Since 2007, Hathorn Funeral Home has always been there for its Columbia family through its darkest days.
Located at 167 Old U.S. 98, Hathorn Funeral Home is locally owned and operated with deep roots in the community.
“It’s a family atmosphere,” Marcus Kelly said. “That’s why our slogan is, ‘A family serving families.’ We want people to know that they’re in the hands of family and local people that care about them. It’s a place where a community can gather to share fellowship and love each other through grief.”
Kelly, who has been with Hathorn for six years and helps run the business, found his calling of helping families honor their loved one with the respect each life deserves.
“I started out full time on the pre-need side of the business, which is selling funeral arrangements and policies to people. As I started in that, I grew into a love for meeting with families and helping with the at-need arrangements, so I’m a licensed funeral director,” he explained. “I spent the first part of my career in ministry. I did youth ministry, was an associate pastor and was a pastor of a church full time. Through all of that, I grew to love the opportunity to help a family when they go through bereavement and grief. That led me to step into this industry full time.”
The funeral home assists families with making the services memorable.
“What we do is help a family honor their loved one with services. We can help customize that in any way, whether they want traditional burial services or cremation services. We believe every life is valuable, important and deserves to be honored and remembered,” Kelly said. “What we specialize in is helping a family put together something they can always cherish and always remember about their loved one. We’re going to take good care of your loved one when your family member is brought into our care — we consider that an honor. We want to honor and make them presentable in a way the family can have a good lasting memory.”
Hathorn encourages families to utilize video and technology to honor their loved ones. The funeral home has the video and audio capabilities to show videos, pictures and slideshows during services to help remember their loved one, along with an experienced staff.
“We help plan services that can be customized whether it be video, music or specific arrangements in any way, we help organize all of that. We’ve got a great facility here and a top-notch staff,” Kelly said. “There’s a lot of experience on our staff that has been in the funeral industry for a long, long time. Our main goal is to help families honor their loved one.”
Helping families with final requests isn’t relegated to only aiding following a loss.
“One of the things we do to help families is prepare. We offer pre-need arrangements where we sit down with a family ahead of time and allow them to go ahead and start thinking through the process of getting their arrangements in order financially, customizing what services they want, who they want to handle those services and what people are going to be involved in those services,” Kelly illuminated. “When you lose a loved one, your world is flipped upside down and there’s a million different things you have to take care of right then at that time. When people take the time ahead of that process to think through those final wishes and put that down on paper, that is a relief to their families that you’ve already taken care of that. It also gives them a sense of fulfillment to know what their family member wanted and can honor those wishes.”
In a time when information is readily available and the pace of life has been significantly enhanced, Hathorn tries to help families slow everything down to take the appropriate time in honoring a loved one.
“We live in a really fast-paced society and world. Everybody is busy, busy, busy. One of the things that is very hard for our culture to understand is the need to stop and just let everything settle so you can remember and honor someone,” Kelly said. “That’s becoming a lost art in our culture. They don’t take time to enjoy and grasp those meaningful moments in life. When you lose somebody, we want to help you do that and make sure everybody is honored and remembered. That becomes a valuable part of your life that you can always look back on.”
Hathorn Funeral Home’s employees make it a point to go above and beyond for each family.
“We also can help families that are grieving at the time of need get into contact with counseling services if that’s a need. We’re always going to help a family after the time of death with the follow-up of the things that need taken care of, whether that be insurance filing, gathering death certificates, getting things in order and finalizing an estate,” Kelly said. “We can help point families in the right direction. Services are the main emphasis and we want to plan those immediately to help a family, but we also see ourselves as assisting a family before and after.”
A facet that allows Hathorn Funeral Home to give families everything they need to honor their loved one is the wealth of experience amongst its staff, according to Kelly.
“Mr. (David) Hathorn has been in the funeral business for 50-plus years. He has incredible expertise and is a Columbia lifelong resident who knows the people here,” he said. “Don Dickson and Trey Britt have been in the funeral business for more than 30 years. I’ve been here six. Bro. A.D. Gammill, who is one of local pastors at the Lakeview Church of God, has been with our staff almost since inception.”
Hathorn is trying to emphasize to families that they should still have a service regardless of the wishes in regards to burial versus cremation.
“One of the things that has been assumed is when families choose cremation, there’s no need for a service, which is completely wrong. One of the things we are trying to help families understand is that a service is needed, whether you choose to have a burial or cremation,” Kelly explained. “The service is important. The loved one needs to be remembered, and you need a time to gather, honor, grieve and fellowship no matter what the disposition is.”
Hathorn Funeral Home also offers families and friends the opportunity to offer their prayers and condolences through its website, www.hathornfuneralhome.com, and on Facebook. Employees are available to help families at all hours of the day and can be reached by phone at (601) 731-2000.
“Our office hours where we will actually have staff here is Monday through from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. However, we are always available and always on call,” Kelly concluded. “You can dial that funeral home number and while we may not have office personnel in the building after hours, the phone calls will always be directed to an answering service and a director that is on call.”
Pictured Above: Front row, from left, Glenn Mikell, Marcus Kelly and Don Dickson. Back row, from left, A.D. Gammill, Trey Britt, David Hathorn and Taylor Davis. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
