Belgroves Funeral Home, Cemetery & Crematorium

Belgroves Funeral Company Limited is no exception. The company was started by a former slave who was born in St Lucy, Barbados December 26, 1827.

Mary Jane Belgrove worked as her plantation’s undertaker until Emancipation in 1834.

Stories of plentiful land in Trinidad led her to this island around 1867 with her three sons in tow. According to Belgroves’ current Chief Executive Officer, Keith Belgrove, there are reports that Mary Jane started her own funeral agency on the corner of St James and Victoria Streets in San Fernando. “We found her in the city records with property near that address but we could not verify about the funeral agency,” he explained.

What had been recorded is the establishment of Belgroves Funeral Home by Mary’s first son, Joseph, on August 15 1888 at Coffee Street, San Fernando. This date is now known as the company’s anniversary. The company’s written history noted that helping his mother build coffins taught Joseph about the value of providing excellent service to anyone who lost their loved one. Keith explained that Joseph was a successful businessman and landowner attaining a haberdashery store, cabinet making and wheelwright services. He was also listed as a prominent business man and funeral agent in the Collins Year Book of 1904.

Belgroves was passed on to its third generation, Joseph’s son, J Archibald Vondyke Belgrove. Keith explained, “He was not as prosperous as his father was. He was a gambler and women were very attractive.” He was also fond of alcohol, the written history stated. This, coupled with poor economic conditions in Trinidad due to the First World War and the Great Depression, resulted in financial and property loss for the family.

“Family disputes prevailed and siblings, Roy and Eric opened other funeral homes in San Fernando and St Augustine respectively. Both Roy and Eric closed their businesses and migrated to the USA. Through the difficult times, Vons was able to retain his most important inheritance from his father – the desire to provide quality service to people in the community. And so, despite the loss of physical wealth, by the time the economy improved post World War II, Vondyke’s business began to recover,” the history stated.

Vondyke also introduced the first motorised funeral coach to Trinidad, Keith added.

The next in line, Lionel was a visionary, said the current CEO. In this time of rebuilding, Lionel saw a lot of room for growth in funeral services.

The company’s history stated he got rid of the wheelwright and haberdashery businesses and focused on the funeral agency. He moved the funeral agency from 88 Coffee Street in 1956 to 107 Coffee Street where it still stands today. He also tried his hand at expansion of the funeral home. Keith said he opened a branch in 1968 which was operated by his eldest son, Carlyle, until it was closed in 1962. He also branched out to Point Fortin in the late ’60s and was there for many years until that branch’s manager, Ricardo Whiteman, fell ill and he was forced to close up shop.

He ensured his son, Reynold was the first qualified funeral director and embalmer in South Trinidad. One of his personal causes was the very crude method used for Hindu cremation in those days. “We had to go on a rock offshore and we had to use tyres and the tyres were a very messy thing for cremation. Lionel wrote letters to the powers that be and eventually the whole system to obtain a permission permit was simplified,” Keith explained, “Today we have a very simple system for obtaining a permission permit and pioneers like him and activists in the Hindu community who also fought to bring about change were part of that.” Lionel also purchased research done by a university in the United States on how cremations were conducted in India. With this research in hand, he commissioned his gardener, Sookdeo Sharma, of Coconut Drive in San Fernando to build wooden pyres for traditional Hindu cremations.

Lionel designed the open coffin that would allow these last rites to be performed, the written history stated. This coffin is still used by Hindus and Muslims in Trinidad today.

Lionel was also known as a champion of the people. He was the first to air condition his chapels for the comfort of mourners. “His employees and the people described him as a sweetbread. He used to be on the pavements on Saturday morning and the beggars would come, about 40 to 50 people would come and he would share out money. As a child I would join him as well and give out three cents and five cents,” Keith said about his father.

Keith together with his siblings all worked at Belgroves in their own niche at the company.

Being one of the younger three, Keith was allowed to continue his schooling after the age of 12 years although the elder five had to stop at that age and learn the family’s trade. He began working at the company at that age. “When I was 12 years old, I would sit in the office on evenings doing homework while everyone else was working. Dad would be in his room building coffins and if someone called I would shout “Daddy!” and he will come up and attend to the clients,” he said. The company’s history stated, “One day at age 14, Keith decided not to call his father but to assist the clients himself. Lio had heard the front door open and when he did not hear the routine shout, he came to see what was happening. He stopped in the shadows and oversaw Keith make his first funeral arrangement.

As he stood there with an approving grin upon his face, it was obvious that he was witness to a boy with a budding talent for funeral service excellence.” Keith said he worked at the company part time until he became a fulltime employee for two years when he finished school. Despite this background, his dream was to become a dentist. “Carlyle had migrated and Reynold came home with an American wife so they went back. Edmund, another one of my brothers, was in charge of the caskets.

My father needed someone to be in charge of the business and he needed one of us who were schooled to take over.

“Each person had their niche to take care of but I wanted to be a dentist. So my father asked me to try the funeral director school and if I did not like it, I would be able to do dentistry. So I did and I did not look back. I kind of knew I was headed there from young though. A Mr Pilgrim looked at me when I was young and told my father that is the one to take over the business.” Keith attended the New York Business School between 1970 and 1972 and the McAllister Institute of Funeral Service between 1972 and 1974. “I am a qualified funeral director and embalmer. I hold the highest qualification in funeral service, the Certified Funeral Service Practitioner and I am a lifetime member of the organisation that grants such,” he said.

