"Time like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten as a dream, dies at the op'ning day." - From the great Christian hymn O God Our Help in Ages Past.

There is no appointment more certain that man must keep than his meeting with his Maker. We live our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and 10; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength, labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away - nowhere is it told more eloquently than in The Holy Bible.

From left: Inez Madden, her husband Ferdinand Leslie Madden; Hazel Madden wife of Leslie Ferdinand Madden (right).

And yet, as certain as we are of it, our demise at the end of our time, there are few moments in which man is as vulnerable as in the indescribable hours after the passing of a loved one. They don't prepare us for that in school. Could that be the reason that we turn, like helpless children even, to those who are masters of the art of preparing the dead for their final resting place?

Leslie Ferdinand Madden of West Kingston did not choose to become an undertaker. It was a vocation that was thrust upon him by the people. The decade of the 1930s was a time of gut-wrenching poverty in the sprawling slums of the city's west end, during which Madden operated a small tinsmith business at 30-32 North Street, making things such as chicken troughs, wash pans (tubs), cups and the like.

His wife, Hazel ran a cold supper shop and grocery store. Neither had the heart to say 'no' when the poor of the community, which was almost everybody, came to seek alms. They turned to the Maddens for all sorts of assistance, including for the burial of their dead.

Inez and husband Ferdinand Leslie Madden with their grand and great-grand children

Even so, in those days, the Maddens did not see it as a business, and could not foresee, how could they really, that the time would come when they would drop everything and plunge themselves into a world of coffins, wreaths, graves and things regular Jamaicans find too morbid to even think about.

And surely, the couple could not know that from the humble beginnings as undertaker to the poor, they would establish the Madden name as the leading provider of final care services in their island home.

But like all success stories, there are episodes of pain, anguish and challenge, like the time in the 1980s when competitors, relentlessly moving in on Madden territory, waged a campaign of ill will meant to harm their names, forcing Madden on the offensive to regain lost market share. There too, was the bitter struggle with the government which, having lost all its public morgues to neglect, gave the burden to Madden and then abandoned the company, with rising costs that threatened to drive the final nail into the coffin of their survival.

Let's face it, in the midst of life there is death. Whatever the explanation, whether poor or rich, people go to any lengths to give their loved ones a decent burial. Sometimes to the detriment of the living. That might help to explain why the cost of funerals today runs anywhere from $60,000 to $450,000, with the average spend being $120,000. There is, of course, the occasional 'bling' funeral which can go up to $800,000!

"In their time of bereavement, people often go all out with the burial. Sometimes, it is because they are on a guilt trip and want to stage a funeral that will impress onlookers. But that often costs so much that they would have to owe us.

We don't encourage people to get into debt, especially where they have others to provide for," says Leslie Ruel Madden Sr, grandson of Leslie Ferdinand Madden and eldest of the third generation Madden clan now running the business.

Back in the day, the poor of West Kingston rarely had with what to bury their dead. The popular practice was to "hold saucer", in which neighbours would contribute what they could to the burial. There was no dignity in seeking handouts to bury someone they had loved and Leslie and Hazel Madden grieved with them.

As the requests for assistance grew, the Maddens introduced something called a 'tumba', a large container in which the body was placed with ice packed on top of it, to preserve the corpse, forerunner to today's refrigerator. Coffins and the more costly caskets, sold in department stores at the time, were also out of the reach of the poor who resorted to carpenters to build coffins.

So the Maddens started building coffins and accepted payment in instalments, their own form of hire-purchase.
Businessman that he was, Leslie Madden was one day struck by the thought that here was an opportunity. He was doing a service for which the demand was growing.

He would offer this service in a professional manner, and while making a living from it, he would restore the dignity and self-esteem of his poor customers in their hour of heartbreak and pain. In any event, the cold supper shop soon died a natural death because Mrs Madden was giving away the food to the hungry, and she joined her husband in their new-found business - the Maddens Funeral Establishment.

It was the year 1937. The only legitimate provider of final care services at the time was the renowned Sam Isaacs Funeral Establishment, but that company largely catered to higher-income persons. Even its burial park at Shooter's Hill, east of Kingston was exclusive to its clients. Maddens immediately had a niche - as undertaker to the poor.

"The early morticians used herbs, spices and coolers to preserve and prepare bodies for burial, before the days of embalmment. My grandfather mastered the art and was regarded as the best provider of dignified funeral services," notes Ferdinand Leslie Madden Jr, current CEO and chairman of the company. "In fact, his prowess in the field was rivaled only by his immeasurable love for the sport of cricket and his expert knowledge of the game," boasts the proud grandson.

The people called old man Madden "the tinsmith and cold supper shop undertaker". But his vision went far beyond that. He used his money to send his son, Ferdinand Leslie Madden, Sr, to St George's College. The boy wanted to be a doctor, but his father insisted that he should join the business. In 1949, he had his son enrolled at the American Academy McAllister Institute in New York to do a one-year course in embalming and restorative art and general funeral management.

