Dovin Funeral Home keeping services small

Funeral services are becoming smaller and smaller for a Lorain funeral home amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

John Dovin, funeral director and vice president of Dovin Funeral and Cremation Specialists of Lorain, 2701 Elyria Ave., said his business is following U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention by keeping all services private and only allowing 50 people.

This change is having an effect on mourning families, who are advised to no longer receive kisses, hugs and hand shakes from loved ones to ease the pain to prevent potential COVID-19 spread, Dovin said.

“It’s very hard for families to accept this change, and it’s very hard for visitors to accept this change,” he said.

Smaller services have led to more phone calls from loved ones.

“The families are expressing how they’re getting a lot more phone calls and messages online of sympathy, apologizing because they can’t attend,” Dovin said.

Visitors coming through the doors also are more highly monitored through the funeral home’s sign-in process, he said.

Webcasting is an option for private services, so those who cannot attend a funeral service, instead, can view it online, Dovin said.

While some families are shrinking the size of their services, others altogether are rescheduling, he said.

“It’s a little bit of both,” Dovin said. “They’re definitely modifying their services, and some are rescheduling.”

Another option that the funeral home is giving grieving families is to hold a smaller service now, then planning for a larger service after the country recovers from COVID-19.

“The problem is, we’re not sure how long this will last,” Dovin said.

In the case that a family reschedules, he said extra measures are taken to check in with them in the near future to work out the details of how the service may look down the line.

Dovin said that, fortunately, it seems that Lorain County has not been affected by an increase of deaths, and all that can be done is taking it day-by-day.

“We’re all about keeping everyone safe and healthy and keeping environment here safe, especially when families go through process of having a funeral service,” he said.

“We’re all about keeping everyone safe and healthy and keeping environment here safe, especially when families go through process of having a funeral service.” — John E. Dovin, funeral director and vice president of Dovin Funeral and Cremation Specialists of Lorain