Hopler & Eschbach Funeral Home

11/17/2024

This is a very useful idea. Far too many national cemeteries are located in distant locales making it difficult for bereaved families to regularly visit the grave.
(This includes the Binghamton area - the closest National Cemetery is in Elmira and only has capacity for cremated remains, no full body burials - which require a further distance to Bath, NY - and greatly hinders the number of people willing to select a national cemetery).

While families in suburban or rural areas generally have access to cars, inner city residents often lack the opportunity to own or use a car and sometimes will avoid selecting a national cemetery for the burial of a loved one - this specifically impacts lower income veterans - thus denying them a benefit.

This might be a useful idea for those who encounter such a scenario.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has officially dedicated a new columbarium-only cemetery in St. Albans, enhancing burial options for veterans and

11/16/2024

Hungry? Support your local veterans at American Legion Post 1645 on Robinson St. Binghamton tomorrow at their monthly all you can eat breakfast buffet Sunday Nov. 17 - from 8-11 am. Eggs, pancakes, french toast, sausage, bacon, sausage gravy and biscuits, etc. Delicious and fun with the benefit of proceeds supporting a great cause.

11/16/2024

How we treat the least among us is a measure of how civilized we are.

In Staten Island, a funeral home, cemetery, local officials, hospitals and a charitable organization join together to help bury stillborn babies whose family have no funds to provide for a proper and dignified burial.

In the other boroughs of New York, the babies are buried at the Hart Island Cemetery, without ceremony and with very limited access for any bereaved mourners. While it may be basically respectful, this ceremony clearly was conducted with dignity that would not be available in the other boroughs.

We have helped many a family in similar situations, as have many other funeral directors across our community and beyond. The loss of an unborn baby creates a deep and lasting pain for many a mother and father.

We salute the good work of all those involved.

“Our stillborn burials highlight the humanity of those we bury and that they are a part of our community," Richmond County Public Administrator Edwina Frances Martin said.

11/15/2024

We are honored to have been entrusted with the final care of Stella Mae Kildare Farr, 81, of Binghamton.

Share memories & support the family

11/15/2024

We are honored to be entrusted with the final care of Stark W. Smith, 90, of Binghamton - A descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Share memories & support the family

11/15/2024

We are honored to have been entrusted with the final care of Gary F. Braman, 72, of Windsor.

Share memories & support the family

11/14/2024

We are honored to be entrusted with the final care of Leroy Minus, Jr., 79, of Binghamton.

https://www.hefuneralhome.com/obituary/Leroy-MinusJr

Share memories & support the family

11/14/2024

Even though the hearse may carry the dead to their place of rest, the drivers are alive and their safety is an important factor in hearse design.

These custom built vehicles must still endure rigorous safety standards as evidenced in this vintage factory promotional brochure.

11/13/2024

Today in history - 50 years ago today

It was shortly after 3 a.m. on Nov. 13, 1974, when shots rang out in the home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island.

In a matter of minutes, Ron DeFeo Jr. slaughtered his entire family as they slept, his mother, father, two sisters, and two brothers. After suggesting they were victims of a mob hit, DeFeo, the 23-year-old lone survivor of the family, was offered police protection, and later arrested, charged with murdering his entire family.

Later, he claimed to be possessed by demons. His attorneys sought a insanity defense at trial.

The jurors rejected that notion and convicted him and six consecutive 25 years to life terms in jail, where he died in 2021 at the age of 69.

A year after the murders, George and Kathy Lutz bought the beautiful colonial house and moved in with their children. 28 days later, they fled in horror.

Their tale inspired Jay Anson’s book The Amityville Horror. Then the movie, another movie, and another book. The story never ends

Is the Amityville story a horror or a hoax?

11/13/2024

A little humor for the day -

11/12/2024

A fascinating story -

There are many funeral homes holding on to long forgotten and unclaimed cremated remains.

It is nice that these Civil War veterans are finally being laid to rest.

For decades, the cremated remains of more than two dozen American Civil War veterans languished in storage facilities at a funeral home and cemetery in Seattle.

11/11/2024

Some history on the armistice that ended "The Great War" (later known as World War 1).

Shortly after 5 a.m. on November 11, 1918, German, British and French officials gathered inside a railroad dining car in a dark forest north of Paris and signed an armistice to end World War I. Rejecting German calls to immediately halt hostilities, Allied commander Ferdinand Foch dictated that the guns would fall silent at 11 a.m. in part to allow news of the cease-fire to be transmitted to the front lines.

“There was also the symbolic reason of ending at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” says Jonathan Casey, director of the archives and Edward Jones Research Center at the National World War I Museum and Memorial. The quest to bring poetic symmetry to the conclusion of a war that was anything but poetic came at a terrible cost—the lives of nearly 3,000 soldiers, including one American private who sought to restore his reputation in the war’s final minute.

The war continued for six hours after the armistice signing.
Although the freshly signed armistice mandated that Germany evacuate France in two weeks, some American commanders refused to call off their attacks to liberate French territory that the Germans already agreed to relinquish. “Commanders were told to keep fighting all the way to 11 a.m. Some did and some didn’t based on their personal appraisals of whether it was really worth it,” Casey says. “From an American point of view there was a mixed reaction, and the Germans were surprised that the Americans were still fighting so vigorously. They thought things would be quiet. The Allies, though, wanted to show the Germans that they were going to press until the final hour so they knew they were serious about the armistice terms.”