He graduated top of the class and was chosen to be the valedictorian at the graduation ceremony.

When Leslie Ferdinand Madden died in 1966, Ferdinand Leslie took over the business and put it on a modern path to spectacular growth. He was at one and the same time, the driver of the hearse, which replaced the old horse-drawn hearse, the embalmer, the operator of the workshop - in short, he did everything. He also holds the distinction of being one of the first black men in Jamaica to get a loan from the bank, such was the respect he commanded.

Madden replaced the 'tumba' with the refrigerator. He imported the first motor-hearse for the company. And he developed a close relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, a relationship which remains just as strong today. The company buries most of the aged and indigent who die in the care of homes for the elderly poor run by the Church.

Madden would also become known for his strong affinity for the Lodge. He rose to become Grand District Councillor in the Mechanics College - Mystic Rose Lodge and smashed lodge tradition by being the first to get a lodge service held in a church - unheard of at the time because of the church's stiff opposition to such secret societies.

He married Inez Smith, who was only 17 when he met and fell in love with her. Together, they built the business that we know today. As the company grew, so too, did their family. The union produced 10 children: Leslie Ruel Madden Sr; Patricia Madden married Jones; Marcia Madden, now Bernard; Ferdinand Leslie Madden Jr; Francis Madden; Angela Madden, now Tomlinson; Fabian Madden; Christine Madden, married Williams; Jacqueline Madden and Paul Madden.

All the Madden children are directors in the company and most work directly with it:
. Ferdinand Leslie Madden Jr is chairman and CEO;
. Leslie Ruel Madden Sr runs the western operations with branch offices in Montego Bay, St James and Lucea, Hanover;
. Patricia Madden Jones assists in promoting the business;

. Marcia Madden Bernard is in charge of the Dovecot Memorial Park and Crematorium at St John's Road near Spanish Town, St Catherine;
. Francis Madden designed the physical structure of the modern office and is in charge of transportation;
. Angela Madden Tomlinson assists with public relations from her base in Miami;

. Fabian Madden runs the workshop which produces coffins and caskets;
. Christine Madden Williams is responsible for Sentiment, the floral arrangement arm of the business based at 89 Old Hope Road, St Andrew;
. Jacqueline Madden promotes the business from her home in California; and
. Paul Madden is the operations manager who oversees the quality of caskets.

Within the funeral services business, the Maddens have the distinction of involvement of the fourth generation. Leslie Ruel Madden Jr works with his dad out of Montego Bay and his sister Isiaa Madden, an architect in her own right, runs Dovecot of St James at Kirkpatrick Hall, near Orange. Anoush Jones, Patricia's daughter, handles cremation agreements and does work in the cosmetics section.

Illness forced Madden to hand over the running of the business to Leslie Ruel Sr, who also trained as an embalmer at American Academy McAllister Institute in New York. His 16 years at the helm before handing over to Ferdinand Leslie Jr was, to say the least, eventful, for two reasons.

The story as told by the current CEO is that over the years, the public morgues run by the government gradually deteriorated and one by one they went out of operation. The government had contracted Maddens to pick up bodies from sudden death circumstances, such as accidents and shootings.

Maddens soon found that each time it went to pick up a body, it also had to store it at its own facilities. But the invoices sent to the government were piling up in the accounts department of the responsible Ministry of National Security and Justice. Maddens became gravely concerned that it was spending a vast amount of money but was not getting paid. This was the 1980s.

On September 1987, at its wits end, the company wrote a strong letter to the ministry, warning that it would stop picking up bodies, if the government did not pay up. The letter complained that the company:
. had used actual cash to operate the mortuary on the government's behalf and had now jeopardised other areas of its operations
. owed substantial amounts for company tax
. owed electricity bills amounting to $83,000 (big money in 1987) for operating the refrigerator used by the police
. built up unprecedented interest on bank overdraft

Madden's also bemoaned the fact that despite many promises, including a claim that it had identified a site for the morgue, the government had failed to build a public mortuary.

Finally, ".In as much as we would like to continue to provide your ministry with the public mortuary service, there is need for you to recognise the handicaps under which we operate, consequently, we are again bringing the matter to your attention, that is, that the bills are not being paid, so that if we are forced by circumstances to suspend any of the above services, you will be able to place blame where it lies." The letter was copied to the commissioner of police.

It would take months of hard negotiations before the government started cutting cheques again for Maddens, thus preventing the company from withdrawing its services. But for a time Maddens remained grievously dissatisfied with their business relationship.

"Before we could get paid, the relevant police investigating officer would have to sign off on the bodies we picked up," explains CEO Madden. "Sometimes we could not find the officer. When it was signed, the file had to be sent to the Denham Town Police Station, from where it had to be taken to the Ministry of National Security," Madden recounts.

