Weeks Funeral Home - Warsaw, NY

123 N. Main Street, Warsaw, NY 14569

www.weeksfuneral.com

Founded in 1919 by Harry Weeks, this funeral home, like so many funeral homes in the United States, was bought by a larger corporation. Then in October 2007, Brian Kaczmarek, former manager of that large firm, bought the funeral home and kept the original Weeks name. Funeral home corporations, Kaczmarek points out, “treat you like a number; it’s about the bottom line.” He didn’t like that people weren’t treated like human beings and wanted to bring back the personal touch and dignity to the business.

Located approximately 37 miles southeast of Buffalo and approximately 37 miles southwest of Rochester, Warsaw, New York is in Wyoming County. The area is changing; it was once a large industrial county with lumber, flour, cast iron and salt manufacturers, including the Worchester Salt plant. Worchester Salt later became the nucleus of the well-known Morton Salt Company.

Kaczmarek says there was a time when you could walk from the center of town to 30 different factories for work. These days, the poor economy and the high taxes have made creating and growing a business difficult. Many businesses left town. Many residents departed as well.

With nearly 100 years in business, Weeks remains steady. Sometimes the funeral home has to get creative because “people are spending less on funerals.” While Kaczmarek says people can “go anywhere to get a cremation done,” he focuses on “putting the family first.”

By giving attention to the requests of a family, at times he does things that may seem unusual. “I’ve had tents, kayaks and snowmobiles in the funeral home,” he says. He also set up a four-wheel monster mud truck on the front lawn as a memorial to a young motorcycle crash victim. “We try not to say ‘no’,” he conveys, “we’re not just about a cute picture at the side of the casket.”

When a family requested their mother be taken to the cemetery in a 150-year-old horse-drawn hearse, Kaczmarek made it happen.

Always on the clock and at the request of the community 24/7, Kaczmarek has been on the highway at auto accidents or in the home of a resident in the middle of the night. But he says, “When you really love what you do and your find your niche, you’re not just having to go to work.”