By Lisa BaueShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberI still remember the sharp ring of the telephone in the dark hours of April 11, 1987. I was 30 years old when I heard the words no daughter ever wants to hear: “Your father died.”
My dad, Dave Baue, was the owner of our family’s funeral-home business in St. Charles, Missouri. I worked alongside him but had not been groomed to lead. In the instant after the phone rang, my life changed. The wake-up call was literal, and it became the defining moment of my life. I wasn’t just inheriting grief; I was inheriting responsibility.
My father had left a note to my brothers and me suggesting that this business was an emotional drain and we might want to consider selling it. But I chose differently. I decided to stay on, to step up, to find a way to become the leader the business needed, even though I had no idea how.
...My first real encounter with the mysteries of death, however, came long before that day. I was 10 years old when I tiptoed into one of the viewing rooms at our family’s funeral home, a room my father had specifically told me not to enter. Of course, that only made me more curious. I had seen dead bodies before, but this was different.
Inside the softly lit room, the air was thick with the scent of flowers, some sweet, some almost overwhelming. At the center stood a small casket holding a girl about my age. Except for her brown hair, she could have been me. She was dressed in a pale pink dress, surrounded by pink, white and yellow blooms. She looked so peaceful, so asleep, that my young mind couldn’t reconcile what I saw with what I knew. How could she possibly be dead?
I stood there for several long moments, staring. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to touch her—maybe to comfort her, maybe to comfort myself. Finally, I reached out and brushed the fabric of her dress, the little cross necklace, and the rosary beads wrapped around her hands. Her skin was cold, and the makeup came off faintly on my fingers. My heart sank. I hoped I hadn’t smudged anything. I wasn’t supposed to be there at all.
...I felt my eyes well up. I didn’t yet understand the sadness of grief, but I knew that’s what I was feeling. My tears weren’t just for the little girl, but for her family, who would go home that night without her. I slipped quietly out the door, unnoticed, and sat on the front steps to gather myself. Looking up at the sky, I asked God why little girls had to die.
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Looking back, that experience planted the seed for everything that followed. It taught me that our work in funeral service is not just about managing logistics or ceremonies; it’s about the sacred act of offering comfort and caring. That day, I began to understand what compassion for others truly meant. That realization became the foundation for how I would live, lead and serve.
When my father died two decades later, I became president and CEO of our family business. Overnight, I was responsible for multiple funeral homes, a full-service cemetery and cremation operations. I didn’t arrive fully formed. I stumbled through the finances and staffing, resulting in many sleepless nights. But each challenge revealed lessons I still carry today: that leadership requires using your head and heart; that compassion alone won’t sustain a business without strategy, structure and discipline; that burnout hides behind calm professionalism; and that in funeral service, where loss doesn’t respect weekends or holidays, family and community support are essential.
...Representation also matters. Even as women now make up about three quarters of mortuary-science graduates, ownership and leadership remain largely male-dominated. In my early years, I was often the only woman licensee and owner in state and national industry meetings. I had to prove, again and again, that empathy and excellence could coexist. After I sold our firm in 2019, I founded Funeral Women Lead, an organization dedicated to uplifting and helping women unleash their greatness in the funeral and deathcare profession. I created this organization because I know what it feels like to be the only woman in the room. I didn’t want others to experience that loneliness. In a profession built on compassion, we must also learn to extend that compassion to ourselves and to one another through mentorship, peer support, and the shared belief that when women lift each other up, the entire profession grows stronger.
People are often surprised when I tell them that a career centered on death has taught me more about life than anything else. Standing in the presence of loss every day forces you to live with purpose. It reminds you that compassion is powerful, that courage is contagious, and that the smallest moments—a touch, a tear, a quiet conversation between a father and daughter—can shape a lifetime.
Lisa Baue is the author of Wake-Up Calls: A Journey of Learning to Lead and Succeed in the Funeral and Deathcare Profession, founder of the Funeral Women Lead Foundation and the host of “Four Women and a Funeral” podcast.
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