Local funeral home celebrates 125 years
EUGENE, Ore. -- A local funeral home celebrates 125 years of service and gave us a behind the scenes look at preparation for a funeral.
Musgrove says: "It's the most natural thing that happens other than child birth is death," said Mark Musgrove, owner and operator of Musgrove Mortuary.
Musgrove is a second generation funeral director. He agreed to let us in on the process that leads to burial or cremation.
When a family contacts the funeral home initially, the team gets to work. "The body is wrapped in a clean linen sheet and then put into a van and then transferred to the funeral home," he said. "The body is place on this table the body is shampoo-ed and bathed. If the family wants embalming this is where it is embalmed."
Before embalming, the technician must first remove the blood from a body. Then the embalming liquid is pumped into the body using a specific machine.
A hairdresser will fix the hair of the deceased and add cosmetics. The look is duplicated from a photo provided from the family.
If the family chooses to cremate instead of embalm, the body is stored in a large refrigerator for up to 10 days.
Cremation takes two and a half hours at around 2000 degrees F.
Musgrove said in the years he has been working with the dead, he has never had any strange occurrences.
"I've been doing something for 30 plus years," he said. "I've never seen a ghost I welcome it though would be kinda cool but if anyone would have seen it it would be me. I've worked in funeral home and been around bodies my whole life."
