GO IOWA CITY

Zest for life found in company of death

Dick Hakes
Taking Liberties

Cindy Geyer of Coralville says she learned respect for life by growing up in a house where almost every day centered around a respect for death.

Cindy Geyer, shown with her husband Dick Kading and their 1940 Packard hearse, says she learned a respect for both life and death growing up and working in the family’s funeral business in Albia.  She wore vintage mourning attire for this photo.

It was the Geyer Funeral Home in Albia, where her parents Ken and Gladys Geyer raised three daughters in an atmosphere that might have been considered unusual to some observers.

“It certainly seemed like a very normal childhood to me,” said Cindy. “It was a small town and I think people thought what our family did was important. I don’t recall that any of the kids at school demeaned it in any way.”

And yet, the lifestyle was a bit out of the ordinary. She remembers some friends were afraid to stay overnight with her at the home. Still others were possibly a little too bold and curious to figure out what went on there.

“I started taking piano lessons when I was about seven,” she recalled. “Our piano was apparently too big to haul upstairs to our apartment above the funeral home, so it was in the embalming room, which we called the morgue.”

“There were times,” she said, “when I might be practicing the piano and a body would be under a sheet a couple of feet away. Actually, I think it taught me to not be afraid and also to have respect for the body, which my dad always stressed.”

Other times, she and her sisters might use the embalming room table as a place to play solitaire or cut out valentines. “We had to be pretty quiet around the house, and I actually think that helped us learn how to read at an early age,” she said.  “I think I was three.”

Later on, the three girls often helped out with the family business: setting up chairs for services or visitations, handling or delivering flowers and answering the door or the telephone. Someone had to be home almost constantly to answer the phone, since Cindy’s father was the only EMT in the county and operated the only ambulance.

“Actually, when I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, the first time I drove a car alone was when Dad asked me to take the hearse to Moravia, where we had another funeral home,” she said.  “So here I am driving 40 or 50 mile per hour down that narrow Highway 5 in a huge Cadillac hearse I’ve never driven before. I was pretty small, so I am sure all people saw from behind were the ribbons in my pigtails sticking up.”

Cindy got philosophical when she thought of how her parents pulled together to serve their community in the funeral business and still enjoy their family life.

“Mom and Dad were so busy, not only with the many funerals but all of the ambulance calls day and night,” she said.  “And yet they still made it to all of our school activities.”

She also remembers the times when there may have been a bad car accident and multiple funerals going on and how hard it was to watch friends she knew go through such sorrow.

At other times, someone might die who simply did not have many family members nor friends to mourn them. “When that happened, my dad would always make sure there were flowers at the service,” she said.  “And sometimes he would ask my sisters and I to fill in as mourners.”

Cindy says one of her most vivid memories was the first time she helped her father retrieve a body. It was an elderly woman at a nursing home. “I remember remarking when I touched the body that it was still warm,” she said, “and that we were so close to life.”

Her father had said, “Yes, she just on the other side.” Cindy recalls this simple statement defining that transitional moment when a life passes on as “being a lot of reality therapy about death.”

Her parents are now deceased but an iconic reminder of their life’s work sits in the garage of the home where Cindy and her husband, Dick Kading, now live. They purchased the 1940 Packard hearse her father had acquired when the family bought the Moravia funeral home in 1958. The vehicle was used for funerals in the 1960s and '70s, then was retired from service and only driven in parades.

Cindy has her law degree, plus a master’s degree in hospital and health administration. She currently serves as director of two departments at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics — Graduate Medical Education and the Clinical Staff Office. Dick has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and is semi-retired after a long career in engineering analysis software.

The antique hearse is in original condition and does not run at present, but the body and purple mohair interior are in good shape. At 20 feet long, it’s an impressive vintage collector’s item the couple pulls out of the garage to display at Halloween, complete with a 19th-century coffin in the back. The coffin has a window and screen at the head end.

When he was younger, their son John and a friend would often sit motionless in the front seat of the hearse in costume like mannequins. If a curious trick-or-treater might lean into the window for a closer look, they’d come to life and send the visitor screaming.

Dick says his favorite episode involved the Halloween night when a very small girl came to the door with a worried question to ask.

“Did you know,” she said, “that you have one of those things they take people to the cemetery in sitting in your driveway?”

They did know, and will probably display the “thing” during a few more Halloweens to come as Cindy’s remaining link to her family’s proud heritage.