Located in the most ethnically diverse area in Seattle is Dayspring-Fitch & Sons (DFS). Housed in a former Mormon temple, the funeral home is within a three-block radius of a Somali mosque, a Hispanic church, a Pentecostal church, a Jewish synagogue, a Catholic church, a Baptist church, and a Chinese nursing home. The 27-year old Dayspring-Fitch & Son’s is the city’s last remaining independent African American-owned funeral home. Founder Zane Fitch shares how he started out and still works in a self-segregated industry, has adapted to serve an increasingly diverse market, and now looks to his sons to take over the family business. DFS’s story sheds light on how independent and mostly family-owned funeral homes fare amid changes in the industry and society.
“Even the police was scared of the undertaker”
I first met Zane Fitch when we volunteered together on the board of directors for the MLK Business Association, which serves mostly minority and/or immigrant-owned small businesses in south Seattle. Fitch almost always wears a black suit. Whenever his work phone rings, he immediately turns away, cups the phone near his mouth, and speaks in a hushed, consoling tone.
Only after a few years of knowing each other did I ask him to tell me how he got into the funeral profession. I learned about the influential role the funeral director plays in African American communities, especially in the south where Fitch grew up.
“I remember when I was growing up, even the police was scared of the undertaker,” said Fitch.
In 1988, one year after opening Dayspring-Fitch Funeral Home, the staff took a portrait at home.... [+]
Dr. Carol Williams, the Executive Director of the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association (NFDMA), which represents nearly 1000 African American owned-funeral homes, said, “There is a long history of community leaders acting as the funeral directors in the African American community. They were the church clergy, the mayors, the bail bondsmen, the loan officers.”
The 58-year old Fitch has been in the funeral business since he was a 10-year-old in Denton, Texas. “I was fascinated by this funeral director, Zay Jones. I followed him around for three days until he finally hired me. I started helping Jones get the deceased in and with the funeral services. He’d give me 25, 50 cents each time,” said Fitch.
Eventually, the GI Bill paid for Fitch’s training in funeral services at the University of Oklahoma. After he moved to Seattle in 1984, Fitch broke the color barrier as the first licensed African American funeral director and embalmer to work at two of city’s oldest funeral homes, Butterworth and Bonney-Watson. He said he was also the first African American to join the local Teamsters Union Journeymen for Embalming Professionals.
“When I started, it was a rich lily white business,” said Fitch. “There were still families that did not want a black person serving them.” In 1985, Fitch said he became the fourth black person ever to hold a dual license of embalmer and funeral director in Washington State.
Fitch’s employer encouraged him to open his own funeral services dedicated to serving the local African American community. Though it was not the first African American-owned funeral home in Seattle, it was the only operational home at the time. He said, “It was scary, getting the capital I needed to start the business. I was using my credit cards. But there were enough people who wanted to do business with Black enterprises.”
Fitch said, “African American funerals are different because the program involves a full review and a celebration of the life of the deceased. There are a lot more religious tones too.”
Adopting what worked for African American funeral directors elsewhere, Fitch advertised through the churches and got heavily involved in community-based associations.
James Thomason (left) and Zane Fitch (right) in 1993 in front of Dayspring-Fitch. Fitch met Thomason... [+]
Corporate-owned vs. independent funeral homes
Funeral homes are charged with taking a death and turning it into an opportunity to honor a life. Over the past 10 years, they’ve also shown they can turn changes and challenges in their industry into opportunities to grow their business in new ways. During a time when many independent retailers and service providers are driven out of business or being acquired by corporate competitors, independent funeral homes’ market share has resurged from 75% to 90% nationwide, according to numbers provided by the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) and funeral industry expert Dan Isard. They have retained their market share with old-fashioned customer service.
According to Isard, the corporate consolidation trend started in the 1970s and by 1997, “seven companies owned 25% of all funeral homes and they were doing 35% of all funerals because they typically acquired larger than average businesses.” Isard said, “The public companies didn’t know how to operationalize the homes successfully and some of the public companies went bankrupt and others were acquired until only three companies remained by 2007.”
Isard pointed out owners of independent funeral homes have to “market themselves in the community to build their business. The managers corporations hire won’t do that kind of work. They didn’t know how to influence the patronage.”
Fitch said, “Whenever a corporation takes over a funeral home, about 30% of the business eventually moves into independently-owned funeral homes because people rather do business with locally-owned funeral directors. Managers at corporate-owned funeral homes can’t make decisions without having local knowledge on issues like extending credit, so more people turn to us.” Many independent funeral homes like DFS are also “heritage funeral homes,” that is, they have a loyal customer base because they serve entire families across multiple generations with their funeral service needs.
When the acquisitions first started in the 1990s, Fitch did feel threatened. It turned out Fitch did not have much to fear because the corporations rarely acquired African American-owned funeral homes.
“While there are some independent African American-owned funerals that have been acquired by corporations, I think most of our members have not been approached,” said Dr. Williams.
In Washington, Cameron Smock, the past president of the Washington State Funerals Directors Association, said there is also a hybrid form of consolidation with larger family-owned funeral homes acquiring smaller ones. His company, Bonney-Watson, recently acquired Southwest Mortuary, Dayspring-Fitch & Sons’ largest competitor in Seattle serving the local African American market. To Smock’s knowledge, it is the only acquisition of its kind in Washington.
