

Computers revolutionized how the Peterseims handled obituaries and service folders.  In the early days, they had to call a newspaper correspondent and give her the obituary information over the phone; if she misheard, misspelled, or a survivor’s name was left out, it went to print that way, uncorrected. 

Information for service folders would be written out, brought to the family’s home to be approved, and then sent out to a printer.  Today, the funeral home can type, print, and email proofs in minutes, and any corrections can be made quickly and easily.

“The thing that has probably been the biggest change that I’ve seen in the funeral business is the attitude of people about a service, about the death of a person,” Jan says.  “They’re more willing to talk about it and be open.”

Funerals used to be somber affairs, and now “it’s more like a big party,” she says, although that’s not as true in the case of sudden or tragic deaths.  But people now speak of a “celebration of life” rather than opportunity for mourning; they bring in photos and mementos from the departed’s life, and share stories that are often very funny. 

Jan especially likes the move toward greater personalization and enjoys when friends and family are able to share memories of their loved one. 

“Sometimes the friends are closer to the person than the family is, and the things they share, the family never had any idea about,” Jan says.

COVID made its mark on the nature of funeral services as well, leading people to delay memorial services until months or longer after a person’s death.  It also opened up people’s idea of where a memorial service might be held; rather than a funeral home, it might be held anywhere. 

These changes Jan embraces less, concerned over the idea that people would hold services at their own convenience rather than honoring someone at the time of their passing. 

“Sometimes you wake up and think about somebody, Ok, did they die or not?  Because you haven’t done anything,” she says.  Delaying a service might cause you to duplicate the grieving process or fail to feel a sense of closure.

Jan’s husband Short passed away in 2008, years after their daughter Meg received her funeral director’s license (in 1994) and became the manager of the funeral home.  After his passing, Peterseim Funeral Home merged with Beatty Funeral Home of Washington and Wayland. 

The resulting Beatty & Peterseim Funeral & Monument Services took a step that Jan wasn’t sure they should take: they installed their own crematory in Washington in 2020.

“When we started talking about it, I was not in favor of it,” she says.  “I thought it was a big expense; I didn’t think that cremation would become as eminent as it has, but it seems like it was one of the best things we’ve ever done.”

Cremation has been gaining in popularity, a trend Jan attributes to its lower cost, environmental friendliness, and the (mistaken) belief that we’re out of cemetery space.  COVID especially raised its profile; the funeral home suddenly found itself transporting bodies to the crematoria in Cedar Rapids or Marion two or three times a week.  The new crematorium in Washington is far more convenient.

As for Jan’s personal thoughts on cremation, “I have many dogs buried out here in my flowerbeds,” she says.

Jan continues to have a place at the funeral home, but her personal involvement is winding down. 

“I’m basically retired,” she says.  “I just physically can’t do what I used to do.”

But her heart is still in the game.

“The thing I miss most is just being with the people,” she says. “We’ve been in business 106 years now; Short’s parents started the business in 1917.  There’s generations and generations of families that we have served through the years, and it’s an honor to serve them.”

Looking back, she is most proud that her daughter Meg is buying the business and will be an owner of it, and that they have been able to serve the community.  She’s also proud of the fundraising the annual Short Peterseim Memorial Golf Tournament has done for Hospice of Washington County; in the 15 years it has been held, it has raised over $93,000.

Her hopes for the future include seeing her 9-year-old granddaughter, Charlotte, graduate from high school, and that the funeral home continue to be able offer the community the good service it deserves.

And what does the woman who spent the last 60 years taking care of others at the funeral home want for her own send-off into the afterlife?

“I want the celebration,” she says.  “Big time.”