A nudist walks into a funeral home: 'Mumblings of a Mortician' recounts tales from late Peter Stefan

WORCESTER — As a funeral director, Peter A. Stefan had pretty much seen it all.

But on one occasion, he was suddenly worried about what people passing by Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors at 838 Main St. were seeing.

As Stefan relates in the book "Mumblings of a Mortician," written by Frank Quaglia and Art Sesnovich, a group of nudists had approached Stefan about holding a wake for one of their deceased members at the funeral home. The participants of the wake planned to be in the nude.

More: 'An admirable life': Friends, politicians, advocates remember Peter Stefan, champion of the poor

Stefan agreed but with the condition they had to keep everyone inside with the doors locked. "I also assured them that my staff and I would remain upstairs in our offices."

All seemed to be going well until Stefan started hearing car horns blasting and people screaming in the street. Two of the people at the wake, a man and woman in their 20s, had stepped outside to smoke cigarettes on the front porch. They were naked and had caused a commotion.

"I actually admired the smokers. They could have taught Zen masters a thing or two about tranquility and ultimate transcendental meditation," Stefan related. Then, "I heard sirens in the distance … I was expecting a knock on the door from the police who would be arriving momentarily. They did.

"I stepped outside and had a humorous conversation with two officers; they were gone in 20 minutes. No problems arose as a result of Naked Night at Graham's!"

Sesnovich recalled that in his conversations with Stefan in putting together "Mumblings of a Mortician: World renowned Funeral Director, Peter Stefan, unravels pieces of his mind …" (to give the book its full title), "I was either laughing or rolling my eyes. It was mostly laughing with the occasional eye roll. It was hard not to laugh because he was enjoying life so much it was hard not to enjoy it with him."

"Mumblings of a Mortician" is mostly a collection of Stefan's humorous anecdotes.

But Stefan, who died at 85 on March 21, was serious about his moral responsibilities in life and as a funeral director. In his dedication to "Mumblings of a Mortician" Stefan made the dedication to "the hard-working men and women in the funeral industry and their families … Everyone who has a role in this profession, however small, is an integral part of bringing respect and dignity to the deceased, as well as comfort to the family and friends they leave behind."

Well known local activist William Coleman III notes in his foreword to the book, written while Stefan was alive, "he provides comfort to families and dignified services for their loved ones … he meets desperate people who feel abandoned. He helps those unfortunate ones find their way to receive basic needs like food, clothing or a warm shelter."

Case of Boston Marathon bomber

The poor, members of religious minorities and many more groups and individuals received a proper funeral under Stefan's stewardship of Graham Putnam & Mahoney, regardless of their ability to pay or ethnic or social status.

That included handling the funeral arrangements for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, amid much criticism that someone should be involved with the burial of a murdering terrorist. Stefan was also unstinting in his work in the community for the homeless, the hungry, and for groups such as veterans.

Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors is still in business, as Stefan would have liked.

Still, as was noted in stories at the time of his death, Stefan also had a roguish sense of good humor that he liked to share.

As Sesnovich and Quaglia discovered, he delighted in stories such as the nudist wake.

There were many more. There was the time when two funerals were going on at the same time, after which each funeral party followed the wrong hearse to the cemetery. There was the team of paranormal researchers, convinced there were ghosts in Stefan's building and that they had captured the creatures on film, only to discover it was Stefan's pipe smoke (he smoked his ever-on-hand Captain Jack pipe tobacco).

Then there were Stefan's employees, including one who came into work every morning feeling sick, only to recover in the afternoon. Stefan discovered the employee was brushing his teeth with hemorrhoid cream.

Stefan got to to see "Mumblings of a Mortician" published and was happy about it, Sesnovich said, but he died shortly afterward. The book is available at Amazon.com.

Sesnovich and Quaglia, both area writers, made Stefan's acquaintance separately, and Stefan, who had some concepts he thought would make for good movies, talked to them about his ideas for screenplays based on his experiences in the funeral industry.

"I wrote two screenplays based on ideas Peter suggested," Quaglia said. One was a comedy, "Shangri-Loon," with a main character of Victor Loon. 

"Victor Loon is Peter," Quaglia said.

Stefan also thought his real-life experiences would make for an entertaining book.

"He was a very spirited person and he came across a lot of situations. He said 'I'd like to do a book. I'd like people to see a different side to the business. I'd like to show a different side. A humorous side.' There's a lot of nutty things that go in in the funeral business," Quaglia said.

"I had done a movie script," said Sesnovich. "He also mentioned he'd like to write a book about his experiences, but said, 'I'm not a good writer.' "

Stories worth telling

"Mumblings of a Mortician" was "based on the idea that the funeral business, there is a comical side to it. Just a lot of funny stories that he thought were worth telling," Sesnovich said.

Both Quaglia and Sesnovich were collecting stories from Stefan, and "ultimately it became a very nice collaborative process," Quaglia said.

"He would tell us different stories and we'd wordsmith them," said Sesnovich.

They wrote and edited a collection of humorous anecdotes in which anyone who ever met Stefan can hear his amused voice coming through quite clearly.

Sesnovich, Quaglia and Stefan self-published the book on Amazon.

