As My Father Before Me

Welcome to On the Job. On today's episode, we're headed to Western Pa to speak with Brian Murphy, who's a fifth generation small business owner and now with his kids nearing adulthood. The question is will there be a sixth when you're a kid? If you're lucky, death is a distant thing, something you rarely have to deal with. But for Brian Murphy, being the son of a funeral home director, meant that death was all around him, or more accurately, right in his backyard.

And we lived behind the funeral home in a house behind. So as far as growing up next to the funeral home, I have very vivid memories of my dad going back and forth all the time, dinner's being interrupted.

It was really hectic.

Did the funeral home scare you as a kid or No?

No, it never really scared me and maybe intrigued me first short period of time. But I think because in our house where we lived, on the first floor was the meeting room, so it was filled with caskets and all the memorabilia and merchandise. So every day walking home from school, coming in, that's the first thing you see. You kind of get used to it and it's like second nature almost, But as far as being you know, in the Morgars seeing things like that, no, it really never really bothered me.

It might sound surprising that a young kid would be so blase about death, but as Brian sees it, that's just part of being a Murphy because for about as long as his ancestors have been in these parts, they've been in the funeral business.

Well, like I said, it started with William Andrew Hartzel, then it moved to Fred C. Murphy who was my great grandfather, and then William A. H. Murphy who was my grandfather, William F. Murphy who was my father, and then there's me.

Though interestingly enough, that wasn't their original business plan.

The funeral home was actually wasn't a funeral home. That wasn't our purpose. My great great grandfather he moved to Rochester, Pennsylvania, and he was a cabinet furniture maker and opened Heartsol's Furniture Company.

Well, it didn't take long for.

That to snowball into Heartsol Furniture and Undertaking Company because back in those times, the furniture makers.

Also built the caskets.

So a lot of the furniture makers who built the caskets just became snowballed into a funeral director and an embalmer.

While the funeral business might not have been Brian's great great grandfather's initial choice, that pivot from furniture maker to undertaker turned out to be a savvy career move because the funeral home that he started has managed to stay in Brian's family for five generations, which makes the William

He started the funeral home here in Rochester in eighteen eighty five, the same location and same family ever since.

When you were a kid, were you proud of what your dad did?

Oh? Yeah, I was definitely proud.

You know, you went to high school, you went to Wittenberg University, went immediately to the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science immediately into here and from that point on. My dad was twenty five and was running pretty successful business and only made it more successful with all his time and dedication.

Well, Brian was proud of the business his family had built and maintained through the years. He could also see that running such a business didn't come easy, So.

I didn't really see a whole lot of him other than at the funeral home. If I were to go to the funeral home, I would see him a lot over there, but not so much at the house.

Did that leave a negative impression on you about the business that it took so much of your dad's time.

It did, but I didn't realize it until I got older. I always, you know, wondered why we couldn't go on vacations like every other family, or you know, why my dad wasn't at my sporting events or different activities was because he thought he was the only one available to be here, and he just surrounded himself with the funeral home and everything else kind of came in second fiddle.

Did you at any point feel on the most trapped or the fact that you if you didn't want to go into the family business, like you'd be letting him or your grandparents down, or great grandparents.

More so my grandparents, I feel like I'd be letting them down. My grandpa and I were thick as thieves, and as close as we were, that's how close my father and I weren't. So I felt more of an obligation towards my grandfather at that point in time than I did to my dad, for a bunch of different reasons.

In his teens, Brian had always hoped that one day his father would sit him down and have that talk, the talk that had been passed down from one Murphy generation to the next.

And say, Brian, we've been here since eighteen eighty five. I'm the fourth generation. You're my son, I'm your dad. I really want to work with you. I really want you to join the business. Looking back on it now, he would tell you he wanted me to come to him. So it was kind of, you know, butting heads. So yeah, with that being said, he was just kind of a little colder than I would have liked him to be.

But in fairness to Brian's dad, William Murphy, Brian admits that he wasn't in any condition back then to be entrusted with such responsibility.

Yeah, I started. I had my first drink when I was thirteen, and it just snowballed. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was drinking, you know, probably four or five nights a week.

I tried to go to college. That didn't work. I went there for about a year.

Brian described himself in those years as a functioning alcoholic, able to hold down jobs and make ends meet, but far from thriving.

My life really didn't have any function or purpose, you know what I mean. I wanted it to mean something, but I was I wanted my career and profession to do something.

Fortunately, though, soon after getting married, Brian realized the path that he was on would only end in tragedy, and that's something needed to give.

And I just decided it was time to get sober. I mean, it had been a long, miserable road and I just felt I needed to make a change. I entered rehab. I was supposed to be in there for thirty days. They let me out after sixteen because they said my accountsor had never He said he had never seen an alcoholic attack his sobriety the way I did so they cut me loose. I worked three jobs for the next year and a half, trying to prove myself and staying sober and staying straight.

Then on Brian's two year anniversary of getting sober, his father said it was time they talk. When we come back from the break, Brian Murphy joins the family business.

Looking for a job as lonely, endless searching phone calls that go nowhere, applications that vanish into thin air. What if you could leave with dozens of local companies who are hiring right now with just one connection. That's Express Employment Professionals. Find us at expresspros dot com. One connection, endless opportunities and no fees ever for job seekers Express Employment Professionals expresspros dot com.