"Even then, we were hardly getting paid. We were handling so many funerals for the state that there was a perception on the streets that all we did were 'police funerals'. We lost millions of dollars. Up until today, no public mortuary has been built," Madden discloses.

But over time, relations between the government and the company improved. "Things are better these days. We are getting paid for all the bodies we pick up." And just in time too. As Maddens fretted about its dwindling income, a new duppy arose in the form of rabid competition. Other entrepreneurs had been taking notice of the steady growth in the funeral business.

Little by little, funeral parlours cropped up in the vicinity of Maddens North Street and, importantly, within crying distance of the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH). The convenience of the location is palpably obvious. And the new players felt they could make a killing. Some operated out of their briefcases, pouncing on grieving relatives freshly crushed with the news of the death of their loved one at the nearby hospital. But first they had to nudge Maddens to move over and allow them some space. They went for the jugular.

"They began to bad-mouth us, saying that we only dealt with gunmen. That scared off many decent people and we lost business," Madden recalls. It was not difficult for people to believe the propaganda. Maddens had many times featured in the news when hordes of curious Jamaicans descended on the morgue to view the corpse of notorious criminals killed by police or cronies.

But the resilience of old man Madden had been passed on to his heirs and they fought back with aggressive re-imaging of the business, gradually winning back support from the public. Also, the decision was taken to expand and offer more services.

The Dovecot Memorial Park was acquired and a second Dovecot developed in St James, giving the company the distinction of being the only funeral firm with two burial parks and two of the three crematoriums in the island. An office was opened in Lucea, Hanover to serve that section of the island.

"The government was so pleased with our services that they now use us as a model for their dealings with other funeral homes in other parts of the country," the CEO says.

That same upbeat approach is continuing. "We want to portray ourselves as not just a downtown Kingston operation. We want to cut in on the highend uptown market. Our Constant Spring Road office run by Marcia is leading the way in that respect."

Maddens is also computerising and upgrading its fleet of transportation, now comprising nine Cadillacs and several station wagon hearses. More hearses are on order for this year. The company is gradually moving from an exclusive family-run business by hiring more professionals, including a top consultant, Dino deFinnippi, an American who is training staff in the art of final care services, a qualitative step above just doing a funeral.

"It's a critical time of any one's life when a loved one passes," says Madden who, like his father and older brother before him, trained to be a certified embalmer and in funeral management in New York. "We have to be professional caregivers, understand how to empathise and be sensitive. It is important to know how to balance business at a time when people are grieving."

On the finance side, the company is projecting to handle 30 to 35 funerals per week, from the current average of 20 funerals per week. To do a better job of projecting, Maddens is also planning to do extensive research into population changes, including mortality trends.

One area into which the competition has pushed Maddens is the so-called bling funerals. It is still not a major item for the company, Madden says, but there is some demand and the company does not want to be left behind. Bri-Lite is credited for the new style funerals featuring designer hearses and memorabilia like 'T'-shirts, buttons, book-markers and the like, which seem to be popular with dons and area leaders.

Madden suggests that elaborate funerals were staged from time immemorial, such as for the Pharoahs of Egypt and there is nothing being done today in the field that had not been done before. But he doesn't think the bling will take over as the standard funeral so "we will stay with the dignified closure and the reverence of the funerals we know".

And the family has done well through the business. "It's a lucrative business but you have to be prepared to work hard," advises Madden who took over as CEO in 2004, after Leslie Ruel Sr decided to step down. The company employs over 165 direct and indirect workers. But the benefits stretch well beyond them, providing economic activities for hardware merchants by purchasing tons of lumber, fabric and fittings; the refrigeration, automotive and petroleum sectors; in addition to numerous artisans and tradesmen such as upholsterers, seamstresses and mechanics, as do florists, printeries, churches and the advertising media.

Despite the frowns in the accounts department, Madden says he will continue the financial assistance and Easter and Christmas treats given to the aged and indigent in downtown Kingston and in communities in which the business operates in the island. The dole had its genesis in West Kingston and is a lasting tribute to mother and father Madden. Maddens also buries many poor people at little or no cost, many of them from homes run by Father Richard Ho-Lung's Brothers of the Poor.

CEO Madden also speaks, with unmasked pride, of the assistance that allows many children of the poor to attend school. He singles out beneficiary, Sheldon MacDonald who, from the bowels of desperate poverty, attended Wolmer's Boys School, became a head boy there and progressed to the prestigious Harvard University in Boston, USA, from which he graduated with a Masters degree.

And now Maddens is looking further beyond his own company to the industry as a whole, hoping to unify and standardise the over 100 funeral establishments. As head of the fledgling 16-member Funeral Directors Association (FDA), he is spearheading an effort to develop a licensing body, with rules and guidelines for those who practice as morticians, along lines of the medical and cosmetology professions.

Send comments to desal@cwjamaica.com or ferdimadden@yahoo.com

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