M J Mc Laughlin Co

Our family has used the McLaughlin Family Funeral Service many times over the years, but never quite like this. This was our first experience with modern funeralization.\r We used to just pick a casket, and that and flowers were the only ways in which we were able to differentiate between aunts and uncles funerals. Wow, have things changed.\r When Mom died, we called and were directly connected to the funeral director, Tom McLaughlin, at 2 AM. He was at the hospice about a half hour later, and talked us through the initial details. We met at 9 AM to plan the funeral, only to learn that he had already called the church and cemetery to arrange the day and time we discussed earlier. That is great service.\r Our meeting for planning the service lasted about two hours. We discussed obituary details, filing for benefits and insurance, service details (viewing hours, etc.) and then got into the casket selection. There were about twenty full-size caskets to choose from in a big, well-lit room and hundreds of other options. We talked about a vault for the cemetery and accepted Tom's advice and logical explanation, no need to spend more. Then we got into the personal stuff. I had no idea there were so many prayer card and printing options, we had to take this home. Tom then introduced us to the idea of a memorial DVD, not to sell it to us, just to make things really special. We were given the assignment of selecting 2 or 3 songs that Mom liked and 20 to 30 photos of Mom for the video part. It turned out great and we got some extra copies.\r Tom took care of everything with the church, music, readings, etc. and arranged for the Army to be at graveside to honor Mom's WAC service. We did not have to do a single thing, Tom, Katie and Kaitlin arranged for flowers and luncheon and even got some hotel rooms for out of town family.\r You might think that we paid a lot for all of this service, it certainly was not cheap, but it was a tremendous value and very valuable to our family. Best!! Pros: beautiful, comfortable building, fantastic service, loving care more

While this most recent experience with the McLaughlin firm was not our family's first, it was by far the best in the past thirty years. Tom McLaughlin, Jr. would make his great-grandfather proud of the way he carries his family's legacy. From the first contact, we spoke only with real staff members, and Tom answered the phone himself when we called at 3 AM to report the death. He even came to the house an hour later to take my brother back to the funeral home. He told us everything we needed to know at that time and scheduled a meeting later that day for arrangement of the funeral. Funeral home staff made all of the phone calls to the church and cemetery and even arranged for flowers and luncheon for us. They went above and beyond the call of duty, and as a result, we had only ourselves to worry about.\r What we got: \r excellent service, plenty of level parking for guests, limousine service for everything without additional expense, a gorgeous facility in which to celebrate my brother's life, more than adequate space for all of our family and friends, a huge selection of prayer card options, beautiful matching navy blue fleet of cars, matching staff including our selection of neckwear, competent and friendly staff, freedom of decision making, freedom from burden of implementing decisions (because they did all the work), display of flowers so they did not get lost in a pile, real (non-folding, non-stacking) chairs for our guests, professionalism, dignity and respect...to say the least\r What they got: \r customers for life Pros: Service, Professionalism, Competence, Courtesy, Respect, Cleanliness, Parking Cons: restrooms could use an update more