Hopler & Eschbach Funeral Home

02/11/2026

Noted pop singer Whitney Houston died on this day Feb. 11 2012.

She is cited as the most awarded female artist of all time by Guinness World Records and remains one of the best-selling music artists of all time with 200 million records sold worldwide.

Whitney released seven studio albums and two soundtrack albums, all of which have been certified diamond, multi-platinum, platinum, or gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Sadly she succumbed to an early death the result of drug and alcohol abuse.

Her four hour long invitation only "home going" ceremony was held at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J. She was then buried in the Fairview Cemetery, Westfield, NJ.

What is your favorite Whitney Houston song?

, ,

02/10/2026

As part of our Black History Month series of posts, we share some history of a very painful part of our country's past.

Lynching is a sad and dark part of America's complicated history of racial division which disproportionately was used as a tool of intimidation against black communities (although people of all races were lynched ... mob rule is always dangerous!).

From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. Lynchings of blacks account for 72.7% of lynchings. These numbers seem large, but the actual number is likely much higher, as it is known that not all lynchings were recorded. Out of the recorded 4,743 people lynched 1,297 were white.

Several monuments exist throughout our country to the innocent victims of lynching, including a new museum in Alabama. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice includes a memorial to some 4,400 victims of lynching. The museum is located in Montgomery, Alabama.

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation, there are moments of both shame and pride. We always hope for better days ahead as we learn from the mistakes and injustices of the past.

,

02/09/2026

We are honored to be entrusted with the final care of Laurie Ann Backus, 58, of Port Crane.

View Laurie Ann Backus's obituary, contribute to their memorial, see their funeral service details, and more.

02/09/2026

For those experiencing a journey through loss and grief, we offer a free one year program of online grief support.

A message is sent to you daily - which is intended to help you on your journey through grief.

Many of our client families have expressed appreciation for this service and found it a useful tool.

All you have to do is sign up. It is free and lasts for a year. If you find no benefit, you can unsubscribe at anytime.

Click the link to sign up.

Access our grief support resources in Binghamton, NY, to help you navigate through the difficult emotions and find solace during your grieving process.

02/08/2026

A little humor today- this is how I react when I have to fly someone back to New York for burial.

Despite my request for Albany or Newark (these are the closest options), the shipping funeral home always tries to schedule JFK and I strenuously object - telling them they must be out of their mind. The traffic and congestion going to JFK is almost always assured.

I thank my driver Bob for sharing this with me and appreciate his trips to Newark.

02/08/2026

An "Ask the funeral director" question we held for a few weeks -

"Are there any days you don't have funerals?"

Well the answer to that is yes and no.

Certain religious traditions dictate when a funeral can be held - In Judaism there are no funerals/burials on the Sabbath. Many Eastern/Asian religions will not make a burial on a day that is considered bad spiritually. A Christian funeral would also not be held on Christmas or Easter, just to cite a few examples.

The fact that we serve a diverse community of faiths and cultures means that we must be available to assist families 365 days a year. (We have held many a visitation or service on every holiday - in fact we can almost always count on working holidays)

There is however one day that we seem never to have a funeral - in fact when we have scheduled viewings or funerals for that particular day, families have called back to reschedule to another day.

What day is that you ask? Today - Super Bowl Sunday.

Apparently the secular god of sports dictates that gathering to eat, watch people crash into each other while throwing or running with a ball and watching commercials is a universally observed event that takes priority over grief and mourning rituals.

In the past twenty years I can recall two occasions where a viewing was held on Super Bowl Sunday and literally almost nobody came. The poor bereaved family sat alone in a room and less than 10 mourners came (the next day for the funeral, there was a line out the door).

While most of us here at the funeral home are not particularly sports fans, we will take the opportunity created by this near universal observance to enjoy a few hours of time with our family or friends or in the case of our owner, Kurt, reading a book he checked out from the Broome County Public Library. (Kurt is also blissfully unaware of who is playing).

02/07/2026

News out of Westchester County - A former funeral home was found to have 13 unburied bodies inside the building as well as unclaimed cremated remains.

A consumer would likely never think to ask about a funeral home being registered with the state or a a funeral director is actually licensed, as these are often assumptions when a business holds itself out to provide these services.

This is why when you call a funeral home to inquire about pricing it is also important to inquire about practices.

We explain to every price shopper (and we do have many each week) that we make serving their needs our priority. We meet with them and secure all documentation for a cremation or burial and proceed in a timely manner with their requests. Providing death certificates and returning cremated remains within a few days of the date of cremation are generally good practices. Long delays in either should raise flags and questions.

Ethical practices may be assumed, but are not assured. Always check google reviews for comments about experiences others have had with a particular funeral firm or director. You can also check the NYS Department of Health website for a list of active registered funeral firms in your community.

Sometimes the exterior of a building also shows what to expect. If a building is neglected and deteriorated expect that if they care so little about their own property, how much will they care about serving your family with respect.

We are always ashamed when incidents like this occur, because most funeral firms and directors are honorable professionals. Our entire profession comes into question due to the acts of these types bad actors.

State health officials inspected the Camelot Funeral Home last Friday and then alerted law enforcement.

02/07/2026

Notable death: February 7, 1905, death of Thomas Adams, pioneer in the modern chewing gum industry.

During the 1850s, Adams was living in New York and working as a secretary for Antonio de Santa Anna. The Mexican general was in exile, living with Adams in his Staten Island home. Adams noticed that Santa Anna liked to chew the gum of the Manilkara tree, which was known as chicle. Such natural products had been used as chewing gum for thousands of years by groups such as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Aztecs. In North America, chewing gum had long been used by Native Americans, from whom British settlers eventually adopted the practice. Later, businessman and inventor John B. Curtis became the first person to sell gum commercially. His gum was made from sweetened paraffin wax.

