Since the start of the pandemic, about 130 Black morticians have died from COVID-19, according to the association that represents them.
Mortician Shawn Troy stands at the grave of his father, William Penn Troy Sr., at Hillcrest Cemetery outside Mullins, S.C., on Sunday, May 23, 2021. The elder Troy, who developed the cemetery, died of COVID-19 in August 2020, one of many Black funeral directors to succumb during the pandemic. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” he said. “But I’ll get through it.” MULLINS, S.C. — When the last mourners departed and funeral director Shawn Troy was left among the headstones, he wept alone.
He is hardly alone. Black funerals are “more celebration, and that’s no disrespect to my colleagues across the country. We’re more, I should say, intimate,” said Hari P. Close, president of the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association and the operator of a Baltimore funeral home. The association represents Black morticians.When the pandemic hit, the very closeness and celebration that distinguish Black funerals put morticians at risk, Close said.“It has really had an impact ...
“We were getting bombarded with COVID bodies,” said Dr. Mary Gaffney, who stepped in to run her brother, Jeremiah’s, funeral home in Inwood, New York after he died of the virus last May. In Mississippi, Luzern “Sonny” Dillon and employees at his two funeral homes worked for months to fulfill COVID safety protocols, restricting gatherings. But Dillon, a widely known former councilman, continued his routine of spending time in the community, engaging people in conversation.
“Just in case I don’t make it out of here, this is what I want you all to do,” Sonny Dillon told his wife from a hospital bed in March. He died weeks later at 72. The best known include the Ford family of Memphis, Tennessee, funeral home operators who sent a father and son to Congress. In Detroit, funeral director Charles Diggs Sr. was a state legislator before his son won a seat in Washington and helped found the Congressional Black Caucus.
“We talk and we cry and we try to build each other up. We tell each other we’ve got to keep his legacy going,” she said.During the first months of the pandemic, Gaffney said she warned her brother, who had some chronic health issues, to isolate himself and let employees at the funeral home care for the bodies of the dead. But that was not his character.
While Jeremiah Gaffney ran the family business, Mary Gaffney studied medicine, setting up a practice in Charlotte, North Carolina. After her brother fell ill over the Easter weekend of 2020 and then was diagnosed with COVID, she tried to ensure his care. But his death weeks later, at 65, confronted Mary Gaffney with responsibilities well beyond her expertise.
“We’re going to see what the future holds,” said Gaffney, who hopes younger family members might eventually seek a place in the business. “Needless to say, it’s been an emotional journey.” Over the years, the elder Troy, known as Penn, had served as a county commissioner, local school board member and church treasurer. But those were just his official duties.
“Growing up in the 60s, Penn knew what struggle was,” Legette said. “He would tell me, ‘Cynthia, we have been blessed ... so it’s up to us to lift the torch and light the way for our children’.”
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