Mike Wilfong, left, and his partner Tom Thornton own ClearPath
Funeral Home in Grand Prairie
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Mike Wilfong has been in the funeral business his entire career. He explained that he began working at 16 in his small hometown, and the work “became a way to pay my way through college,” he said.
He was working in the Dallas area when one of the people he was working for became his father-in-law. He had two children with his wife. Then Wilfong came out later in life and has been with his partner, Tom Thornton, for 26 years. Now he and Thornton have opened ClearPath Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Grand Prairie.
Included in his experience was a stint as manager of Restland, a large cemetery in Richardson. Then after a couple of years in Las Vegas, Wilfong asked himself, “What do I really want to do?” The answer to that question led to his new business.
Wilfong said he learned a lot over the years from working for other people. And, “Now I want to be very transparent, affordable and everything guided by compassion.”
That’s the way the business should be, he said. But, “It’s not.”
A few months ago, Wilfong said, they were helping the family of someone who had lived most of her life as a woman. He found himself navigating a mostly conservative family that decided to celebrate her life the way she had lived it as a female. From the feedback he received, he said, he knows he helped the family make the right decision.
Wilfong and Thornton bought their funeral home a year ago and have spent a lot of time since then getting their name out there. One way they have done that is with a booth at quite a few festivals.
“I’m surprised how many events Grand Prairie has,” Wilfong said.
One new thing he’s had to learn is how to speak to influencers — the influential people in the Catholic Church or the Baptist Church. And he’s learned Google advertising to get placement. Without Google ads, he could be standing inside his own business and do a search for closest funeral home, and ClearPath wouldn’t come up.
Wilfong said “working with families to come up with a solution that works for them,” is what gives him satisfaction in his work. To do that, he said, he has to “really listen to what they’re saying, what their needs are then find a path that can make that happen.”
He said he asks questions and probes to “make sure the person has the facts in front of them.” Then he can narrow it down to the choices available and offer a simple cremation.
He said he would tell someone concerned about cost that they can “can get together later at home or in a restaurant” to remember and honor the deceased, because “That would be the simplest answer to your question right now.”
Next, Wilfong said, he’d offer a cremation with memorial service, inviting people to use ClearPath chapel or some other place of their choice. The final option is a traditional funeral, with the loved one in a casket for a visitation and service with an array of burial options.
Cremations have become more popular than most people think, Wilfong said. In Texas, more than 65 percent of bodies are cremated. That’s less than the national average, which is in the low 70s. In California more than 75 percent are cremated.
Ever-growing costs are driving the change in how bodies are taken care of. In addition to the cost of a funeral director, there is the skyrocketing cost of cemetery space, internment fees and the grave marker.
Wilfong said he’ll pick up a body within 50 miles of his Grand Prairie location, Beyond that there’s a mileage charge, to transport the body back to Grand Prairie. But he also has access to commercial cremation facilities in most major cities, which him allows them to avoid that extra transportation cost.
And while Wilfong recommends preplanning and suggests going to an attorney to get paperwork in order, Texas has a document called the Texas Rights of Disposition that allows you to designate someone as the person who will dispose of your remains as you’ve instructed.
Now, it is Halloween so we had to ask if, over the years, Wilfong has had any spooky experiences he can share. He had a few.
He said he and Thornton had no problem working with contractors designing and remodeling their new business. But then they opened for business and Thornton was suddenly not as comfortable in all areas of the building. Over the last year, though, he’s become much more accustomed to the property.
But what about Wilfong, who has a lot more experience spending time in a funeral home around corpses?
“The one question I’m always asked is how can I stay there by myself?” Wilfong said. “The only place I’ve ever been freaked out was once at Restland.”
He said he had already driven out of the gate one evening when he realized he had forgotten his backpack. So he drove back in and went into the building where his office was. As he walked alone down a dark hallway, he heard something. “Is that an organ playing?” he asked himself.
Yes, he was sure he was hearing the organ play. Although it was probably the air handlers on the organ releasing air, he said, he never did go into the building alone at night again.