Intergenerational businesses are slowly becoming a thing of the past in the funeral industry, but not for Bridget and Bevan Hoult, who have just become the fourth generation to step into the shoes of running one of the region’s most recognised funeral providers.
Bridget Hoult (nee Day) remembers going out with her grandfather and father on long drives in the hearse when she was just a young child. She says it was her job to keep everyone awake.
“I don’t know if I was much good at that, I normally fell asleep as soon as we got on the road.”
Her family has run Day’s Funeral Services, formerly P Day & Son - the umbrella company of Marsden House, Waimea Richmond Funeral Services, Nelson Tasman Cremations and Golden Bay Motueka Funeral Services and the Hope Gardens of Remembrance Crematorium, since the early 1900s. Bridget remembers her first paid employment being in the funeral home while she was still at school.
“I’d clean the hearses and help my grandmother with the catering for services, in hindsight this was probably where my interest in becoming a funeral director started.”
The company became the first in New Zealand to introduce catering at funeral services.
Bridget took time out from the industry for a while, reconfirming that it was where she still wanted to be. Fast-forward a few decades and Bridget, along with husband Bevan, have taken the reins from her father and are now the proud owners of Day’s Funeral Services.
“I haven’t always worked here in the industry,” she says. “I took myself off overseas for 10 years where I did some teaching in England.”
But Nelson, family, and the family business, eventually called her home.
Upon her return, Bevan was working at the company as a funeral director and embalmer. The pair reconnected after going to school together in earlier years, married and had three daughters.
The couple then moved to Motueka to run the funeral home there for 10 years, raising their family, before heading to Southland.
“We got a call a few months ago from dad saying it was time for him to put his feet up and asking if we would consider moving home and purchasing the business,” Bridget says.
They say it wasn’t an instant decision, but after some consideration, was one they were happy to make.
“Southland is a wonderful place, we had a good group of friends,” Bevan says. “Family is so important to us and with two of our daughters in Central Otago and another on the West Coast it was a hard decision to make, but one we are happy to have made.”
The couple are both qualified funeral directors and embalmers with Bevan labelling the work as a real privilege.
“You’re with people when they’re at their most vulnerable, there’s not many people that can help people through those initial stages of grief,” he says. “You also hear some fascinating stories about what people have done with their lives.”
“Sadly, we look after people in terribly sad situations, for example, families who have lost a stillborn, but that baby has still left a mark on their lives,” he says.
“Everyone has left their mark on this world,” Bridget adds.
The couple have strong family heritage across the region.
“There would not be many areas in the district that does not have an ancestral connection for one of us,” Bevan says.
“We’re not a corporate company, we are people that you meet on the street, people that you meet in the community. It’s a bit like our family looking after their family,” Bevan says.
As for their own children joining the family business ... “Time will tell,” they both say.