Among the American forces told to continue the fight after the armistice signing was the 313th Infantry Regiment of the 79th “Liberty” Division. “There will be absolutely no let-up in the carrying out of the original plans until 11 o’clock,” subordinate brigadier general William Nicholson ordered the regiment known as “Baltimore’s Own” since most of its men came from that city.

On the morning of November 11, the men of the 313th found themselves on the far-right flank of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. After experiencing nearly two months of uninterrupted combat, the regiment found no abatement in the hours following the armistice signing, seizing the town of Ville-devant-Chaumont, 10 miles north of Verdun. Enveloped by a thick fog, the Germans might have been obscured from sight but the boys from Baltimore could clearly hear the staccato of enemy machine guns and the howls of shells streaking overhead.

Among those dodging the geysers of mud and iron erupting from the shells plugging in the mire outside Ville-devant-Chaumont was 23-year-old private Henry Gunther. Before war ripped him away from his new fiancée and a comfortable job at a Baltimore bank, life had been good for the handsome, mustachioed grandson of German immigrants. Drafted into service, he shipped out to France in July 1918 as his company’s supply sergeant, but when military censors read a letter Gunther had penned to a friend back home complaining about life in the trenches and urging him to avoid serving his country, the Army demoted him to private. Gunther’s grand-niece, Carol Gunther Aikman, says a further blow came when his fiancée decided to break off their engagement following his demotion.

The soldiers of “Baltimore’s Own” saw a sudden change in their comrade after he lost his stripes. No longer gregarious, Gunther became sullen and withdrawn. Perhaps to regain his reputation and prove his patriotism at a time when German-Americans were viewed with suspicion, he volunteered for dangerous assignments as a runner. “He was injured by shrapnel in his hand and could have been sent back home but he insisted on staying to help his Army brothers,” Aikman says. “I think this alone demonstrates his courage, bravery and dedication to his battalion as well as his love for his country.”

At 10:44 a.m. on November 11, a runner made it to the 313th regiment with orders to stop the fighting in 16 minutes. “Hold the lines at the spot, and neither advance nor give way to the rear,” he panted.

Sixteen minutes. That’s all Gunther might have believed he had left to regain his honor and prove his allegiance to the United States. While two German machine gun squads manning a roadblock counted down the war’s remaining minutes, they saw a shadowy figure materialize out of the fog. As shots rang out, Gunther threw himself on the ground but continued to crawl forward through the mud.

The Germans kept watch on the American soldier who suddenly rose to his feet and charged toward the machine-gun nest with his fixed bayonet. Gunther’s comrades yelled at him to stop as did the bewildered Germans in broken English. Didn’t he know the war was minutes from its end? If he heard the pleas, Gunther ignored them.

A five-round burst from a German gun struck Gunther in the left temple. He died instantly. His body collapsed in the mud. The time was 10:59 a.m.

According to author Joseph Persico, Gunther was one of at least 2,738 troops and 320 Americans to die on the Western Front in the war’s final day, most of them in the six hours between the armistice signing and enactment. Persico wrote in Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour that the death toll surpassed the daily average on the Western Front. “It seems so foolish,” Corporal Harold Pierce wrote of his experience on the war’s final day, “to keep up the killing till the last minute.”


If Gunther charged the German machine-gun nest to regain his stripes, it worked. In addition to receiving the Distinguished Service Cross, he was posthumously reinstated to sergeant in 1923

11/11/2024

We remember and thank all who have served our country.

11/11/2024

PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE THIS POST (to help maximize viewership for potential donations)

In recognition of Veterans Day and our veterans, we once again are instituting our annual fundraiser for the Southern Tier Veterans Support Group.

We seek donations from the community and we match those donations dollar for dollar up to a total of $2,500.

Your dollars are in essence doubled.

Working together we can make a donation of $5,000.

For those of you who are not familiar, the STVSG is a local grassroots veterans service charity which uses donated funds to meet the needs of local veterans - such as with food, rent, car repairs, furniture, medical bills - just about any need a veteran can have.

We are proud to support the STVSG and hope you will help us maximize our donation.

Donations can be mailed to the Hopler & Eschbach Funeral Home, 483 Chenango St. Binghamton, NY 13901.

Checks should be made payable to the Southern Tier Veterans Support Group.

We will run the campaign from today until Pearl Harbor Day - 7 December 2024.

11/10/2024

Let us hope this comes to fruition.

This funeral home has a decades long list of complaints and violations.

Client families deserve better. The community deserves better. The funeral profession deserves better.

A beleaguered funeral home may finally have its license yanked, just as a troubling new lawsuit soils its reputation even further. The now infamous Bronx-based R.G. Ortiz Funeral Homes is facing & #…

11/10/2024

Happy birthday to the United States Marine Corps.

Share the name of your Marine (living or deceased)

11/09/2024

This is a very real concern, across the state and even the country.

For example in our area the pathologist (the equivalent of a Medical Examiner - just a different title) at Lourdes Hospital provides autopsy services for numerous counties - Tioga, Chemung, Schuyler, Delaware, Otsego, St. Lawrence, Susquehanna and Bradford Counties (possibly more).

After a busy few days of accidents, overdoses, suicides or other unexpected deaths, there can be a morgue full of 6 or 8 or 10 bodies waiting to be autopsied - with only one person to do the task.

It leads to extra transportation costs (back and forth to the home county), delays in completing an autopsy, delays in reports and testing, etc.

It is very likely that there are greater numbers of cases that might be delayed or declined as the number continues to decline.

This may leave many unanswered questions for those who have lost a loved one.

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The city says recent changes prompted by staff shortages have helped improve efficiency without undermining standards.