As the owner of the Wellington Carriage Company in Manzanola, Colorado, Melgosa supports fallen troops by carrying them to their final resting places in a horse-drawn hearse – often at her own expense.

When her father died in 1991, Melgosa and her siblings wanted to give him a unique and dignified burial. They decided to use a horse-drawn hearse, but they couldn’t find one anywhere. After the funeral, Melgosa and one of her brothers bought an 1867 wooden funeral coach for $8,400 at an antiques auction in Pennsylvania. Add a draft horse and a trailer to haul the horse, and Melgosa was in business; her brother bowed out soon after.

Duty and Honor
Now, Wellington Carriage Company isn’t exactly a lucrative business. In fact, Melgosa operates a local retail store and sells antiques online to pay her bills. Still, she donates her services for children and law enforcement officers as well as members of the military because, in her words: “When people die, you say, ‘If I can do anything, just let me know.’ In general you can’t do anything. But I can help.”

On an October morning in a northwestern Nebraska town, Melgosa’s hearse carried the body of Cpl. Adrian Robles, a 21-year-old Marine who was killed when his Humvee struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Robles was described by friends and family as someone who lived to help others; on his left arm were tattooed the words, “Your Freedom, My Life, Without Complaint.”

Although she has volunteered her services in at least 20 funerals like Robles’, Melgosa is still moved to tears by each one. She scours newspapers for reports of slain troops, and uses her contacts in the military to reach out to their families and offer her services. Sometimes she hauls the horse and trailer hundreds of miles to honor a fallen hero.

Melgosa sees it as her duty to honor those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. “How,” she asks, “could you not do this? Whatever gift you can give to these soldiers and their families, you should give. It’s the least you can do to try to honor them.”

Without complaint.

When Robert L. Waltrip founded the National Museum of Funeral History (NMFH) in 1992, he fulfilled a 25-year desire to build an institution to educate the public and preserve the history of the funeral industry. A 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, the NMFH is supported through fundraising efforts, private donations and admission fees.

With over 35,500 square feet of exhibition space, the NMFH is the largest educational center devoted to funeral history in the U.S. and perhaps the entire world. For those who can’t get to Houston to visit the museum in person, virtual exhibits, image collections and narrative descriptions of many artifacts are available for viewing on the NMFH website.

Funerals in Culture and History
One of NMFH’s most fascinating exhibits features the creations of Kane Quaye (1927-1992), co-author with Christine M. Kreamer of A Life Well Lived: Fantasy Coffins of Kane Quaye and pioneer of Ghana’s fantasy coffin industry. The exhibit – a permanent part of the NMFH collections – includes 12 handcrafted coffins resembling everything from a KLM airliner to a fish, each designed by Quaye to capture the essence of the deceased.

History buffs will also enjoy exhibits featuring antique hearses, a 1900s casket factory, a lesson on Civil War embalming, and a look into the elaborate funeral rites and customs surrounding the deaths of the Popes.

Mortuary Memorabilia
What’s a museum without a gift shop? The NMFH is hardly the Met, but fans of gallows humor and all things funeral can shop ‘til they drop at the NMFH gift shop. The inventory includes such offbeat merchandise as Undertaker Spring Water, model funeral cars, Spooky Town collectible figurines and silver coffin earrings.