The current CEO was also influenced to carry the torch for his family’s company because of its long history. “It was also a responsibility to the legacy of the family because by the time I came back from school in 1974, we would have been close to 90 years old.

That is a ball I could not drop.

There were challenges along the way: family battles, business battles, which we fought successfully to be where we are today, to be a pride in the black community. There was a rumour years ago that Belgroves sold out to another company and people verbally abused me. It was not true but I was abused because we stood as a success for the African community where it is lacking today,” he explained.

Under his direction, Belgroves became the parent company to other businesses catering to the main mission of funeral service. He opened a furniture factory which was operated by his brother Carlyle who returned from Canada but this fell apart in 1987 after the oil boom bust and Carlyle again left for Canada. This company now solely creates caskets and coffins catering to Belgroves’ needs.

In the 1980s, Belgroves reopened a branch in Point Fortin and came to Orange Grove, Trincity in 2001, the same year they reopened in Chaguanas. Within their homes, they set up viewing rooms separate to their chapels so that relatives and friends could have viewing sessions prior to the day of the funeral.

Keith created the funeral programme that has become a staple in all funeral services today. Belgroves was the first funeral home to offer bereavement counselling services in Trinidad. “I called a friend whose family member had passed away to talk and she said, ‘How did you know I needed someone to talk with?’ That was the birth of bereavement counselling in Trinidad.

It is something that is now practised in most funeral homes,” he said.

Traditionally, caskets were designed so that a person would have to look down in the casket to mourn their loved one. Belgorves’ redesigned the casket to make the casket shallower, the cover deeper and the entire thing longer so that a body can be viewed rather than have the mourner look through a hole. “We also gave the body a little tilt near the opening end so as you approach your loved one, the body is high. That made a major difference and again it is an innovation from Belgroves,” the CEO said.

Keith also led the charge for more persons to embalm their dead. “When I came home from embalming school in 1974, people did not know about it and they thought it was mummification and they did not want that at that point.

We had to explain embalming was the simple process of disinfecting the person to make sure the person is “kissing clean”. We noticed a lot of people came and kissed their loved one yet still funeral homes generally did not prepare the body for general public health and we coined the term “kissing clean”. When you embalm, the body’s appearance is almost lifelike.

Soon everyone was asking for their loved ones to be embalmed,” he said.

In 1988 when the company celebrated its Centenary, it formally launched its bereavement counselling and started its application for a crematorium. “After 21 years of endeavour we finally won it. So we created the first privately owned crematorium in Trinidad and the first in San Fernando,” he said. The company opened two more and in shorter periods of time due to their persistence with the first one. Belgroves has also assisted funeral homes in Grenada, St Lucia and other countries regionally in setting up their own crematoriums.

Their innovative nature and pursuit of excellence over the years has resulted in several awards and honours bestowed on Belgroves by national and international entities. The highest honour for the company was winning the Eagle award from the National Funeral Directors Association of the USA for excellence in funeral service. This, Keith said, ranked the company as one of the top funeral agencies in the world. Prior to this, the company was awarded by the same organisation for excellence in the practice of funeral services and for persistence in the pursuit of excellence five years in a row.

Locally they also won many awards including honours from the Funeral Directors Association of Trinidad and Tobago in 1984 and 1985 for their outstanding contribution to the industry.

“There is no greater honour than the honour of your peers in a very competitive field like ours,” Keith said.

Another highpoint in his mind was when the San Fernando Crematorium was opened. “There was an excitement there. People would stop by and congratulate us. One competitor across from us in San Fernando said he waits to see what Belgroves does then follows.

That is another honour because he realised the innovation and success of Belgroves is something he wants for his business.

Almost singlehandedly, we brought funeral service out of the 1900s into the 21st century and beyond,” he said.

The future of the company is in good hands with Keith’s daughter, Mercedes, installed as the Assistant Chief Executive Officer. One of her brothers is a registered nurse in the United States while the other is going to school in Florida.

Like her father, Mercedes had different thoughts about her career. “I wanted to be a chef, to the point that I even went to culinary school but when I think about the history of the company... Mary was an emancipated slave and she took her freedom and took the idea, ‘I am going to be a businesswoman’ and worked from the ground up to build something.

How could I leave that?” Mercedes explained.

She graduated from Western Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts in Finance and Economics in 2001 and received her Masters in Business Administration from Emory University in Atlanta in 2007 and has been working with her father since. She also studied bereavement counselling and embalming.

Customer service and innovation is what sticks out to her from the company’s history so Mercedes is determined to maintain these attributes going forward. “We are doing a whole revamp of technology internally right now because technology is part of everyone’s life. We want to bring funeral services to the point where it is easy and convenient and technologically savvy to fit into people lifestyles,” she explained.

“This company is only being entrusted to me for a short time. For me it is my duty to nurture and grow it and pass it on when it is time.

We made 124 years and we are going to make many more. This is a transition and I am just one person in the line and I am taking it full speed ahead,” Mercedes said.