Remembering loved ones
Funeral home makes a festive site for Day of the Dead celebration
Dia de los Muertos is meant to be a festive celebration of deceased love ones. But no one did it with more panache than revelers who gathered at Bradshaw-Carter Funeral Home.
Co-hosts Tripp Carter and Beau Miller welcomed an overflow crowd of more than 250 to the Montrose-area funeral home for a Day of the Dead celebration where guests dined on Mexican-themed cuisine from Jackson & Co. and left messages for loved ones on a 12-foot-altar decorated with marigolds, mums, gladiolas and carnations and an 18th-century Italian gilded baldakino containing a 19th-century statue of the Virgin Mary. Rebekah Johnson drew raves from the crowd for her altar design.
Mariachis de Guadalajara, International Ballet Folklorico dancers from Ripley House and Yvonne Washington provided the entertainment. Washington sang samba and salsa tunes with a five-piece ensemble.
Carter and Miller planned the gathering around six months ago and figured the home-like surroundings of the funeral home would be the perfect locale for a tasteful celebration. Miller noted that so often times at a funeral home are sad, but this provided an opportunity for guests to remember their loved ones in a happier way.
Seen in the overflow crowd: Nancy Allen, Terry Zmyslo and William Dodds, Nancy and Lucian Morrison, Marie and Bill Wise, David Wright and Kenny Rogers, Peter Brown, Nancy Etheridge, Felix and Nelly Fraga, Sandy Parkerson, Lizzy Hargrove, George Lancaster, Jay Jones and Terry Wayne Jones, and Tim Surratt and Mike Hollomon.
Everyone had such a good time that the hosts are already planning next year's gathering.