Sometimes it’s hard to know which way to go.
And for others, there is a clear path marked for them.
For certain members of the Darby family, there has only ever been one
way: their family business.
Sunset Funeral Home’s Chief Executive Officer Linda Darby is a
third-generation entrepreneur who has followed in the footsteps of her
grandparents, Charles and Florence Darby, who acquired Sunset Memorial
Park from A. H. Bruning and Charles Van Camp in the 1960s.
Since then, the organization has grown from one location, at 3901 N.
Vermilion St. in Danville, to seven funeral homes spread throughout
East Central Illinois, including the newest location at 1102 Churchill
Rd., in Mahomet.
With each location that the Darby’s develop, there is one principle
that is paramount: to create a place where people are honored and
loved.
“We have a real belief in trying to be a part of the communities that
we are in,” Linda said.
The vision started in the 1960s when Charles and Florence looked to
create a place where families could gather as they mourn a loss and
come to remember times past. In recent years, Sunset Memorial Park has
become a place where families can gather for pictures, races,
weddings, and events.
“It’s a place where we honor people and we love people,” Linda said.
James and David Darby, the sons of Charles and Florence, realized by
the time the mid-1980s came about that asking families to travel from
the funeral home to the cemetery were often taxing. They also knew
that with growing children to feed, they needed to expand.
The Sunset Funeral Home location in Danville became the first
cemetery/funeral home combination in the state of Illinois in 1984.
“It’s a great concept,” she said, “that ends up being very, very
helpful to families.”
Linda remembers walking through the Sunset Memorial Park cemetery with
her father, looking at the bronze headstones laying flat on the
ground.
“He looked down at the memorials and he would say, ‘I see a name, and
I see a birthday and I see a death date. There’s the dash; what’s in
between that?”
James knew that Sunset could find a way to capture that time. Today,
Sunset offers bronze grave memorials and plaques that tell the story
of those who have passed.
“My dad (James) is truly entrepreneurial,” Linda said. “He’s an
entrepreneur; he works with his hands. He loves to think about things,
he loves this industry, what it’s all about.”
When James could not get manufacturers to sell him vaults, he ended up
designing his own brand of burial vaults, Trigard, which keeps the
elements from destroying the casket and the elements inside the casket
from leaking into the groundwater. Rich Darby and Linda are now
co-owners of the product.
“We manufacture those right here in Danville,” Linda said. “We have
well over 200 customers throughout the United States and Canada that
we sell products to. And then they make the product in their
communities and sell it to their funeral homes or cemeteries in their
areas.”
Linda’s nephews are now carrying on that entrepreneurial spirit. They
are working to develop technologies to tell digital stories as people
walk through their cemetery. They are also working on ways to use
social media to help remember loved ones.
“I’m anxious to see what we can do with that,” Linda said. “Our job is
to not allow that conversation to stop.”
But sometimes, when things are just uncertain or hurting, there is
nothing like the comfort of a dog.
“Aunt Bea” a three-year-old mini Goldendoodle, joined the Sunset team
in 2018 as a comfort dog in training.
Not only does Bea have an email to answer those hard questions about
life and death, she also visits the funeral homes to help people
process through those tough times.
“Dogs can give a distraction at a very sad time,” Linda said. “Our job
is to always anticipate and try to take tension levels out of it.”
With locations in Champaign, Oakwood, Danville, Georgetown, and
Mahomet, Sunset is working towards training a second therapy dog.
With nearly a century of experience under the foundation of Sunset
Funeral Homes, Linda said that their day-to-day job is really about
preparing for what people need or might need in a changing world.
“In our DIY world, we think we want to do everything ourselves,”
she said. “When you’re grieving, that’s not when you want to do it
yourself.
“We love for (families) to be an active part of (the planning
process). But let us take care of the details, let us anticipate your
needs, and take care of them so that you could just allow people to
love on you.”
The Sunset team works off three words: remember, celebrate and heal.
“If you take those three things in the right fashion that healing will
take place in a much healthier way,” Linda said.
“I can’t help but believe that we’re going to have a lot of unhealthy
people because we didn’t grieve as we should have or because we tried
to shortchange it because we didn’t want to go through the pain at the
time. I’ve lived my life long enough to know that you have to walk
through fear.”
Sunset is always looking for different ways to have these
conversations with people. Outside of the mitigations with the
COVID-19 pandemic, the staff hosts ice cream socials or has counselors
who can help people prepare for what their end of life celebration
will be.
“A funeral isn’t for the person that died,” Linda said. “The funeral
is for the people that are living, and the people that want to love on
the people that have lost somebody. They might want to tell a story
that somebody in their family might not have known, that family member
affected them. We all leave marks on people and you don’t always even
know that you’ve left them until somebody tells the story.”
While some of the places to share those stories are other funeral
homes that have been purchased by the Darbys, the newly constructed
building in Mahomet opened in January 2021.
“We love the floorplan of where we are on Neil Street in Champaign,
and so we tried to design the Mahomet Funeral Home to flow very
similarly to that location. People really like it; it’s not
intimidating, it’s just beautiful,” Linda said.
The Darbys would like to have a Grand Opening celebration but have
put that on hold until COVID-19 mitigations are lifted. Until then,
anyone is welcome to contact staff to schedule a tour by calling
217-586-9070.
