By: NICOLAS FIERRO
Salina Post
A non-generational funeral home business has just arrived in Salina and the owner is one of the only women to do so in town.
On August 15th, Kara Heier-Scott, Owner/Founder of Heier Scott Mortuary and Cremations, bought the 45 plus year operated and generational funeral home, "Roselawn Memorial." Now, the new funeral home is operating in two locations in Salina.
Heier Scott Mortuary and Cremations will be operating their embalming services on 1423 W. Crawford, while their main location and funerals will be at the old Roselawn building on 1920 E. Crawford.
From nursing school to mortuary school: Learning the work-life balance of a full-time mortician
Before Heier-Scott bought Roselawn, she grew up in Western Kansas where she graduated high school. She was en route to pursuing nursing school and when it was time to write a research paper about specific career fields, her high school teacher advised her and four other students to pick a subject other than nursing. Heier-Scott decided to write about being a mortician, which introduced her to the mortuary business.
After high school, she went to nursing school in Colby, KS and realized this was something she did not want to do. Afterwards, she researched nearby mortuary schools and applied to one in Denver where she was accepted. In 2011, she graduated with a Mortuary degree and just strictly wanted to embalm in Denver. She then decided to come back to Kansas where she had a daughter of her own back home.
When she came back home, she received a phone call from a funeral home in her hometown in Western Kansas. Though she just wanted to do embalming due to avoiding the emotional side of meeting with families of lost loved ones, this funeral business was offering her to work in all of the aspects.
"I did not want to do it all, but I accepted it and started to learn that no family acts the same," said Heier-Scott. "You just have to learn how to adapt to that."
Heier-Scott then left that funeral business in her hometown and accepted a job offer in Salina in 2013. During her time at the funeral business in Salina, she continued to grow in her career.
"I met with more families there (Salina) and that is when I started to love meeting with them," she said. "I struggled at first, but you just have to adjust your personality for everybody depending on what they need."
She added the struggles of having a work-life balance, and not letting the experiences at work affect her outside of the workplace.
"I really struggled at first leaving my work at work," she added. "Having a small child of my own and doing small children funerals for other families was tough and I had to learn how to leave that at the workplace. It comes with the emotional side of things and if you are very empathetic you are always putting yourself in other's shoes, but I had to learn the boundaries of that because it would make the family more sorrowful."
After her time as a mortician in her first job in Salina, that is when on August 15th she bought Roselawn Mortuary and started "Heier Scott Mortuary & Cremations."
Rich history of Roselawn, plus plans of renovation
Now that Heier-Scott is official, Kara and the staff plan on making renovations to the Mausoleum across the street from the funeral home/chapel (Roselawn building), plus upgrading the cemetery and roof of the Roselawn building.
"The Mausoleum needs alot of work and that is what we are going to hit hard," said Heier-Scott.
After the American Civil War (1861-1865), the US government gave formerly enslaved African Americans a "mule and 40 acres" (term to describe an unfulfilled promise made to formerly enslaved African Americans after the Civil War, which was intended to provide them with land and resources for economic self-sufficiency).
According to Kevin Lilley who manages the cemetery for Heier Scott Mortuary and Cremations, he stated that a freedman lived on the property of where the current Mausoleum sits and was essentially his "mule and 40 acres."
After some time, the Frobenius family arrived from Germany and bought the land from the freedman, who made it a pig farm.
The Frobenius family then started "Roselawn Memorial Park" in 1926 and was owned by them for the past 50+ years. The funeral home and cemetery was then purchased on February 1, 2023 by Cris and Ginger Ford.
Lilley started working for the Frobenius family when he was 14. He added how he learned to resonate with a family's lost loved one and that he sees that family as his own.
"I look at it in the sense that we can assure you that your loved ones are taken care of," said Lilley. "I tell everybody I work with that you need to see those people as your own mom and dad you are servicing."
Heier-Scott still plans on leaving the Roselawn name sign outside the front of the funeral home/chapel building in honor of its rich history.
Roselawn would have celebrated its 100th year anniversary of service in 2027.
Visit the Heier-Scott Mortuary and Cremations website: https://www.heierscottmortuary.com/
