Forest Park East Funeral Home & Cemetery — Local services in Webster

Forest Park East Funeral Home & Cemetery at 21620 Gulf Fwy, Webster, TX 77598 put my family through unjustified heartache today.

My grandmother passed away Wednesday, 5/24 after being on hospice for heart failure and resulted to having to be placed in a nursing home after their house was pulled out from under them.

After she passed, the nursing home had to remove her promptly and we had to ask the nursing home to leave her there until we could come be with her and break the news to my grandfather. As they had removed him from the room at the time and he did not know of her passing yet. We had no choice but to quickly move her to a mortuary where they started to prepare her body.

We have been struggling finding a place to hold her viewing and funeral service at (she is to be cremated & the place managing her body could only fit a very small amount of people) due to it being a holiday week. Including churches saying they aren’t open again until Tuesday to make arrangements.

We reached out to Forest Park, where my grandmothers parents are buried and my grandmother and grandfather own funeral plots. They told us they would be able to accommodate a 3 hour viewing and a small family ran service this upcoming Thursday. We had family and friends already buy plane tickets and make arrangements to be in town during that time.

The funeral home was scheduled to send us the contract today to sign and make payment. They notified us today they would not be able to accommodate the services because they would not be handling her body or the cremation.

We spoke with various funeral homes after to desperately try to find a new location to honor my grandmother and give her the service and celebration her as she deserves. They all stated they had NEVER heard of such a quote, “ridiculous”, thing and that funeral homes share business like our request all the time and there is no law preventing funeral homes to host viewings or services, even after preparation has started. And none had even heard of funeral homes having a policy such as this.

I am BEYOND disappointed in Forest Park. My family has lost so much in the past couple months and now dealing with the passing of my beloved grandma. We finally found relief when plans for her service has been made.

As if planning a funeral for a loved one wasn’t difficult enough, the rug gets pulled out from under us THREE days before we are scheduled to facilitate her funeral.

Their lack of empathy, understanding, & compassion is unacceptable. Even after they told us they would not be able to accommodate, they still showed no empathy or understanding to our situation.

Sounds like this business is founded on GREED instead of basic human morals and taking care of people in their most vulnerable and difficult times.

They have numerous bad reviews and a one star rating. I’m hoping by an opportunity to share this story, that it prevents others from the heartache of going what we have gone through with this Forest Park.

What if this was your mother, or your grandmother? Would you want to go through this or your family go through this? So if she was not being cremated and we wanted to have a burial at her plot, we wouldn’t be able to do so because her body was already being prepared?

I’m sure they could find a way to make arrangements to accommodate if they were personally drowning in an unfortunate circumstance such as this.

Even an honest answer why they could not accommodate, rather than a bold face lie, would have been better received than this. & then to try to turn it around on us saying they thought we would just be bringing her ashes after we specifically told them in complete detail the circumstances.

My grandma always says money was the root of all evil, and she was not far...

Unprofessional is the least of my complaints. Obviously, burying a loved one is a terrible thing, and funeral homes and cemetery staff must always be focused on putting their best foot forward and with the highest degree of professionalism and tact. Despite my grief, I was still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's been 5 day since I provided management with the opportunity to reach out, so I'm posting this now. To start, I had the funeral home I was working with reach out to arrange a Sunday burial. Yes, I understood it would cost more, and yes, I was willing to work with them on times. They told the Funeral Director I would not only be forced to pay the additional $1100 fee for a Sunday (an understood additional Sunday fee), but if I REALLY wanted that particular Sunday (they claimed to have availability regardless), I'd also have to pay an ADDITIONAL $1600 on top of the $1100 for a particular type of burial they referred to as "the wilbur way." Mind you, I've been told by multiple people in the industry to NOT use them (due to these types of reasons), but what do you do when your mother's final wishes were to be buried here??? Without going into all the details, there were multiple delays, and unprofessional bumps along the way over the next 3 days that blew away not only myself, but my entire family who were present as well. To top everything off: ON THE DAY/TIME OF MY MOTHER'S FUNERAL... our group was driving to the back from our meeting point in the front parking lot, and they had ANOTHER FUNERAL PROCESSION leaving AT THE SAME TIME!!! Mind you, this was within 10 minutes of our official start time on a MONDAY! When we called to complain, verbatim: "Well, you were driving back after 12, and it's now 12:10." Wow. No one out there to ensure we drove around the opposite side? No one to make sure nothing like this EVER happens? Screw you guys. Seriously. I've never, ever, ever experienced that level of unprofessionalism, and during THIS time in our lives? DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE. FYI, at every step, multiple staff kept using "we're still suffering from the flooding after Harvey" for every single little thing that happened...Sorry, but you not being prepared, constantly giving us attitude, and straight rudeness, not communicating, AND trying to rip us off has nothing to do with any flooding damage you're still fixing/dealing with from TWO & A HALF MONTHS AGO. We were all affected, and most of us have put processes in place, and communicate these processes POLITELY to our own customers. Oh, and of all the locations in the area, they are quite easily the...

When our beloved Mother and family patriarch was taken from us unexpectedly we could hardly think much less make decisions. I could not even begin to imagine that our family would be making arrangements our Mother. When we called Forest Park East on the morning she passed it was a positive experience from that first phone call. When they arrived the gentleman had two long stem roses in his hand. He was so compassionate and loving to her and to us. He gave us one last moment with her and then he let me place the roses on her. It was a beautiful experience during an extremely shocking and devastating time for our family. Our Funeral Director was Marigrace and she was truly wonderful! She handled every portion of our service with such love, compassion, and patience. She was very professional along with Liz, Jessica and Eric. Marigrace's attention to detail was very thoughtful. She guided me through the process of selection every step of the way. She was so professional when I came back the next day and changed everything we had selected the day before! She was so sweet and loving, I felt like I gained a new friend. I told her I wanted everything perfect for my Mother's Celebration of Life and it WAS! On the day of our service Marigrace was off and she told us that Jessica would be taking care of us. She made sure that we met before. Jessica was equally as sweet and caring and seamlessly took over. She followed our wishes perfectly even when I realized I had not sent the music to her the morning of the service! Her unwavering patience made the day easier for me. I had expressed to both of them how important it was to me that there be lots of flowers. My Mother was loved by many and there was an abundance of beautiful flowers and so many guests in attendance! It was standing room only. We were so blessed and grateful by the experience. We had a reception after in the room next to the chapel and it too was perfect. The food was delicious and the room was decorated so nice! The next day when we had the graveside service Jessica and Eric were so patient with us. Every part of this experience was positive during a very difficult time for our family. I highly recommend Forest Park East Funeral Home & Forest Park East Cemetery. I would like to give them 10...