Hopler & Eschbach Funeral Home

12/02/2025

We are honored to be entrusted with the final care of Mark "Joe" Cushner, 64, of Hallstead, PA.

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12/02/2025

We are honored to have been entrusted with the final care of Diane Spoor, 78, of the Town of Chenango.

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12/02/2025

Today we are closing the door to the past. Any thought as to what is coming? Share your guesses.

If someone makes the right guess, we have a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card. (First person to guess correctly)

Watch for updates.

12/02/2025

Today in history: December 2, 1859 - Notable deaths -

Abolitionist John Brown is executed on charges of treason, murder and insurrection.

Brown, born in Connecticut in 1800, first became militant during the mid-1850s, when as a leader of the Free State forces in Kansas he fought pro-slavery settlers in the sharply divided U.S. territory
In October of 1859, with a group of racially mixed followers, Brown set out to Harpers Ferry in present-day West Virginia, (Virginia until 1863) intending to seize the Federal arsenal of weapons and retreat to the Appalachian Mountains of Maryland and Virginia, where they would establish an abolitionist republic of liberated enslaved people and abolitionist whites. Their republic hoped to form a guerrilla army to fight slaveholders and ignite uprisings.

At Harpers Ferry on October 16, Brown’s well-trained unit was initially successful, capturing key points in the town, but Brown’s plans began to deteriorate after his raiders stopped a Baltimore-bound train and then allowed it to pass through. News of the raid spread quickly, and militia companies from Maryland and Virginia arrived the next day, killing or capturing several raiders. On October 18, U.S. Marines commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart, both of whom were destined to become famous Civil War generals, recaptured the arsenal, taking John Brown and several other raiders alive.

On November 2, 1859 Brown was sentenced to death by hanging.
On the morning of his ex*****on ,Brown read his Bible and wrote a final letter to his wife, which included his will. At 11:00 a.m. he rode, sitting on his coffin in a furniture wagon, from the county jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers to a small field a few blocks away, where the gallows were. He was hanged at 11:15 a.m. and pronounced dead at 11:50 a.m.

He was the first person executed for treason in the history of the country.

His body was taken by his widow Mary home to his farm in North Elba, New York, and buried there on December 8, 1859.

An interesting note - the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic were written to a soldiers marching song "John Brown's Body with the lyrics of:

John Brown’s body lies a mouldering in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a mouldering in the grave, John Brown’s body lies a mouldering in the grave, His soul’s marching on!

, ,

12/02/2025

We are honored to have been entrusted with the final care of M. Lucille (Piccirilli) Lindsley, age 92, of Johnson City and formerly Tompkins Street, Binghamton.

She worked for Dr. Ramanujan for many years.

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12/01/2025

We are honored to be entrusted with the final care of Carlos Montes, 69, of Endicott.

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12/01/2025

Grief and the holidays - This illustration suggests few things you might do if you are grieving a loved one this holiday season.

This pictograph depicts a few options that MIGHT be of help to you.

There is much wisdom in the final statement... Do what feels right for you.

11/30/2025

Today is the first day of Advent - for Christians the period leading up to Christmas.

We know these days are very difficult for those who have lost a loved one.

To help, find a way to honor the memory of a loved one who has died, we share this post instructing you how to make memorial Christmas ornament tributes to help honor the memory of your loved one and also t help heal your broken spirit.

et us know if you make any, and feel free to share a photo if you do.

In this roundup of ideas, we explore a collection of heartwarming DIY personalized Christmas ornaments that go beyond traditional decorations, inviting us to commemorate loved ones and special moments.

11/29/2025

The Christmas shopping season takes many of us back to our childhood when we would look through a Sears and Roebuck catalogue to search for gifts for others as well as ourselves.

You could order almost anything out of a Sears catalogue, including a tombstone for yourself or family.

In 1906, the mega-company published a specialized “Tombstones and Monuments” mailer, advertising it as a “Catalogue of Memorial Art in Granite and Marble.” Sears’ prices, which beat out traditional funeral parlors’ significantly, allowed consumers to participate in the elite practice of custom-ordering grave markers. In a section titled “Direct from Quarry to Cemetery,” the catalogue promised “Prices within the reach of your pocketbook and in designs heretofore possible only to the wealthy.” With the caveat that these memorializing stones be paid in full in advance of being shipped, families could purchase a “White Granite Marker” for as low as $8.60 or a sweet heart-shaped monument starting at $4.20. Obvious inflation aside, this was a bargain!

For those with a larger budget, imposing headstones like “A Royal Sarcophagus in the Best Dark Barre Granite” were offered in five different sizes, the smallest costing $113.87. All the lettering was done in-house for the customer, with characters one inch or under costing only 12 cents. Keeping it short made for a steal.

Design options were as numerous as the range of prices offered, depending on the level of detail or text requested. Sears’ granite was touted as coming “from the best quarry in the Barre Mountains of Vermont,” and the Dark Veined and White Rutland Italian Marble was illustrated as having “the best developed strata and veins of the Rutland district in Vermont.” To further drive the point home, in case customers were more concerned with stone quality than a recent death in the family, Sears generously offered to mail “a small sample piece of polished Best Barre Granite” for a mere 75 cents.

One issue we did not find addressed was shipping and installation costs. Nonetheless, it was clearly a value and might account why so many very large monuments were purchased back in that era.

11/28/2025

Some thoughts on an uninvited holiday guest - grief:

As one holiday ends and we begin a season of various holidays and observances we will occasionally share some messages to help cope with holiday related grief reactions.

An excerpt from the attached article:

" I realize that grief hasn’t come here uninvited to do me damage. He’s come here to surprise me with a gift that I hadn’t asked for, wouldn’t say I wanted, but so desperately need.

The gift he gives me is this terrible, painful bittersweetness that reminds me just how well loved I was by my father to be feeling such sadness now. This heartbreak is a monument, these tears a tribute.

That’s why Grief is here. Grief is the tax on loving people, and the fact that I am feeling such a deficit in his presence is a celebration of how blessed I’ve been, to have someone to grieve so fully over"

Read on for more.

Every year since my father died, I hope the uninvited guest doesn’t show. Every year around this time I think, “Maybe this will be the year that he won’t make an appearance.” The season begins and at first things go well. I can feel quite fine for a while, even unexpectedly buoyant as the mu...

11/27/2025

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Even on a day when it is not always easy to be thankful because we focus on what we have lost - we should try to always be grateful for what we had and still have.

11/26/2025

Going for the last push here - if you wish to help support a charity that helps veterans in need, this campaign is for you.
Each dollar you give will be matched by a dollar from my funeral home (up to $2,500).
The need is real. The charity is highly effective.
Donate now - by mail - Checks payable to the Southern Tier Veterans Support Group and mailed to Hopler & Eschbach Funeral Home 483 Chenango St. Binghamton 13901 or simply by clicking the donation link in the original post to make your donation by credit card.
Thank you.
Kurt