My sister died May 6, 2025. I made an appointment ...
My sister died May 6, 2025. I made an appointment at Merkle funeral home (S. Dixie) for 2:30 pm on May 9, 2025. We (my brother and my niece) arrived at 2:25 pm. We entered and no one was around. I said "You-Hoo?" and no one answered. My niece opened the first available door and saw a woman in a black skirt suit with her blouse untucked and in bare feet standing over an open casket. This woman came out, still disheveled and in bare feet and greeted us. (We should have left then but they had already picked up the body of my sister. She led us to an elevator, which had a huge bag of garbage on it, and took us to a downstairs meeting room. Among other things, she was not prepared for our appointment. She kept leaving to get things she needed. I wanted just a plain cremation because we were planning to inter her elsewhere in the summer. Many times, she said that "they" could help with that. She seemed to be interested in making more business. The funeral home wrote what I believe was an AI generated obituary after I had given her a detailed statement that I wrote. The saleswoman told us that the home would call when they received the death certificates. They did not. I called and had to pick them up at another inconvenient location. Finally, they did deliver my sister's remains, re-emphasizing that they would like to help us with her internment. Deli8vering my sister was the wrong time to ask for more business. I had to write the real obituaries and submitted them to the Monroe News and the Toledo Blade. A couple of weeks later they delivered an "advertising mug" and a corrected obituary. This certainly was too late, and the mug was in poor taste. Just because Merkle Funeral Home has several locations does not mean they are good at what they do. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THEM TO ANYONE!
