Business: Banjo-playing Bell City man to buy venerable Bollinger County funeral home (6/20/22) | Southeast Missourian newspaper, Cape Girardeau, MO

2022-06-19 22:18:40 By : Ms. Alma li

MARBLE HILL, Mo. — Eric Pendergrass, 30, has had a busy life to-date.

He's been a hog farmer in Bell City, Missouri, where he graduated high school; a banjo player in a bluegrass band playing in benefits and at churches; and, come Jan. 1, Pendergrass will become the new owner of Hutchings Funeral Chapel, 203 Bass St. in Marble Hill, Missouri.

Marian and Charlie Hutchings have owned the funeral home since Aug. 25, 1996, and are in the process of turning over the business to Pendergrass in what will be a seller-financed transaction.

"I like him and he's the right fit," said Charlie Hutchings, who has worked with Pendergrass — a licensed funeral director, a licensed pre-need specialist and currently a student embalmer — for the last three years.

Pendergrass said he is grateful for the tutelage of the Hutchingses.

"This (opportunity) is a dream come true for me," he said.

"When (the Hutchingses) bought the place, it was really down — handling maybe five or six funerals a year and now they've built the business up to around 70 annually," Pendergrass said, adding the current volume of work is just about the right size for the kind of service he wants to offer.

"I don't want too much (business) because I want to be there for all the families and being too busy would hinder that," he opined, adding he has no desire to have what he called a "conglomerate" funeral home. "Being a 'mom-and-pop' shop, answering the call when transition happens and taking a family all the way through to the cemetery, is what I want."

Pendergrass said funeral service is intensely personal.

"When the phone rings and I answer it, that call will set the tone for that grieving family. When I show up at night to remove a loved one's body, they know my face, my voice, my sound and my demeanor. I will hang with them through the whole process and that's why I like being in a small-town funeral home," he said.

"I've wanted to be an undertaker since I was 9 years old. The best I can recall is my neighbor passed away and I remember the funeral home personnel, seeing everything they did and thinking, 'Wow, that's me,'" Pendergrass said. "What I saw was all heart and all caring and that's how I knew this is what I wanted to do."

Pendergrass has had mentors in funeral service, including the late trade embalmer Roger Moore.

"Trade embalmers work from place to place, wherever they're needed to prepare bodies, but I wanted to work with families as well during their time of need," he said.

Pendergrass was reminded of a scene in the 1967 movie "Bonnie and Clyde," in which the notorious 1930s-era outlaws picked up a hitchhiker. Discovering their backseat guest was a mortician, the legendary fugitives immediately threw their newfound companion out of the car.

Laughing at the reference, Pendergrass said he is all too well aware of a certain stigma attached to his chosen profession.

"It's hard to find a date sometimes," Pendergrass admitted. "That's the truth. It's rather difficult when you're on call all the time."

Pendergrass, who said he has sold all his hogs in preparation for assuming ownership in 2023, will move into the upstairs living quarters of the business in September — soon to be known as Hutchings-Pendergrass Funeral Chapel.

"I tell everybody I'm a pig farmer. I think I'm down to earth. If I'm not actually working a visitation or a funeral, you're likely to see me in overalls. My house looks like an antiques store and the office will, too. I'll have a miniature Farmall tractor on top of the desk and probably a picture of pig hanging somewhere on a wall. I won't be hiding the farm boy in a suit."

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