Beatty-Peterseim offers compassion, care when needed most

Staff at Beatty & Peterseim Funeral and Monument Services have a straightforward but formidable goal: helping people through their grief.

With funeral homes in Kalona, Wayland and Washington, the business designs digital and physical memorials for lost loved ones, handles the embalming or cremation process, and manages any needed administrative work. That includes things like acquiring flowers, coordinating caterers, musicians and pastors, writing obituaries and gathering info for a death certificate.

The impact of their effort is undeniable.

“Having gone through it, you appreciate that people are just lost, they don’t know what to do next, they don’t know where to turn,” Funeral Director and Embalmer Meg Nagel said. “Being able to walk them through that, and help them every step of the way. For me, that’s what keeps driving me.”

The job changes with the times. Nagel said the growing popularity of cremation made for very different behind-the-scenes work, even if public services look the same as they always have.

Beatty-Peterseim prides itself as the home of the only on-site crematorium in Washington County.

“You can still have a viewing, the body can still be embalmed and you can have a ceremonial casket so that they’re at a viewing,” Nagel said. “You can have a viewing, and then have cremation. Folks don’t always realize that that is an option.”

Nagel said the homes’ services were deeply personal, even by the standards of the close-knit small towns and communities they serve.

“We care about people,” Nagel said. “It’s not just another funeral, or another cremation. We really care about the families that we’re helping, and we do want to make it easier, if possible, for them to go through the process.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com