The two hearses in front of the family house in 1988. Dayspring-Fitch & Sons now have three limos.... [+]
Ethnic diversification challenges a self-segregated industry
Aside from industry changes, the market also began to change. Diversifying demographics increased demands for services tailored to different cultures. According to US Census, the African American population stayed at 3% from 1980 to 2010 in Seattle. The Asian and Hispanic population increased from a combined 5% to 18% over the same period.
Isard said both corporate and independent funeral homes began hiring funeral associates from ethnic communities to serve clients in their own language.
Jessica Koth, the PR manager at NFDA, said that they set up an International Department in 2006 to connect international and national members and they have dramatically increased their educational offerings on different ethnic funeral practices. NFDA represents over half of the funeral homes in the US and represents 10,000 funeral homes, 656 of which are in 43 countries and territories outside of the U.S. International membership in NFDA grows by approximately five percent each year.
Fitch recognized early on the market was changing.DFS did their first international shipping in 1988 to Kenya and since then, they have shipped to thirty African countries as well as to Vietnam and England. “In the early days, 95% of our clients were African American, now it’s down to 80%,” said Fitch. “We also serve the Somali, the Muslim community, the Cham, the Vietnamese.”
Fitch’s own family is multi-cultural. Fitch’s wife, Sharon-Rose, is a chiropractor who emigrated from Trinidad. The couple adopted a Cambodian teen in the 1990s. When their adopted son Monirom married another Cambodian immigrant, the couple worked at Dayspring-Fitch for a few years before relocating to France. Winston, Fitch’s younger son, had been engaged to a Vietnamese woman who used to do community outreach for the funeral home too.
Isard said that the funeral industry “is the last bastion of self-segregation. No white funeral director will ever refuse to serve a black family. But an African American family may prefer to be served by an African American funeral director.”
Dr. Williams said, “Funeral services are still largely segregated, except in major urban areas where they are more integrated. But you still see black-owned funeral homes serving black families and white funeral homes serving white families.”
Fitch said his company belongs to both “white associations” like NFDA (Koth said 4.4% of NFDA surveyed members are African American) and “black associations” like NFDMA. “The white associations help keep me open and tell me how to renew my license. The black associations give me the referrals,” said Fitch.
Race is reflected in the decision to be cremated or to have an “earth burial.” Dr. Williams said the cremation rate for African Americans is 30% and the national average overall is 45%. “Many African American families prefer burials but may go with cremations if they can’t afford to do earth burials,” she explained. She said some NFDMA members lose business because they will not facilitate cremations. DFS does offer cremation and Fitch said 25% of their African American clients opt for it.
According to Smock, the cremation rate for African Americans is 50% in the Seattle area and “Washington has the second highest cremation rate in the country at 73% and one of the highest unchurched populations.” The increasing cremation rate has made the need for DFS to have an on-site crematory more pressing but Fitch said “it’s been difficult to access capital.” For the past 15 years, the business has stayed steady but it has not been able to grow.
Funeral homes and the families behind them
Fitch’s two brothers also work with him at DFS. His brother Morya Fitch-Breland has worked as a funeral home director for 20 years and Zarnell Fitch as a funeral attendant. Fitch’s wife serves as the grief counselor. In 2006, Fitch changed the name from Dayspring Fitch Funeral Homes to Dayspring Fitch & Sons Funeral Homes. “I hoped at least one of my sons would work in the business,” said Fitch.
Zane Jr, 34 years old, and Winston, 31, remembered getting picked up from school in the company’s hearse. Fitch said his sons “did not have soccer games...they worked at the funeral home by ushering, putting the flowers in their place, moving cars.”
Most independent funeral homes are family-run. Koth said 98% of NFDA member funeral homes are family-owned and the median length of time one family owns a funeral home is 45 years, or two to three generations. Since most independent funeral employ family members, they can run leaner than their corporate counterparts. DFS employs about three to five non-family members. Fitch said the entry of corporate-owned funeral homes actually drove up the prices for funeral services overall, which also runs counter to trends for retailers in other industries.
“Ease off the Train” says the advertisement for Dayspring-Fitch inside Seattle’s light rail car.... [+]
By age 18, Winston Fitch was responsible for the “removals”, that is, when someone passes at a hospital and the deceased must be moved to the funeral home. He said, “There is an adrenaline rush during the removal and when you’re the one guiding the family through the chaos.” Winston is more involved in the business than his older brother, Zane Jr.
Fitch now depends on his two sons to help navigate the community’s changing needs. Winston Fitch helped get a new website built last year. The sons are also considering social media strategies.
The youngest Fitch son said, “We’re in transition from a first and second generation. The scope of the leadership has changed. We want to grow the business and we want to increase our international services.” The sons are currently preparing for their board exams.
Fitch said he’ll practice for another 10 years. Over the past few months, Fitch has been studying to become a licensed minister. He said, “I need something else to do, to make a place for Winston and Fitch in this business. If I continue to just do what I do, they’re never going to feel like it’s theirs to run.”
