Our people and our story
Ellis Hartwell opened Hartwell Furniture & Undertaking on the square in 1926 — a cabinetmaker who built caskets first and learned, the way small towns ask, to carry everything that came with them. In 1968 the family moved the work to the white house under the oaks on Court Street and took the name the town already used for it. Four generations later it is still the Hartwells, still the oaks, still one family at a time.
Today we serve about three hundred families a year across our two chapels — which sounds like a large number until you understand how we hold it: one at a time, the way a town this size requires and deserves. Most of the families we serve, we have served before — a grandmother years ago, an uncle since, now a neighbor. We remember, because we were there.
The house under the oaks
The Maple Bend home is a hundred-year-old house that has been kept like one: a chapel seating one hundred and forty, a gathering room that has hosted luncheons, string quartets, and one memorable bluegrass band, quiet rooms for small goodbyes, and our own crematory on the property — your person never leaves our care, and that is not a slogan; it is a floor plan. The two white oaks out front predate the business, the family, and very nearly the town. We are named for them, and we sweep their acorns off the walk every October like everyone else in the county.
The Fremont chapel
Smaller and quieter, two blocks from the light on West Main — for families on that side of the river who want the goodbye close to home.
The people who will answer
Margaret Hartwell
Owner & funeral director
Fourth generation. If you call at 3 a.m., it is usually Margaret who answers.
Paul Hartwell
Director emeritus
Third generation. Fifty-one years of services, and he still irons the flags himself.
Danielle Okafor
Funeral director & celebrant
Writes and leads services for families with no church of their own. Keeps the livestream honest.
Evan Yoder
Apprentice director
Grew up four miles out on the river road. Learning the work the way it has always been taught: by care.
What we hold ourselves to
Every cost on paper before you decide anything. The phone answered by one of us, every hour of every year. Your person in our care, under our roof, attended by the same hands the whole way. And the small promise that carries the rest: we will tell you the truth, even when a softer answer would be easier to sell.