Local funeral homes coping Families of deceased are understanding Saturday, October 22, 2005 By Bruce Nolan Staff writer The family of Elizabeth Franz gathered at Leitz-Eagan Funeral Home in Metairie on Friday to celebrate her life and mourn her death five days ago -- but having done that, they were unable to bury her. She can't be buried until Monday, another in the many continuing disruptions of life left by Hurricane Katrina. Greenwood Cemetery, the site of her grave, is still not operating normally. Stripped of workers like so many other New Orleans businesses, the cemetery is scheduling burials on a limited basis, said Charlie Eagan, the funeral director who coordinated events for the Franz family. Seven weeks after the storm, New Orleans area funeral homes are still struggling through formidable obstacles to restore a sense of normality for families who must bury their dead. Some major New Orleans funeral homes are flooded and inoperable. Some work out of borrowed quarters and use cooperating homes' facilities to embalm the dead and prepare them for their funerals. More problematic, some large cemeteries have lost most of their workers, delaying funerals or, in the case of the Franz family, creating a two-part leave-taking. "We're offering some sense of normalcy, but I don't think people understand what it's like behind the scenes," said Billy Henry, manager of the House of Bultman. "When I tell you I'm struggling, I mean we're all struggling." New Orleans funeral directors say they are working through a backlog of cases and asking families to accept disruptions in timing and normal funeral convention. "We're still serving families every day, still providing honor and dignity, and still being honest with our clients and families," said Kathleen Rhodes Astorga of Rhodes Funeral Home. Rhodes lost four of its six funeral homes and 75 of its 100 employees, she said. "I just call it challenging. We're not used to saying to a family, 'You can't have Saturday, you have to take Tuesday,' but now we have to because we're booked," she said. Majestic Mortuary Service in New Orleans resumed operations this week. Its parlor on Oretha Castle Haley remained high and dry, but looters stole one of Majestic's limousines and vandalized three other vehicles, said Cecilia Robert, president of Majestic Mortuary Service. Other New Orleans funeral homes are in much worse shape, all but destroyed physically. Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, situated in a sprawling complex of cemeteries and mausoleums around the foot of Metairie Road, stands open and empty, gutted to the studs. A waterline testifies that water stood four feet deep in its chapel. Lake Lawn is working cooperatively with E.J. Fielding Funeral Home in Covington to do funerals; meanwhile, Lake Lawn's surrounding cemeteries and mausoleums often host interments directed by other funeral homes, said Lake Lawn community relations director Jerry Schoen. But not as in pre-Katrina days. The Lake Lawn property, once a leafy, manicured spread that conveyed the aura of tranquillity its managers aimed for, is now a blasted flood plain. Work crews have hauled away downed trees all over the property. But soft green postcard views are now replaced by the drab browns and grays of dead foliage and thick dust. Katrina stripped the cemeteries' workforce from 60 to fewer than 15, Schoen said. The manpower shortage has limited Lake Lawn to eight interments a day, four days a week. Now families and clergy gather on the edge of the grounds under a huge white tent to hold services that might once have been at a grave site deep in the verdant cemetery, or in spare, dignified interiors of its mausoleums, he said. But now cemeteries are scarred, and the mausoleums are stripped of carpeting and bereft of electrical power. Schoen and other managers gently explain that while a few family members are welcome to enter the mausoleum to see a loved-one's final interment, the building's dark, dank interiors do not convey the sense of peace they once did. "The last thing we want is an awkward memory from those last moments with mom or dad," he said. "We're asking families to understand. Hopefully, most do," he said. "From the people I've been talking to in the industry, everything I'm getting is that everybody's doing their best to make this work for families," said Astorga, of Rhodes. "And I'm getting a lot of understanding from families. We're all still dealing with a lot of pain from this storm."