One occupational hazard for Stefan seems to have been removing the bodies of people whose weight was in the 600-pound range. Being overweight could be a source of ribbing from Stefan.

"Peter was stream-of-consciousness. Whatever he had in his heart he just poured out. To be honest, some of the stories weren't fit to print," Sesnovich said.

"I'd say, 'I don't think it would serve you well,' " Quaglia said. "There were some things very graphic. Some stories didn't make it in. He met celebrities, musicians, high-profile people. He didn't want them in. (He'd say) 'I don't want to name-drop or infringe on their privacy.'  He had a high self-monitoring morality."

Always, Stefan loved to talk, both Sesnovich and Quaglia said.

"I told him when I see his name on my phone I have to decide if should cancel all my engagements for the day," Sesnovich said. "But with Peter it was always something interesting, always something funny. He talked a lot but it was a labor of love."

Quaglia said, "I've been in his office. The phone rings off the hook. It could be a stranger, he made them laugh. John Kerry. He would treat John Kerry like he treats you. I think people appreciated his authenticity. I found him to be an amazing human being."

As Stefan observed, “Almost always without exception, I joke my way through the day-to-day. Many people appreciate my humor, but there are some who wince at my attitudes and my antics. Regardless, I share my inner self with all who drift my way, and whatever comes of these encounters, so be it.”

Aside from funny stories about the funeral business, Stefan also relates such matters as his delight in giving odd, made-up names to the maître de at restaurants while waiting for a table so that the maître de would actually have to say "Guido Vaselino" or "Anon Amous."

On a serious note, Stefan also talks about the Tsarnaev situation, which included protesters outside the funeral home and phone caller issuing threats such as "We're going to shoot you Stefan!" But he also recounts how he arranged an elaborate decoy so that Tsarnaev's body left the funeral home for the one cemetery (in Virginia) that would accept him without the protesters outside realizing what was happening.

Meanwhile, Stefan bought pizza for everyone standing outside the funeral home.

"He was happy to talk about that," Sesnovich said. "He was so firm in his belief. He hated what the bomber had done, but his superseding belief was that everyone deserved a proper burial. He would say, 'Where do I draw the line?' He said, 'I can't have a line.'

"He was so crazy. He had scores of protesters but he bought them pizza because he was happy we lived in a country where we could protest," Sesnovich said. 

Didn't talk about private life

One topic he didn't talk much about, however, was his own personal life.

"Personal details he didn't talk about. He had a family, children," Sesnovich said.

"He was from Boston. His father died very young. His mother passed away a long time ago, too," Quaglia said. Stefan married, had children and grandchildren. "He had this very big family he was kind of the patriarch caring for this whole tribe. But he didn't talk much about his private life. He was talking about what he was working on."

The funeral home was initially Graham and Putnam Funeral Parlors. It dated back to a time when 838 Main St. would have been considered a more affluent address than it is now and the funeral home catered to a more wealthy clientele. That state of affairs had long passed when Stefan took over. He added the "Mahoney" legitimately but to the infuriation of some other funeral homes. Stefan was highly amused by the reaction.

The state pays $1,100 toward the cost of funerals for poor people, but that amount has not changed in over 30 years.

"He was one of the few (funeral directors) to do funerals out of his own pocket. Peter would lose money," Sesnovich said.

When Stefan wasn't arranging and conducting funerals, he had an array of community activities going on.

"Drug programs, programs for veterans. For a guy that worked with the dead, he probably did much more for the living," Sesnovich said.

In "Mumblings of a Mortician," Stefan observes, "god must have loved the poor because he made so many of them."

"Fortunately he got see the book in print before he passed away. He was very excited about it," Quaglia said.

"He loved it. He said, 'I can't believe I had all these stories in my head and now they're on paper. And now as a I look at them they're even funnier than when they happened,' " Sesnovich said.

Gradual decline in health

Stefan's health had gradually started to decline. "His mind was sharp and strong. Over the last year he had some things pop up. It wasn't until the last six months he was in a weaker state. His mind was as sharp," Quaglia said.

Sesnovich said, "He had some minor medical issues over the last few years, then all of a sudden, three months before his passing, he required hospitalization."

Treatment for heart problems included the insertion of a stent, then there were problems with the stent. "He just went downhill," Sesnovich said. "Whenever you asked him, it was 'I'm doing fine. I'm OK.' He was too busy to pay attention to it really."

Quaglia said that during Stefan's hospitalization, Quaglia's wife got on the phone and told Stefan " 'Go home, I want to dance with you.' Peter said, 'You'll have to stand in line.' " 

After Stefan died, "everything just kind of stopped" in terms of promoting "Mumblings of a Mortician," Quaglia said.

"Peter was going to be the focal point (for publicity), and I was numbed, kind of shocked. We're both busy separately," Quaglia said.

Sesnovich said they are planning a big social media presence to promote the book.

He also has some thoughts of taking some of the episodes from the book and making it a film or TV series like "Taxi" except at a funeral home.

"That would be fun," Quaglia said.

Actually, that was another of Stefan's ideas, Sesnovich said.

"Great stories from real things Peter did," he said.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: A nudist walks into a funeral home — Book recounts tales from the late Peter Stefan