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Friday's Internet Edition, November 21, 2008.
New Galt Funeral Home owners focus on serving their community
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Photo by Kerensa Uyeta-Buckey
Joseph and Rose Ander are the new owners of the Galt Funeral Home on B Street. Their focus is to serve the community that they have lived in since 2000.
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By Kerensa Uyeta-Buckley
Staff Writer
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After Joseph and Rose Ander started learning about the funeral home business by working for Rose’s brother-in-law at his funeral home in Stockton, the couple decided that helping people was something they wanted to continue doing.
When they learned that the then-owner of the Galt Funeral Home couldn’t run the business anymore due to an illness, the Anders bought the business so that they could start helping their own community.
“He was very happy that we were a family that cared so much about the community,” Rose Ander said inside Galt Funeral Home, which is located on the corner of Seventh and B streets, Friday morning.
“Our children went to elementary school here and middle school and now are in high school.”
The Anders have lived in Galt since 2000 and view servicing their own community as an important factor in making the decision to buy the business.
“We do live in the community we service. When we opened the place, we felt, ‘Okay, now a family in Galt owns it, and now we can serve the community,’” Rose said.
Ander works part time in the office at Galt Funeral Home, and assists families and translates as well.
Galt Funeral Home’s staff is bilingual and can speak fluently with its Spanish-speaking clients.
Joseph tends to stay on the business side, he said, but helps out with what he can when he is not working at his job for the state of California.
Rose’s son, Gabriel Zapata, is an arrangement counselor and assists families as needed.
Their director is Jerry Rudow, who has been a director and an embalmer for 20 years. Galt Funeral Home officially opened for business on June 4 and offers several services that help ease some of their clients’ stress during a time that can end up being stressful.
One priority for Galt Funeral Home is to make sure its clients receive the best care possible, Rose said.
If families have trouble meeting the costs for a funeral, the Anders will work with them to ensure they can send off their departed ones properly.
“No matter if it’s a $2,000 funeral or a $10,000 funeral, you’re going to get the same kind of service,” Zapata said. “We only provide one service, and that’s our best service.”
The Anders have kept Galt Funeral Home close to the way it was under the previous owners to establish a sense of stability for Galt residents.
“Basically, it’s pretty much the same,” Zapata said of the inside of the building.
“Galt Funeral Home went through too many changes in a short amount of time before we took over. So we’re trying to keep it the same.”
In keeping with their aim to put the customer first, Galt Funeral Home can accommodate a variety of services, regardless of religion.
The Anders offer ship outs to Mexico or from Mexico to the United States and stress their motto of “service with dignity and integrity.”
"We're here in their time of need, and we understand (what they’re going through),” Rose said. “We've been through a couple of deaths ourselves.”
Burying a loved one can be one of the most stressful and emotion-filled processes a person will have to go through.
The Anders make it their job to ensure that grieving families and friends can count on support while they go through the funeral arrangement process.
Since there is no time limit to when a person passes away, the phone lines are always open at Galt Funeral Home, said Zapata.
“There's always somebody to answer the phone,” Zapata said.
“It won't be an answering service, a real person will answer the phone,” Rose added.
Galt Funeral Home is located at 702 B Street in Galt and can be contacted at (209) 745-2958.
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