ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0It has been a staple in the St. Petersburg community for nearly a hundred years, but now it is shuttered.<\/p>\n
McRae Funeral Home closed its doors last year, leaving some clients wondering, what\u2019s going to happen to the preneed agreements laying out their plans for future services.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
\u00a0McRae Fiuneral Home opened in the late 1920’s
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\u00a0It was one of the first Black owned funeral homes in the city
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\u00a0Family members who ran the funeral home say they closed their doors after damage from Hurricane Milton<\/p>\n
Some clients say it came as a shock. People we talked to said they found out about the McRae Funeral Home closing when they drove by the \u201cfor sale\u201d sign out front of its building on MLK Street South.<\/p>\n
The McRae name has been synonymous with funeral services in South St. Pete for nearly a century.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the individuals that started the funeral home,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s Mae McRae and Edward McRae,\u201d she said. It\u2019s the kind of history that will live on forever, even if the business doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the now closed funeral home, the pews, gospel CDs and the tissue for tears on top of the organ, are all right where McRae said she left them last year when they officially closed their doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little emotional about it. Yeah, it does make me sad,\u201d McRae said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the end of almost 100 years of\u00a0offering\u00a0funeral services to the community. It\u2019s a decision McRae says was a difficult one for her family to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cMilton came along and did some pretty extensive damage. And I just looked at it like, \u2018Oh my gosh.\u2019 The sign came down. In fact, it stayed in the yard for about two weeks. And the sign came down, the roof, the shingles were coming off. It just overwhelmed me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
McRae explained how she married into the family decades ago. And she ran the family-owned funeral home for years along with Carolyn Wynn and March Bell.\u00a0But at 80 years old and in need of a break, she said it was time to put her work there to rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was kinda getting in the way of my retirement. I was basically in here for about 12 years working it. My children actually own it,\u201d\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n
The closure leaves some\u00a0wondering what happens now, especially for those with preneed or pre-planned funeral arrangements. Wynn said almost a year later, she is still getting calls about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of people that still don\u2019t know that McRae is closed. Because when you get prearrangement cases when somebody passes, and unfortunately with me being on call 24-7, some of them kept my personal number after the phones got shut down and then they would call me,\u201d Wynn said.<\/p>\n
According to a representative from the state\u2019s Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services that regulates funeral homes, funeral homes aren\u2019t required to give notice that they\u2019re closing.<\/p>\n
McRae said she understands that for some, the closure\u00a0may have come as a surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that the word is not too good about us having closed without having some formal closing. We did what we had to do on the part of the state,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She is recommending\u00a0that people\u00a0reach out to different funeral homes to ask if they will honor their agreements. Just like McRae Funeral Services did for so many years when other funeral homes closed.<\/p>\n
WITH FUNERAL HOME CLOSED, WHAT’S NEXT?<\/p>\n
A historic funeral home in South St. Petersburg closed its doors and now it has some people concerned about their final wishes going forward. Especially for people with pre-planned funeral arrangements there. Many want to know if the plans they made years ago for their last wishes are still going to be valid.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a question asked by St. Pete resident and City Council member Deborah Figgs-Sanders. She said her family wanted to know what happens next, after the closure of McRae Funeral Home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve used McRae for years. My stepdad was here, friends were here, my mother had their directions here. I had my directions that McRae would actually handle my funeral services as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Like most people, she said her family paid an insurance company for their preplanned funeral arrangements. Their plan was to have McRae handle their services, but they found out that wasn\u2019t happening when they saw the for-sale sign in front of the business. She said they had to figure out next steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it wasn\u2019t an easy process. First of all, they had to realize all of the plans they premade were no longer valid. Then they had to seek out another funeral home that they selected,\u201d Figgs-Sanders said.<\/p>\n
With the funeral home having such a positive reputation for nearly a century, she said she expected to find out in a more official capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently, it had been closed for a while, and I thought it was because of damage from the hurricane of course because there wasn\u2019t a sign. But then as I drove by two or three months ago, I saw a sign and said not only is it closed, it\u2019s now for sale,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge conversation but the immediate need right now is for those that have policies here, to be informed of, we\u2019re no longer here, we\u2019re selling the facility, but these are some of your options.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with the lack of notification, Figgs-Sanders said she can still appreciate the funeral home\u2019s legacy. \u201cIt makes me smile and I know that\u2019s a strange answer because it\u2019s a funeral home, you\u2019re grieving, you\u2019re saying goodbye. But the name of the McRae funeral home has been a pilar in the city of St. Petersburg for years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n