We're back with Brian Murphy, who, after getting sober, had just been asked by his dad if he'd like to go into the family trade.

Now, by that time, I was thirty six or thirty seven, so I had a pretty late start, but I was still starting, and I enrolled in the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science when I was thirty seven and graduated right after my fortieth birthday.

Well done, nice, thank you.

I imagine that must have been stressful, coming off your recent sobriety to sort of dive in to this thing and the sort of stakes of being the fifth generation and the responsibility you felt.

Definitely, I mean it was all or nothing at that point. I had put everything into that basket. I worked really hard at obtaining my sobriety, worked even harder at maintaining it. My family had noticed that, My father had seen that, and I was proud of all the work that my predecessors had put in to get this place to where it is today. And like I said, I wasn't going to be the one to let everyone down and be.

The last generation.

I just became a different man, did a complete one eighty, and was ready to take on the responsibilities now of the funeral home.

There are a few reasons that family businesses don't tend to last, but one of the biggest is that it can be really hard to mix the two, and Brian knows that all too well. He says, those first two years of working with his dad, we're far from easy.

Is it problematic to mix family and business?

I think you know the answer to that.

Yeah, definitely, because you're family, but you're also coworkers, you know, and sometimes that's hard to differentiate. That's a real fine line because my dad and I have had some real knockdown drag outs in this building and we're supposed to have a family birthday party that night, you know what I mean.

So it's just kind of.

How do you maneuver and how do you work around everyone's feelings? And it's really made me a better person. It's made me a better person, better a husband, better father, better funeral director, better listener because instead of trying to get my point across, I'm now listening to what you need and then find some common ground.

But there was one thing that Brian was unwilling to compromise on, and that was a love and attention that he gave to a wife and kids.

I stood my ground, you know what I mean.

He's the type if you let him take it, he's going to take it, you know what I mean, which isn't a bad thing when it comes to the business, because that's his primary focus. I'm focused on the business, but I'm focused on my family at the same time. I'm not going to be able. The way I look at it is, how am I as a funeral director? Going to be able to take care of you and your family and your time of need when my family's

Over time, though, Brian and his father came to understand each other in ways they hadn't before, and at the end of the day, both of them knew that they shared the same goal serving their community the way the Murphy family always had.

Do you enjoy the funeral business?

I do. I do.

I'm very glad and satisfied that I got into it. It satisfies me both physically and mentally. You know, as long as I can put in a good, long day of hard work and I can rest easy at night knowing I did something positive, not only for myself, but maybe for someone else too.

And while Brian admits that the job is very demanding, he makes great efforts to maintain a relatively healthy work life balance, even though he and his family now live in his childhood house just steps from the funeral home.

My dad moved out and my family and I moved in, so I'm seventy four feet from the front door.

But it works to a degree.

I guess it's nice when I need to be here, but it's kind of a paint in the butt when I don't need to be here, but I'm still here, you know what I mean.

But we make it work.

The commute's not bad, no, not at all.

Saves on gas so well.

He might have gotten a bit of a later start than some of the other Murphys that came before him. Brian has come into his own as the fifth member of the family to run the businesusiness.

I particularly love embalming. I love bringing someone's loved one back to where they can remember them and having closure, get good closure.

You know.

I don't want someone that's been ravaged with a disease for four years. I don't want their family having to come in and relive that. I want to make this person look like they did at their sixty fifth birthday party, you know what I mean, and give the family some solace and some comfort knowing that their loved one, you know, looks fine and it's going to be laid to rest

Well, that day seems a long ways off. The question on the back of Brian's mind is who will take over the business. So far, Brian's two kids, who are seventeen and nineteen, have expressed that they might want to try different career paths, which Brian accepts, wanting, as any great dad would, whatever is best for his kids, even if it means the end of a nearly century and a half streak.

Yeah, I would love to have them join me and my dad and work side by side and just flourish and have it become what it will become.

That would be great.

But if they choose not to, then no, I'm not going to heart any ill will or ill feelings because I know what this profession asks of you and that can be a lot.

In the meanwhile, he's taken on some interns from the nearby mortician school and tries to prepare himself for a day in which the funeral home will no longer have a Murphy at its helm.

And I'm sure there will be some feelings because it's going to be hard, you know what I mean? It's something I've known my entire life, but I can honestly tell you that I think when that day comes, I can hand those keys over knowing that myself, my dad, my grandfather, my entire family did the absolute best we could for this community.

So yeah, Brian has made sure that his kids know he supports whatever it is they choose to do with their lives, but regardless of where their roads.

Might lead them.

Brian also felt a need to sit his kids down and have that old Murphy talk.

And even though I knew, you know, Parker and Ella probably weren't going to come this path, I at least wanted them to know that I wanted them to and the door was open. It was actually like two weeks ago. I sat them both down and said, hey, guys, you know, I know you're probably not interested or you know, don't want anything to do with the funeral home professionally, I said, but I need you to know, as your father that I welcome you if.

You so choose.

They said no.

My son kind of chuckled because we both knew where that was going. My daughter, on the other hand, lately, within the last probably two months, has shown more interest than she ever has. She actually wants to come over and witness an embalming and kind of get the feel for that to see if she may or.

May not like it. So there's a heartbeat.

For on the job. I'm Averrey Thompson.