The Perry Lions Club recently welcomed Katie Fitzsimmons, funeral director at the Caldwell Parrish Funeral Home and Crematory in Perry, who addressed the club’s dinner meeting at the Hotel Pattee.
After tucking into a meal of pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans, with a chocolate mint bar for dessert, the 13 Lions in attendance welcomed Fitzsimmons, who came as a guest of Lion Don Ruggle.
Fitzsimmons said she has been in the funeral business for about 10 years, having joined the Caldwell Parrish firm in August 2024. She earned her mortuary science degree from DMACC in Ankeny, the only school in Iowa that offers the program. Classroom coursework and a one-year internship were followed by the state licensing exams, administered by the Iowa Board of Mortuary Science.
She is licensed in both Iowa and Nebraska.
Fitzsimmons said the Caldwell Parrish company now has a close working relationship with the Murdock Funeral Home in Perry, having purchased Perry’s two other undertaking businesses, the Carris Family Funeral Home and the Hastings Funeral Home, in recent months.
She said Caldwell Parrish is a full-service funeral home, providing services for a variety of funerals, including grave-side services, cremations and traditional funeral services. Embalming and cremations are done on site at the Perry facility, she said. The company orders tombstones from Watts Monuments in Des Moines.
Fitzsimmons encouraged the Lions to preplan their funerals because this makes decision making easier for the surviving family members at the time of decease.
In other business, the Perry Lions voted unanimously to make a $25 memorial donation for longtime Perry Lion Jack Shelker, who died Jan. 28. Jack’s visitation will be Friday, March 7 from 9-10 a.m. at the St. Patrick Catholic Church in Perry, followed by a Mass of Christian burial at 10 a.m.
Ray Harden is the secretary of the Perry Lions Club.
