“It’s been a good run”

Kaatz Funeral Home in Capac and Yale sold

 

CAPAC — After more than six decades of helping those who have lost loved ones and sharing genuine care and compassion, Kaatz Funeral Home wrote its final chapter of success, with the sale of four funeral homes last week.

Closing documents were expected to be signed and ownership changing hands last Tuesday morning.

“It’s been a good run,” Funeral Director John Kaatz said. “But, it’s time. We’ve been at it a long time. It’s been in the family for 66 years and when I started seeing people’s obituaries my own age, the wheels started turning and I knew it was a conversation our family needed to have.”

Caught off guard by a moment of sadness and tears, Kaatz said, “We certainly have been blessed.”

The sale of the longtime Yale business was made formal with the signing of documents at a meeting last week, Kaatz said.

Dan Jansen, a longtime associate in the funeral business, purchased Kaatz Funeral Home in Capac and Yale while two former Yale employees, Craig Baxter and Kyle Schieweck have bought Kaatz Funeral Home in Richmond and Mt. Clemens.

“Dan is a great guy and very successful,” Kaatz said. “He recently bought the Brown City funeral home many know as Carmans, and now has two of ours. He has a beautiful, very successful funeral home in Columbiaville. I know he will continue to do a great job at Capac and Yale and treat people with dignity and compassion and genuinely care about taking care of people at a difficult time.”

Kaatz said the Capac and Yale areas are “lucky to have Dan. He’s a great guy and a good family friend. We are so thankful to have been able to work this transaction out with him.”

The other two new owners, Baxter and Schieweck, are no stranger to the Kaatz family.

“Craig started with us as a young man, 16 years old, doing odd jobs around,” Kaatz recalled. “Now, he and his business partner have, I believe, six funeral homes and we had him as an employee for over 30 years. Kyle was best friends with my dad for many years,” Kaatz continued. “Kyle is a very successful business man and I have no doubt they are going to do well. It tickles me to think that these guys who started here so long ago, now they own two of our funeral homes. That makes us very happy.”

Looking back over the years and how things have changed in the funeral home business, John just smiled and said, “Oh, it’s quite a bit different now.”

Originally, Kaatz had an ambulance business that operated out of the funeral home.

“We were the dispatch center for EMS and fire back then. There were no pagers or dispatching, other than Dad would open the front two doors of the funeral home and if people saw it, they knew to come. Help was needed.”

Kaatz recalled the schedule, saying, ”We were 24/7, just like now. Somebody sat in a chair and waited for the phone to ring. Whether it was an EMS call, someone had passed away or a fire call, it all came through here first.”

John recalled the early days when his father, Dick, was working in Yale at what was Holden Drug Store and Elmer Peters, across the street, needed help one Saturday at the funeral home.

“Dad spent the day there, was paid and Peters ended up paying Dad more money, so he stayed. Dad spent one year at SC4, one year at Michigan State and one year at Wayne State and that was it. He was a funeral director but couldn’t get his official license until he was 21. Once he got it, he became owner here when Mr. Peters was too sick to continue with the business. Dad had bought Lexington but that split up due to a family situation. We picked up Capac in 1984, bought Avoca in 1991, built a brand new facility in Richmond and then purchased the funeral home in Mt. Clemens in 2017.”

According to Kaatz, the Mt. Clemens facility had sat vacant for 18 months prior to being purchased. The Avoca funeral home was operational until 2011 and was later destroyed by fire.

Once John joined in the family business, he and his dad became partners in 1995.

Kaatz said the key to success in the business was to be caring, compassionate and available day or night, whenever the people needed their services.

“I like to think we were always there for the people. To come alongside them in a difficult time. It’s really just how you treat people. We’re in a small town and by virtue of our business, we came to meet and know a lot of people. Dad and I and our family love Yale. We loved the small town atmosphere where everyone on Main Street knew everyone on Main Street. You just did.”