In the late 1970s, Jim Wardlow, working in Michigan, saw an advertisement for available positions at the Hodroff funeral home in the Twin Cities.
Though not Jewish, Wardlow had worked for a year at Piser Funeral Services, a Jewish funeral home in Chicago, while in college for mortuary science. So he called up owner Leo Hodroff to ask about the job here.
“His biggest concern was, was my license going to reciprocate to Minnesota – which it did,” Wardlow said. “And then I came and, like they say, the rest is history.”
That’s how Wardlow was launched into a 45-year career serving the Twin Cities Jewish community at what is now the Hodroff-Epstein Memorial Chapels, where he was a funeral director and general manager. He retired on August 1, and spent some time reflecting on his work with TC Jewfolk.
“It’s a very rewarding business to deal with families that have had a loss, to be able to be with them, sit with them, help them organize the final rituals,” Wardlow said. “I find my biggest draw to this business was just the chance to help people.”
Wardlow compares choosing a career as a funeral director to being a rabbi or a nurse: The work is a calling.
In a way, it was always in his life.
The son of a minister, Wardlow grew up with his father officiating at funerals, and his sisters babysat for the local funeral director. Before his senior year in high school, looking for summer work, Wardlow applied to a job at the local funeral home.
“I went in with the intent that I was going to be cutting grass and washing cars and things like that,” he said. “And lo and behold, it ventured into being a funeral director.”
In the Twin Cities, serving the Jewish community was an adjustment, both as he learned more about Jewish funeral and mourning practices and while gaining families’ trust.
“I was definitely a kid standing in the corner, watching everything and listening to things, and as time grew on, people got to know me,” Wardlow said.
In his first few years, for example, rabbis or families would ask Wardlow to bring a Jewish man to move bodies of the deceased to the funeral home, preferring not to have a non-Jew do so.
But “now, people sometimes just identify me as being Jewish, because I’ve been here so long, [and] they were comfortable with me doing some of those things when a Jewish man wasn’t available,” he said.
Leo Hodroff used to tell Wardlow, “‘Always remember, you’re not the rabbi, and if you have questions, ask the rabbi,’” he said. “That’s kind of my motto. That’s the way I made it this long, I guess.”
After 45 years, Wardlow estimates that out of the cohort of Twin Cities rabbis he started working with in 1979, just three are still around. He feels privileged to have gotten to know generations of rabbis here.
“It’s been an experience, and you learn a little bit from every one of them,” he said. “They’re all just wonderful, wonderful people.”
Of course, being a funeral director hasn’t always been easy. Being around grief all the time can be challenging – something Wardlow had an early-career wake up call about.
“Soon after I graduated from mortuary school, my dad died really suddenly, and so that was an adjustment, you know, knowing that I’m going to be around this,” he said.
Accepting the unique position of a funeral director – caring for families, but also, in a way, representing death to them – has also been a necessary part of the job.
Going to funerals, sometimes “people say, ‘I don’t want to see you again,’” he said. “Then they say, ‘You know what I mean.’ I know what you mean…they don’t want to be around death again.”
But in time, Wardlow also overcomes that specter of death. He has been invited to weddings and other family events in the community; welcome opportunities to see people away from the cemeteries.
After years watching Jewish mourning rituals, Wardlow now feels an affinity for the way Jews approach death.
“I find more understanding in the way that Jews have taken care of their dead over the years, and it makes so much more sense to me,” he said. “It’s very ritualistic, very healing, if you follow the steps. So when people say, ‘Well, what would you want?’ That’s kind of what my thought is: Just a very simple, traditional service in the sense that, not drawn out, have it as soon as possible.”
As Wardlow starts retirement, it’s hard to suddenly let go of work. He sees obituary notices and tells himself to stay away. It’s a tough transition, especially in a line of work where Wardlow got used to being practically always on call – after all, death can happen at any time, and Jews typically bury our dead as soon as possible.
At the same time, after decades of juggling a work-family balance often shifted firmly toward work, it feels good to now be a full-time grandfather to seven grandchildren, most of whom need to be driven to their various after-school sports activities.
What Wardow will miss the most about working at Hodroff-Epstein? “The people, the families,” he said, giving credit also to the rest of the funeral directors for being great colleagues.
Here in Minnesota, “everybody complains about the cold, but the warmth of the families is what keeps you going,” Wardlow said.
During his career at Hodroff Jim has been exceedingly kind and skilled. We wish him the best in his retirement. He has had a positive impact on and helped many families in the Jewish community including ours. Thank you Jim.