Stoddart Funeral Home & Cremation Centre
Locally Owned by Linden Mackey & Alison Lynch  - Class 1 Funeral Establishment (FE-616)

Our History

How We Were Founded

In November 1960, a new family came to Lindsay and purchased an existing funeral business at 24 Mill Street. This family however, was not new to the area. The new owners of the Stoddart Funeral Home in this location had been represented quite admirably for four generations, originating in Cambray and then later in Woodville. This family business was started in 1858 by William George Stoddart who was, in essence, a cabinet maker by trade. In 1898, William Stoddart was hit and killed by lightning while standing in the doorway of his shop. M.J. Stoddart, the son of William, assumed ownership of the business and the name of the company still remains M. J. Stoddart Limited, today. The industry of manufacturing furniture and caskets led to the directing of funerals and natural evolved from the casket industry.

M.J. Stoddart was succeeded by his two sons Jarvis and Charles Stoddart who carried on the business and partners until 1958 when Charles purchased Jarvis' shares. In 1960, Mr. Charles Stoddart Jr. returned home from Kingston, where he had been articleing as an apprentice with the Robert J. Reid and Son's Funeral Home. Charles Jr. joined his father in the business and shortly after that, the Burrows Funeral Home located at 24 Mill Street, the present location, was purchased by the Stoddart family as the second branch of the funeral business. Initially, Mr. Stoddart lived over the funeral home where he and his wife, Ruth, raised their family.
In 1966, Charles Jr. bought the business in Lindsay from his father and along with employee, Mike Emery, a funeral director as well, ran the business for 27 years before selling the business to the past owners Fred Tanner and Shain Fletcher. Both Shain and Fred received their training in Toronto at two of the most respected family businesses in Ontario. Fred apprenticed with the Jarrett Chapel and Shain apprenticed with Turner and Porter Funeral Homes. They brought their embalming skills learned in the city, and skills from helping bereaved families at the Mackey Funeral Home, under the supervision of James Mackey and the late Linden and Gordon Mackey, Fred and Shain honed their skills as funeral directors for many years.
In 1993, Fred and Shain purchased all of the shares of M.J. Stoddart Limited and took over from Mr. Charles Stoddart. For the last twenty seven years, the continuing success of this fifth generation business has been achieved with a great deal of help from many part time employees, past funeral director, Tammy Duffy.

In 2013, Shain became the sole owner of the Stoddart Funeral Home after Fred retired from the industry after dedicating his time to the bereavement industry for over 40 years. Shain continued to serve the community with the out most professionalism and engaging in the community to offer quality service for the next 7 years.

In 2020, after long discussion with his wife and family, Shain decided to retire after dedicating his time to the funeral home for over 25 years. Shain made the decision to sell his shares of the funeral home to Linden Mackey, after discussions of keeping the funeral home locally owned and operated.

This funeral business is rich with history and the many families that have known the Stoddart family for all those generations have continued to allow the Stoddart Funeral Home to look after their loved ones.
The Stoddart family, for years, have been part of the backbone of all the communities in which they lived. At Stoddart Funeral Home, we pride ourselves in being flexible, supportive providers of traditional and non-traditional funeral arrangements for the last 160 years. There is absolutely no pressure for families to spend more money than they need. We believe that dignity and love are not measured by the expenses incurred by families at a time of loss. Many families and service groups have been witness to the tireless work and dedication which the Stoddart families have shown. It was never a consideration to change the funeral home name because of the rich heritage and strong family ties to so many people in the area. An amazing legacy of fine funeral traditions has been handed down through the years, sticking to one of their slogan "Let our family look after your family" is quite appropriate because in a small rural community we all feel like family.
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