Ruth Ellen Vance
1938 – 2026
Taught fourth grade at Wheatland for thirty-one years. Visitation Friday, 5 to 7 p.m., in our chapel. Funeral Saturday at 11 a.m., First Methodist.
There is no wrong hour to call us.
A family funeral home on Wallace Street since 1961. Our prices are published in full, further down this page, so you never have to ask.
If a death has just occurredObituaries
Those we are caring for
Every obituary we write lives here, on our own website, where it can be shared with family anywhere and will stay for as long as we are in business.
Delmar J. Kowalczyk
1951 – 2026
Graveside service Thursday at 2 p.m., Saint Anne Cemetery, with military honors.
Margaret A. Sutter
1944 – 2026
Memorial service Sunday at 3 p.m. in our chapel. Gifts in her memory to the Cedar Falls library.
Also in our care
Know when a notice is posted
We will email you once, on the morning we publish a new obituary, with the name and the service times. Nothing else is ever sent to this list, and one click takes you off it.
If a death has just occurred
(555) 000-0000Call at any hour, including nights, weekends and holidays. One of us answers, not a service.
If the death was unexpected and hospice is not involved, call 911 first. If your loved one was under hospice care, call the hospice nurse first, then call us.
Or ask us to telephone you
If you would rather not make the call yourself, leave a number. Somebody is awake.
First
We come to you
Tell us where your loved one is. We will bring them into our care from a home, hospital or nursing facility, usually within two hours.
Then
Nothing is decided today
No arrangements need to be made tonight and no money changes hands. We will sit down with you the following day, here or at your kitchen table.
When you come in
What to bring
A photo ID and Social Security number, and discharge papers if your loved one served. If you cannot find any of it, come anyway. We will help you track it down.
What we offer
Four ways families do this
Each one is a complete price for exactly what is described, not a deposit or a starting point that grows.
Direct cremation
Into our care, cremation, and your loved one returned in a simple urn. No service.
$1,720
What is included
Cremation with a service
A visitation and a memorial service, in our chapel or at your church, with printed folders.
$3,340
What is included
Graveside burial
Preparation, a casket, transfer to the cemetery, and a service at the graveside.
$4,260
What is included
Traditional funeral
An evening visitation, a full service, the procession, and the committal at the cemetery.
$6,880
What is included
Cremation in Black Hawk County
Choosing cremation does not mean giving up the funeral.
$1,720
Direct cremation, complete
About two families in three choose cremation now, and nearly all of them still gather. There is a service, there are flowers, and people come back afterward and eat something. Only the last part changes. We will arrange the timing so the urn can be present if you would like that.
Where to start
What do you need right now?
Our people
Who will answer
There are five of us and a dog. Whoever picks up at two in the morning is the same one who will be standing beside you three days later.
Clara Linden
Owner and funeral director
Her grandmother opened the Wallace Street house in 1961, which made Clara the third Linden to sign a death certificate in the front room. She came home from Des Moines in 2012 to take it over, and she still teaches the mortuary science students at Hawkeye one morning a week.
Licensed funeral director and embalmer, Iowa FD‑3391
Russ Meiners
Funeral director
Thirty-four years in the trade and nineteen of them here. He is the one who takes most of the night calls, because he says he was never much of a sleeper anyway. He has carried at more Cedar Falls funerals than anybody else alive.
Licensed funeral director and embalmer, Iowa FD‑2104
Priya Raghunathan
Funeral director and crematory operator
She runs the crematory, which is on this site rather than an hour away, and she is the person who will sit down and explain plainly what actually happens during a cremation. Families ask her that more than anything else. She answers it properly.
Licensed funeral director, Iowa FD‑4877 · CANA certified operator
Judy Vanderhoef
Office manager
Twenty-eight years at the front desk, which makes her the voice most of Black Hawk County associates with this house. She orders the death certificates, chases the insurance companies, and knows which clerk at the courthouse will actually pick up.
Here since 1998
Marcus Ahrens
Advance planning
He will drive out to your kitchen table rather than ask you to come in. He handles the funeral trusts and the Medicaid spend‑down paperwork, and he will tell you plainly when prepaying is the wrong move for your family.
Preneed agent, licensed in Iowa
Barley
Comfort dog
A golden retriever, on staff since 2022 and very good at his job. He works the visitations and he is particularly useful with children, who often have nobody to talk to and would rather sit on the floor anyway.
Certified therapy animal. Tell us if you would rather he stayed away.
Our prices
Published, in full, so you do not have to ask
Only about one funeral home in five puts a complete price list online, and the ones that keep prices hidden charge more on average. We would rather you knew before you called.
Direct cremation
Transfer into our care, cremation, and the return of your loved one in a simple urn. No service.
$1,720
Cremation with a service
Everything above, with a visitation and a memorial service in our chapel or at your church, and printed folders for those who attend.
