Being the director of a funeral home in Zachary, Louisiana means that sometimes your neighbor calls when they see cars in the parking lot to ask, “Who died?”
A suburb of Baton Rouge, Zachary has a population of approximately 18,000.
George Joseph “GJ” Charlet III and his three siblings own one of two funeral homes in Zachary. During the coronavirus pandemic, they discovered that their company – like many other funeral homes in small towns across America – has witnessed the disaster developing up close and personal.
The company has been owned by the Charlet family since their grandfather and his brother opened it in the 1940s. Charlet is one of three funeral directors at the Charlet family funeral home. He grew up 20 miles north of Zachary behind another funeral home his family owns in Clinton, Louisiana, which was damaged in the historic August 2016 floods.
Growing up in a funeral home, Charlet knows how to prepare for the worst. He learned at a young age to fill up the gas tank on the hearse for the local prom, in case there were deaths from a drunk driving accident.
But even Charlet was unprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic. “For the first few months it was really scary because there wasn’t much guidance on what to do,” he said. Due to a shortage of body bags, some bodies had to be wrapped in sheets.
According to the Louisiana Department of Health Data, there have been 552 Covid deaths in East Baton Rouge Parish, where Zachary is located. The parish had an average positivity rate of 10% for the past six weeks. Over the same period, an average of 13% of those tested for Covid-19 in the two census trails that make up Zachary were positive about it.
There have been more deaths in the community because of Covid, but it hasn’t overwhelmed the funeral home, Charlet said. They normally handle about five shifts a week. But since Thanksgiving, the number of Covid deaths has increased, he said. The funeral home provides services for some of the deaths in the Louisiana state prison in Angola. In the prison 16 inmates were killed by Covid-19.
Charlet has a printout of an essay called Always Go to the Funeral by Deirdre Sullivan in a folder of clippings that he wants to read at his funeral. “People have had to say goodbye to that ritual,” he said. “You have to acknowledge someone’s death.”
But his 80-year-old uncle recently caught Covid and is very sick. When he dies, Charlet doesn’t want his mother to go to the funeral. “I just wish people were more careful and took advantage of writing a letter of condolence,” he said. ‘It’s a weird place for me to be. It’s not intuitive to my livelihood. “