Hopler & Eschbach Funeral Home

11/15/2025

Today we received an "Ask the funeral director" question from a friend living in Suffolk County, NY (Long Island).
Does a dead body count as a passenger when driving in a HOV lane?
First, for our local friends, HOV is short for "High occupancy vehicle" - meaning at least two or three people are riding in the car, depending on the lane and the time of day. Basically families and car-poolers.
Well, despite protestations from many a funeral director, it has been deemed that the occupant must be alive and in the passenger area of a vehicle to qualify.
During the course of a year, it is not uncommon for us to make burials at any number of Long Island cemeteries and we always wish we could get in one of those HOV lanes to save some time.

High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, also known as carpool lanes, are designed to reduce traffic congestion and promote the use of shared transportation. However, understanding who qualifies to use these lanes can be confusing due to varying rules and exceptions. This article aims to clarify the gene...

11/14/2025

Another reason you want to make a permanent resting place for your cremated remains - you might be left along the roadside and then spend an indeterminate length of time in a lost property locker at your local police station.

This urn with ashes was brought in yesterday to the Buckeye Police station near Yuma and Dean by someone who said they found it on the side of Yuma Rd. It is now safely stored in our Property and Evidence facility. If this urn belongs to you, please contact our Property and Evidence team at 623-349-6400.
More info: https://loom.ly/wc3zy_g

11/14/2025

We are honored to be entrusted with the final care of Betty Wright, age 76, of Binghamton.

Share memories & support the family

11/14/2025

Shadi Mohammad Albool, 49, of Johnson City died suddenly Nov. 10, 2025.

He was a teacher and was pursuing his Doctoral studies at Binghamton University.

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11/14/2025

We are honored to have been entrusted with the final care of 83 year old Army veteran, Jerry Emmons, age 83, a former resident of Harpursville.

He was a skilled machinist and enjoy hunting and fishing.

https://www.hefuneralhome.com/obituary/GeraldJerry-EmmonsSr

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11/14/2025

Today in history- Notable death: Educator Booker T. Washington.

November 14, 1915 - Death of noted African American educator Booker T. Washington. The founder of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), he was born into slavery in 1856 and spent his child on a Virginia plantation.

Dubbed the “Wizard of Tuskegee,” in recognition of his bold success in establishing an African American college in a small town of the deep South, Washington was easily the best known and most highly respected black person of his time.

Booker was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved African-American woman on the plantation of James Burroughs in southwest Virginia, near Hale's Ford in Franklin County. He never knew the day, month, and year of his birth (although evidence emerged after his death that he was born on April 5, 1856). Nor did he ever know his father, said to be a white man on a neighboring plantation.

When he was nine, Booker and his family in Virginia gained freedom under the Emancipation Proclamation as U.S. troops occupied their region.

After emancipation Jane took her family to the free state of West Virginia to join her husband Washington Ferguson, who had escaped from slavery during the war and settled there. The illiterate boy Booker began to painstakingly teach himself to read and attended school for the first time.

At school, Booker was asked for a surname for registration. He took the family name of Washington.

Washington worked in salt furnaces and coal mines in West Virginia for several years to earn money. He made his way east to Hampton Institute, a school established in Virginia to educate freedmen and their descendants, where he also worked to pay for his studies. He later attended Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C. in 1878
In 1881, the Hampton Institute president Samuel C. Armstrong recommended Washington, then age 25, to become the first leader of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (later Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University), the new normal school in Alabama. The new school opened on July 4, 1881, initially using a room donated by Butler Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church.

The next year, Washington purchased a former plantation to be developed as the permanent site of the campus. Under his direction, his students literally built their own school: making bricks, constructing classrooms, barns and outbuildings; and growing their own crops and raising livestock; both for learning and to provide for most of the basic necessities. Both men and women had to learn trades as well as academics.