$3,340
Graveside burial
Preparation, a casket from our selection room, transfer to the cemetery, and a service at the graveside.
$4,260
Traditional funeral and burial
Preparation, a casket, an evening visitation, a full service in our chapel or at your church, procession, and the committal at the cemetery.
$6,880
You have the right to choose only the goods and services you want. Our itemized General Price List shows every item separately and is available above, at the house, or by telephone. Cemetery charges, certified death certificates, newspaper notices and clergy honoraria are paid to others and billed to you at exactly what they cost us. Prices on this page were last updated in July 2026.
The room
A room that looks like somebody’s front room.
Forty chairs, a kitchen at the back, and a door straight onto Wallace Street. You can bring food. You can bring the children. Nobody is going to hurry you out at the hour, and there is no second family waiting in the car park.
Plan ahead
Write it down once
Three questions now, and your family will not have to guess later. Nothing here is binding and nothing is paid.
Spending down for Medicaid
Money set aside for a funeral is counted differently.
More than one family in four who prepay do it for this reason. If a parent is heading toward a nursing home and needs to qualify for Medicaid, funds moved into an irrevocable funeral trust are generally not treated the way a savings account is treated. The rules are set by the state and they change, so we will explain plainly how it works here, what it covers and what it does not. There is no charge for that conversation, and we will tell you honestly if it is not right for your family.
Afterward
The part nobody warns you about
The paperwork outlasts the funeral by months. Here is what usually comes next, and where we still help.
Death certificates: how many you need
Every bank, life insurance company, pension plan, title office and utility that held something in your loved one's name will want a certified copy, and most will not give it back. We order them for you when we file the certificate. Families usually start with six to eight, and we can order more later.
Social Security
We report the death to Social Security for you as part of our service. That reporting does not apply for survivor benefits. A surviving spouse or child may be eligible for a one-time payment and, in some cases, ongoing monthly benefits, but you have to contact Social Security yourself to claim them. Do it sooner rather than later, since some benefits are not paid retroactively.
If your loved one was a veteran
Bring the discharge papers (form DD-214) if you can find them, and we will request a copy if you cannot. Eligible veterans may receive a burial flag, a government headstone or marker at no cost, and in some circumstances a burial allowance. Burial in a national or state veterans cemetery is also available to those who qualify. We file this paperwork for every veteran we serve.
Grief support in the county
A grief support group meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in our gathering room. There is no cost, no sign up, and you do not have to have used our funeral home to come. Coffee is on.
Grief support
You do not have to have used us
All of it is free and open to anyone in the county, whether we handled the funeral or not. Grief does not check where the arrangements were made.
The Tuesday group
Second Tuesday of every month, half past six, in the room at the back of the house. No cost, no sign up, and no obligation to say anything at all. Some people come for a year and some come once. Coffee is on from six.
Where to parkThe first sixty days
A short booklet we wrote ourselves, because the first two months are mostly paperwork and nobody warns you. What arrives in the mail, what has to be answered, and what can safely wait until spring. We will post you a copy or you can read it here.
Read it or have it postedWhen it is a child grieving
Children grieve in short bursts and often years later, which frightens parents who expect it to look like their own. What to say, what to avoid, whether to bring a child to a viewing, and the two counsellors in Cedar Falls who specialise in it.
Read the guidanceCounsellors and groups nearby
A current list of grief counsellors, hospice bereavement programmes and faith based groups across Black Hawk County, including the ones for a lost spouse, a lost child, and for death by suicide or overdose. We keep it current and we take no referral fee.
See the listThe anniversary is harder than the funeral
If you would like it, we will telephone you once at about eleven months, before the first anniversary comes around. Most families say that is the week nobody remembers except them. Tell Judy at any time and she will put a note in the file, or take you off it.
Families we have served
In their words
★★★★★
They answered at four in the morning and Clara was at the house before the sun came up. I will never forget that.Rebecca L., Cedar Falls
★★★★★
We knew what everything cost before we sat down. After what my sister went through in another county, that was a relief.Daniel M., Waterloo
★★★★★
They rang me at eleven months, before the first anniversary. Nobody else remembered that week.Anne S., Cedar Falls
Visit
A quiet house on Wallace Street
Weekdays 9 to 5, Saturday by appointment, and the telephone answered at all hours. You are welcome to come and look around before you need us.
418 Wallace Street
Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday by appointment. Telephone answered at all hours.
Get directions
The chapel and gathering room
The chapel seats 130. The gathering room has a kitchen, and families are welcome to bring food in.
Get directionsPay a bill
Settle an account online
You can pay by card here at any time, in full or in part. If a life insurance policy has been assigned to us there is nothing for you to pay now and nothing for you to do. Most policies take thirty to ninety days to be released, and we wait, without charging interest.
Pay by cardPayments are handled by our card processor. We never see or store your card number, and a receipt is emailed to you the moment the payment clears.