Port family funeral home celebrates 50 years

It may be a family businesses, but none of the Eernisses expected to be there.

Jill Eernisse, funeral director and daughter of Marc Eernisse, who started Eernisse Funeral Home in Port Washington 50 years ago, said the family business was the one thing she knew she didn’t want to do.

“I always said I was absolutely not going into the business,” she said. “I knew how demanding it was, what it took for my father to do all of it.”

Then, she said, her earlier career as a swim instructor and receptionist hit a wall when she developed vocal nodules. It meant she couldn’t shout across pools or answer phones.

So, reluctantly, she started to train in the business she grew up in.

“It was a good fit even if it wasn’t my top choice, she said.

While attending college, she apprenticed and worked at a variety of Milwaukee area funeral homes, which was a calculated choice.

“We would have the rest of our lives to do it the Eernisse way,” she said.

After getting licensed, she led the establishment of the Eernisse’s location in Belgium, she said.

“I can literally point out the two bricks I placed with my own hands,” she said.

It was similar story for Joe Eernisse, Jill’s brother who is also a funeral director and whose wife, Kory, is the chief operations officer.

He set out for the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a resolution to become an engineer.

“I figured out real quick I didn’t have what it takes,” he said, and he switched to a political science major.

Joe said he left Madison “a little frustrated” with the ideologies he experienced there — and, like his sister, found himself preparing to enter the family business.

“I saw my job as how can we take this from where we are and grow it,” he said.

The funeral business was not even the original plan for Marc, who planned to go into care giving or medicine.

“I learned I didn’t have the scholastic or financial ability for that,” he said.

While working at the Milwaukee Journal in the 1960s, he learned of a co-worker attending mortuary school and enrolled.

After five years working at Harder Funeral Home in Milwaukee, Marc purchased in 1975 what was then the Horn Funeral Home at 136 W. Grand Ave. in Port Washington, a building dating to the 1880s that is now occupied by Family Promise.

Marc and his late wife Jean, who he describes as a “strong guiding force,” packed up their young family, including 2-year-old Joe and 5-year-old Jill, and left their new home in Cedarburg to live above the funeral home in downtown Port.

It was a “very slow” start, Marc said, with only 11 funerals that first year.

“It was scary,” he said. “But, I knew that the potential was there.”

Jill said she remembers the move and the shock of moving from a neighborhood full of kids to a downtown area.

“Dad kept us busy,” she said, remembering using the downstairs visitation room as their play room and the parking lot next door their playground.

After helping her father cut the lawn at Eernisse’s Dacada location, which he purchased in 1976, Jill said they would go the Mirror Bar across the street and she’d get a soda and candy bar.

She remembered feeling proud of her father when, during his second year in business, he hosted the visitation for the funeral of the then-mayor of Port Washington.

“I remember how noisy it was and that it was the mayor’s funeral,” she said. “It really spoke to me.”

Joe said growing up above a funeral home was interesting, and if nothing else it prepared him for his career.

“Growing up with it, you become more comfortable with what you are seeing, around families that are grieving, around deceased individuals,” he said.

The current Port Washington funeral home was built in 1986 and the Belgium location in 1998, which replaced the downtown Port and Dacada locations respectively.

He said the real test of whether the family wanted to commit to the funeral home was the construction of the Cedarburg location in 2010.

“If Jill and Joe didn’t decide to make it a family business, we wouldn’t have done that. But they made the commitment,” he said.

Marc said his second wife, Grace, was especially encouraging during that time.

Joe said that while it’s not easy to work with your family day in and day out, they all have a common vision.

“We all have the same goal in mind, to serve our community and to do it in the best way we possibly can,” he said.

Joe said he has a lot to thank his father for, and pointed to his business savvy in both taking the leap in buying the downtown Port location and later building the new Port funeral home that has held up remarkably well over the years.

When the building was constructed on what was then the outskirts of town, many people thought its location was too distant from the city center,  Jill said. But, the community has grown around it and the building has ample parking and easy accessibility.

“He’s the one who had the vision and the dream,” Joe said. “It took a lot of moxie and a lot of foresight.”

The Eernisses’ pointed to a few changes in the funeral business over the last 50 years.

The rise in cremation, Joe said, has been the most impactful. He estimated cremation is picked for about 65% of the funerals they plan, far more than ever before.

From a business perspective, he said, cremation usually means a smaller profit for the funeral home because it doesn’t require embalming or a casket, so it has required the family stay ahead of the times to keep up.

When the family built the Cedarburg location in 2010, they included a crematory, a move that has paid dividends, Joe said.

“It makes sure that people in our care, stay in our care,” he said.

Nontraditional funerals have also exploded in popularity, Joe said, unlike when he started 35 years ago and “everyone had the same hours of visitation and funeral times.”

Funerals are no longer solely the domain of churches and funeral homes, he said, but any place loved ones would like to remember the deceased, whether it be a bar, tavern or even the yacht club.

“We will help a family, whatever they want to do,” Joe said.

Jill said that while celebrations of life and nonreligious services are becoming more common, the “idea is the same” as traditional services.

“The verbiage has changed. People want the emphasis on celebrating instead of on it being sad. In terms of the process and steps, they are the same. You’re having a gathering and memorializing the person,” she said.

Ozaukee County is a religiously diverse area, which requires funeral directors to have a working knowledge of many different religions, Marc said.

“You learn the quirks of each one,” he said. “What they expect and what their beliefs are.”

Over the years, that’s extended far beyond different Christian denominations, Jill said, noting Eernisse has planned funerals for Baha’i, Jewish and Muslim families.

Eernisse held its first Hindi service in Belgium, she said. At that time, the business didn’t have a crematory, so Eernisse held the traditional Hindi service that involves placing symbolic items in the casket before processing to another funeral home for cremation.

Now, Jill said, they have a guide for Hindi funerals with the different steps that are required.

Marc served as fire chief of Port Washington for 22 years and is a fourth-generation Ozaukee County resident.

He said his love for the community inspired his work.

“There were no guarantees. We are very grateful to the communities we serve,” he said. “Our motto is that we want to give back to all of our communities.”