The Tuskegee faculty used all the activities to teach the students basic skills to take back to their mostly rural black communities throughout the South. The main goal was not to produce farmers and tradesmen, but teachers of farming and trades who could teach in the new lower schools and colleges for blacks across the South. The school expanded over the decades, adding programs and departments, to become the present-day Tuskegee University. Despite his extensive travels and widespread work, Washington continued as principal of Tuskegee.

By 1915 Washington's health was deteriorating rapidly. While visiting he collapsed in New York City and was diagnosed by two different doctors as having Bright's disease, an inflammation of the kidneys. Told he had only a few days left to live, Washington expressed a desire to die at Tuskegee. He boarded a train and arrived in Tuskegee shortly after midnight on November 14, 1915. He died a few hours later at the age of 59.

His funeral was held on November 17, 1915, in the Tuskegee Institute Chapel. It was attended by nearly 8,000 people. He was buried nearby in the Tuskegee University Campus Cemetery.

11/14/2025

An insightful article stating the need for young Americans to consider the funeral service profession as a career.

The need is real. The career is rewarding. Technology will not replace the need for our professional and personal services.

If you have a heart for helping others, consider a career in funeral service.

John Mac Ghlionn | Why young men should learn to bury the dead—and save a dying profession

11/13/2025

A reminder that the funeral home is still soliciting and accepting donations for the use of the Southern Tier Veterans Support Group . Details on the campaign and how to donate are in the original post below.

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE STVSG! Support Local Veterans this November at Red Robin in Vestal! This November, Red Robin in Vestal is teaming up with the Southern Tier Veterans Support Group (STVSG) to support local veterans. You can make a difference while enjoying a great meal! Here’s how you c...

11/13/2025

Wow - the past 4 weeks we have had 144,000 views of our Facebook posts.

Sometimes we just come up with the right content that interests people.

Thank you everyone.

We invite your continued input into the type of posts you find meaningful.

We also invite you to like and share interesting posts with others.

11/13/2025

We installed two more monuments today. Almost at the end of the season.

We are taking orders for spring.

We serve all area/regional cemeteries.

11/13/2025

Today in history - November 13, 1894 - a patent is issued to Albert C. Richardson, of Michigan for the first mechanical casket lowering device.

Albert C. Richardson’s 1894 patent reflects a significant step toward professionalizing and solemnizing the burial process in late 19th-century America.

The primary motivation, as stated in the specification, was to prevent the “horror” caused by accidental drops or the crude appearance of soil falling into the grave. This underscores a growing cultural demand for solemnity, reverence, and mechanical perfection in funeral rites.

The device was meant to replace simple ropes or web straps, which were unreliable and often jarring.

Prior to such devices, the lowering of caskets was often a manual, sometimes haphazard, task. Richardson’s mechanical device offered a reliable, aesthetically acceptable, and dignified solution, contributing to the establishment of funeral directing as a specialized service.

The Shield/Casing (A): The inclusion of the sheet-metal shield is a key innovation often overlooked. It addressed the common problem of a newly dug grave’s edges crumbling, ensuring a tidy visual appearance for the bereaved.

11/13/2025

Today in history- Nov. 13, 1974 - The murder of the DeFeo family by Ronald DeFore, Jr.

It was shortly after 3 a.m. on Nov. 13, 1974, when shots rang out in the home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island.

In a matter of minutes, Ron DeFeo Jr. slaughtered his entire family as they slept, his mother, father, two sisters, and two brothers. After suggesting they were victims of a mob hit, DeFeo, the 23-year-old lone survivor of the family, was offered police protection, and later arrested, charged with murdering his entire family.

Later, he claimed to be possessed by demons. His attorneys sought a insanity defense at trial.

The jurors rejected that notion and convicted him and six consecutive 25 years to life terms in jail, where he died in 2021 at the age of 69.

A year after the murders, George and Kathy Lutz bought the beautiful colonial house and moved in with their children. 28 days later, they fled in horror.

Their tale inspired Jay Anson’s book The Amityville Horror. Then the movie, another movie, and another book. The story never ends
Is the Amityville story a horror or a hoax?