GREENFIELD — Donna Mollard and her late husband, Alain Mollard, ran The House on the Hill bed-and-breakfast for nearly 20 years on Leyden Road.
“We left Brooklyn in the early ’90s,” said Donna Mollard. “Running a B&B was our dream, and we worked hard to make it a success.” They saw some of the same faces year after year, and many new ones, too. “People came from all over the world, as well as from down the road. Many became our extended family.”
She found it “wonderfully fulfilling,” but following her husband’s death from cancer in 2017, Mollard decided to close their B&B. “Without Alain at my side, it just wasn’t the same.”
Living in a bed-and-breakfast wasn’t the first time Mollard inhabited a place typified by people coming and going. Though very different from a B&B, growing up in and around a funeral home enabled Mollard to get to know people in compassionate and unique ways.
In 1950, Mollard’s paternal grandfather went into business with a friend in Stamford, Connecticut. The two men purchased a beautiful, palatial building originally known as Brockton Manor, which had been converted into a restaurant. They converted it again, creating the Bouton and Reynolds Funeral Home, which remains in operation today, though in a different location.
“My dad grew up in the business.” said Mollard, “and after he went into military service, he got a letter from his dad saying that Mr. Bouton had died. My grandfather asked my dad to come home to help run the business.”
Describing her father, John Baird Reynolds, as “charismatic, charming and with a great sense of humor,” Mollard said he’d grown up as an only child in a home separate from the actual funeral home. But when Reynolds married, he and his bride moved into an apartment on an upper floor of the funeral home. “That’s the home I was born into,” said Mollard.
Although her family eventually moved to another home, “our lives remained intertwined on a daily basis with the funeral home.”
Mollard said that growing up in and around a funeral home “showed us that death wasn’t scary. We were very respectful toward the deceased and their survivors. That was of utmost importance. Yet my three siblings and I were so comfortable there, we played hide and seek when no one else was around.”
Her family considered death entirely natural. “My dad had such a positive attitude, and he showed us alternatives to the death-averse American culture. We attended and facilitated many, many different types of funerals. It was a gift.”
Mollard and her siblings share that gift with her nieces and nephews. “We enjoy visiting cemeteries and tending family members’ graves. Mom’s buried in South Amherst and Dad in Stamford, Connecticut. My sisters and I go frequently, bringing picnics and planting flowers. It’s a beautiful way to spend time with loved ones.”
She and her siblings all worked in the family business. “Dad paid us and expected us to do an excellent job,” she said. “I considered going into the business as a career, but at the time, women were not accepted as leaders in the field. Fortunately, that has shifted dramatically.”
When asked how life in a funeral home compared with other “work from home” situations, Mollard replied: “We didn’t think anything of it. Dad got up, had breakfast, and went downstairs to work. The staff was like a big family.”
When Mollard’s parents divorced, the children rotated between residences. “I learned that many of my friends preferred to avoid the funeral home. I’d invite someone over, and they’d ask, ‘Um, which house?’ If I replied, ‘Dad’s,’ they’d come up with a reason to decline. Only one friend relished the chance to visit the funeral home, which she considered beautiful.”
Mollard’s tasks at the funeral home included cleaning, washing vehicles, engaging with visitors and arranging flowers. “There were funerals just about every day,” she said. “We could host as many as three at a time.”
One task — helping her father transport a body from the airport — held special meaning. “We always dressed up,” she said. “I wore pumps and hose, and we conducted our roles with special care. I always had a deep sense of the person’s being as we transported their body. It felt sacred.”
Tasks were delineated along gender lines. “My brother John helped with transporting bodies from nursing homes, and with exhumations, when people wished to move the remains of a loved one. That wasn’t something I was asked to do,” said Mollard.
“I really wanted to drive the hearse,” Mollard added, “but my dad wouldn’t let me. It was a really expensive car.”
While in her late 20s, Mollard and her family experienced a significant shift when young adults began overdosing due to drug use. “My father was deeply affected by those deaths,” she said. “When elders die, it’s sad, but predictable. Even when a baby dies, it’s very sad, yet they haven’t really started life yet. But when a teen or young adult dies due to despair, that’s a whole other thing. It really changed my dad.”
When Mollard’s husband, Alain, became ill with terminal cancer, “My background served me well. I wasn’t scared. I had an open heart and inner strength. When Alain died at age 55, I found comfort in the fact that my loved ones and I had cared for him at home, where he was able to die peacefully.”
Alain Mollard died as he lived: with courage and beauty. “He grew up in the Swiss Alps, with a view of Mont Blanc,” said his widow. “He could do anything! Alain was a helicopter pilot, he went to cooking school and became a professional chef and baker, he was self-taught in plumbing, electric, and carpentry skills… He was also an excellent and avid skier. He was a delightful person, through and through.”
Mollard said one big takeaway of her intimate knowledge of death and dying is how important it is for people to put their affairs in order. “When my mom died, two years after Alain, all I had to do was make one phone call, and everything was handled. I, too, have everything settled so that when I go, no one has to stress. It’s a gift we give our loved ones.”
She also suggests that people “say what needs to be said. Don’t wait. There’s no time like the present, and you just never know.”
While living and working in a funeral home, as well as running a B&B, Donna Mollard learned that her passion is “to care for people — in illness and health, in happiness, challenges, life, and death. It’s all a gift.”
Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope” and welcomes readers’ comments at eveline@amandlachorus.org.