It was Santa Anna who suggested that Adams experiment with chicle from Mexico. Santa Anna felt that chicle could be used to make a synthetic rubber tire. Santa Anna had friends in Mexico who would be able to supply the product cheaply to Adams.

Thomas Adams first tried to turn chicle into synthetic rubber products. At the time, natural rubber was expensive; a synthetic alternative would have been extremely useful to many manufacturers and would have guaranteed its inventor great wealth. Adams attempted to make toys, masks, rain boots, and bicycle tires out of the chicle from Mexican sapodilla trees, but every experiment failed.

Adams became disheartened by his failure to use chicle as a rubber substitute. He felt he had wasted about a year's worth of work. One day, Adams noticed a girl buying White Mountain paraffin wax chewing gum for a penny at the corner drugstore. He recalled that chicle was used as chewing gum in Mexico and thought this would be a way to use his surplus chicle.

In 1869, Adams was inspired to turn his surplus stock into chewing gum by adding flavoring to the chicle. Shortly after, he opened the world's first chewing gum factory. In February 1871, Adams New York Gum went on sale in drug stores for a penny a piece. The gumballs came in wrappers of different colors in a box with a picture of New York's City Hall on the cover. The venture was such a success that Adams was driven to design a machine that could mass-produce the gum, allowing him to fill larger orders. He received a patent for this device in 1871.

According to "The Encyclopedia of New York City," Adams sold his original gum with the slogan "Adams' New York Gum No. 1 — Snapping and Stretching." In 1888, a new Adams chewing gum called Tutti-Frutti became the first gum to be sold in a vending machine. The machines were located in New York City subway stations and also sold other varieties of Adams gum. Adams' products proved to be very popular, much more so than the existing gum products on the market, and he quickly dominated his competitors. His company debuted "Black Jack" (a licorice-flavored gum) in 1884 and Chiclets (named after chicle) in 1899.

Adams merged his company with other gum manufacturers from the United States and Canada in 1899 to form the American Chicle Company, of which he was the first chairman. Other companies that merged into it included W.J. White and Son, Beeman Chemical Company, Kisme Gum, and S.T. Briton. The rising popularity of chewing gum in the decades that followed led scientists to develop new synthetic versions; nevertheless, some old-fashioned chicle varieties are still manufactured and sold today.

Adams eventually stepped down from his leadership position at the American Chicle Company, though he remained on the board of directors into his late 80s. He died on February 7, 1905, in New York. He is buried in Brooklyn's venerable Green-Wood Cemetery

Adams was not the inventor of chewing gum. Nevertheless, his invention of a device for mass producing chewing gum, along with his efforts to promote it, gave birth to the chewing gum industry in the United States. One of his products—Chiclets, first introduced in 1900—is still sold around the world today.

The American Chicle Company was purchased by a pharmaceutical company in 1962. In 1997, the company was renamed Adams in honor of its founder; it is currently owned by the confectionery conglomerate Cadbury, which is based in England.

02/06/2026

We honored to have been entrusted with the final care of Carrie Ruth Rosefsky Wickham, of Atlanta, Georgia, a native of Binghamaton.



She was a professor at Emory University.

View Carrie Ruth Rosefsky Wickham's obituary, contribute to their memorial, see their funeral service details, and more.

02/06/2026

We are honored to have been entrusted with the final care of Donald Winans, 67, of Binghamton.



His family is requesting donations to offset the unexpected costs of his cremation service.

View Donald Winans's obituary, contribute to their memorial, see their funeral service details, and more.

02/06/2026

Today in history - notable deaths - Black History Month:

Feb. 6, 1993 - Tennis champion Arthur Ashe succumbed to complication from A.I.D.S. at the age of 49.

Ashe began to play tennis at the age of seven in a neighborhood park and attended the University of California at Los Angeles on a tennis scholarship.

In 1963 Ashe won the U.S. hard-court singles championship; in 1965 he took the intercollegiate singles and doubles titles; and in 1967 he won the U.S. clay-court singles championship. In 1968 he captured the U.S. (amateur) singles and open singles championships. He played on the U.S. Davis Cup team (1963–70, 1975, 1977–78) and helped the U.S. team to win the Davis Cup challenge (final) round in 1968, 1969, and 1970.

In 1975, when he won the Wimbledon singles and the World Championship singles, he was ranked first in world tennis. After retiring from play in 1980, he became captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team, a position he held from 1981 to 1985.

Ashe underwent coronary bypass operations in 1979 and 1983. In April 1992 he revealed that he had become infected with the virus that causes AIDS, probably through a tainted blood transfusion received during one of those operations. For the remainder of his life, Ashe devoted considerable time to efforts to educate the public about the disease.

Over 5,000 mourners paid their respects at a public viewing was held at the Virginia Governor's Mansion, followed by a funeral service at the Arthur Ashe Athletic Center in Richmond, He was buried beside his mother at the Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

, ,
Black History Month -

02/05/2026

Looks like Coca-Cola, parent company of Minute Maid Juice Co. is killing off their frozen juice concentrate line in April of this year.

With diminishing sales, few many actually miss the product, but certainly the nostalgic memories of making juice out of the freezer will always be a happy memory of our past.

(Our own recalls, as a child, making countless jugs of lemonade from frozen concentrate and eating them like an ice slushy on hot summer days - oh was it cold and tart).

The process to make juice concentrate was invented by the research team C.D. Atkins, Edwin Moore and Louis MacDowell in the 1940s.