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Aldo Marin, co-director of Marin Funeral Home & Cremation Services, has witnessed multiple funeral homes close in the Gage Park neighborhood since he opened his business 20 years ago.The funeral homes that Jessi noticed have managed to adapt and weather those changes, but as challenges persist, some are unsure how much longer their family businesses can survive.Barr Funeral Home in Edgewater is one such business. After nearly 100 years of serving the same neighborhood, we visited Barr to see how the home has stayed afloat for so long and what challenges the family anticipates in the future. Serving a changing neighborhoodTim Harrington is the sole proprietor of Barr Funeral Home, which his grandfather opened in 1923 on North Broadway. In the early days, they offered traditional Irish Catholic services: lengthy visitations, religious blessings and a suit-and-tie dress code.Over the years, the family developed a close relationship with the congregation at nearby St. Gertrude Catholic Church. Both of Harrington’s parents were baptized, went to school, got married and had their funeral masses at St. Gertrude.“And so far, I’m on the same trajectory,” says Harrington.
“Hopefully I’ll have my funeral mass there.”. Over the years, the Barr family has worked closely with St. Gertrude Catholic Church. Many traditional Irish Catholic funeral masses have been held at St. Gertrude.It’s not unusual for funeral homes to be located near a church with an aligning cultural and religious affiliation.
But as Chicago’s historic ethnic neighborhoods have undergone demographic changes in recent decades, there has become less of a demand for funeral homes serving one particular ethnic or religious group. Funeral directors that, for generations, were used to exclusively serving their own community have had to adapt to stay afloat.“To be viable is really to be able to anticipate the needs of the families that you’re serving, and that family is constantly changing,” says Leili McMurrough, a director of McMurrough Funeral Chapel in Libertyville and program director of Worsham College of Mortuary Science.Some funeral directors have been unwilling or unable to make the shift. But others, like Harrington, have welcomed the challenge. He says Edgewater started becoming more diverse when his father was still director of Barr Funeral Home, with an influx of Southeast Asian immigrants.So Barr began to accommodate different mourning customs, like burning paper or incense inside the building. Today, Harrington says he serves families from a variety of cultural backgrounds, including African, Southeast Asian and the home’s traditional white European Catholic, among others.Changes like this have allowed Harrington to maintain his viability in the face of the same industry shifts that have caused many other funeral homes’ profits to wane past the point of re.
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Contents.Biography Mark Anthony Ruffin, born in Chicago,IL (September 24, 1956). Ruffin's parents had a record store on the west side of the city for the first eight years of his life. He grew up in the suburb town of Maywood, IL and studied Radio/TV and music at.
Mark is the father to three sons: Melcolm Xavier Ruffin, Sidney-Bechet Mandela Ruffin, and Kenyatta Hents Philips-Ruffin. Career Before rising to prominence in North America, Ruffin was a presence in Chicago jazz radio for over 25 years, where he was also Jazz Editor at from 1982 to 2007. He has had a varied multi-tasked career in radio, television, journalism, recorded music, and film – with a focus on and American culture in all the mediums. Radio Since 2007, Ruffin has been the Program Director and On-Air host for 's channel. 1980–2000, he started as an operations engineer at -FM/Chicago. In 1980, he got his first on-air opportunity through the Jazz Institute of Chicago.
From there: 1981–1985, Jazz Music Director WDCB/Glen Ellyn, 1985–1988, Music Director-WBEE-AM/Chicago, 1988–1996, Producer/Announcer WNUA/Chicago. 1996–2000, Announcer/Producer /Chicago.
2002–2007, Ruffin joined Miles Ahead Incorporated which produced, Miles Ahead and Listen Here, two syndicated shows featuring him and Grammy Award-winning annotator and broadcaster Neil Tesser. The latter show was distributed by WFMT Satellite Network and was heard on up to 120 stations in the U.S.
And Canada.Ruffin was the original producer of the nationally syndicated Show which was distributed by in the 1990s. Since that time he has produced nationally syndicated programs for, Dr. Robin Smith, and others.Television 2000–2007 Ruffin was a cultural correspondent for the Chicago television station -TV.
His pieces on Jazz and American culture were presented on the televisions shows Artbeat Chicago and Chicago Tonight. He won two Emmy Awards while at WTTW. 2014–2017 Ruffin was a recurrent moderator and host of the AOL Build Speaker Series where he was featured interviewing a number of personalities including Don Cheadle, Jon Batiste, Harry Connick Jr., Herb Alpert and many others. Journalism Ruffin was the Jazz Editor of from 1982 to 2007, Contributor at 1985–2005, Jazz Stringer at 1989–1997, Music Editor at N'Digo Magazine 1995–2005 and contributed to Jazziz, JazzUSA.com, Playboy, Illinois Entertainer and many other publications.
Records Annotator Ruffin has numerous annotation credits. ^ Altschuler, Melvin & Glasser LLP. Chicago Emmy Online.
Category #14. Retrieved October 4, 2019. ^ Virchow, Krause & Company, LLP. Chicago Emmy Online. Category #14B.
Retrieved October 4, 2019. ^. Recording Academy Grammy Awards. 57th Annual Grammy Awards (2014). Retrieved October 6, 2019. Retrieved October 7, 2019. (PDF).
Retrieved October 6, 2019. ^ Week, Jazz (August 12, 2017). Retrieved October 6, 2019. Sirius XM Real Jazz Facebook. June 27, 2016.
Retrieved October 7, 2019. Crossover Media. September 4, 2018. Retrieved October 7, 2019. Publicity, All About Jazz (November 19, 2004). All About Jazz.
Retrieved October 7, 2019. ^. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
All Access Music. July 26, 2006. Retrieved October 7, 2019. ^. Blue Note at Sea. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
Pont, Mike (March 25, 2016). Getty Images. Retrieved October 7, 2019. Ruffin, Mark.
Miles Bryan
Retrieved October 6, 2019. Ruffin, Mark. Chicago Reader. Retrieved October 6, 2019. JazzIZ Magazine. August 9, 2015.
Retrieved October 6, 2019. Jazz Singer TAEKI Official Website. Retrieved October 7, 2019. Palmer, Brian. Tais Awards 2019.
Retrieved October 7, 2019. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
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Retrieved October 4, 2019. Jazz Journalists Association. Retrieved October 6, 2019. October 8, 2019.