Funeral Director Shawn Nygaard

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Taking over a well-respected 71-year-old family business is a large responsibility, says Shawn Nygaard.

With his wife Sarah, he is purchasing Korsmo Funeral Service from George and Ruth Korsmo. “When you hear the name Korsmo, you immediately associate it with generations of service to families in this community,” he reflects. “This is a sacred responsibility. We want to serve that name well and serve the community just as well as they have.”

Nygaard, a native of Edmore, North Dakota, brings both a passion for helping people at a most vulnerable time and almost 20 years of experience in the funeral industry. “I’m a people person,” he says. “Growing up, I was always interested in science, but I couldn’t see myself spending my life cooped up in a lab somewhere. This looked like an opportunity to be part of something special and meaningful at a critical time in people’s lives.

He got his first taste of the industry in high school, job-shadowing at Aaker Funeral Home in Lakota and Gilbertson Funeral Home in Devils Lake, North Dakota. There he observed funeral directors at work, always asking questions. What exactly did they do? How much time did they spend behind a desk compared to interacting with people? “They were always doing something different, meeting new people and helping them in rewarding ways. I loved that about the job,” he remembers.

After graduating in 1998, he enrolled in the University of North Dakota’s two-year mortuary science credential program. Immediately after completing it, he applied to the University of Minnesota in mortuary science, completing his bachelor’s degree – a Minnesota state requirement for licensure. The aspiring funeral director was immersed in a broad range of classes, from accounting to chemistry to funeral practices, embalming and restorative arts.

He spent the next four years near the hometown where he and Sarah had been high school sweethearts, working with Aaker’s in Lakota and another in McVille that shared a single owner. He moved on to David-Donehower Funeral and Cremation Service in Detroit Lakes. There, he and Sarah started their family of three while she worked as a dental hygienist.

He had always known he wanted a business of his own. “But the timing was never quite right,” he reflects. Three years ago, he felt ready. “I had a long conversation with George and Ruth (Korsmo) and with my wife,” he remembers. With all of their blessings, he came to Moorhead in October 2019 intending to purchase their business.

“When you buy a family business, the main thing is to be sure you can do as well as your predecessors have always done. The name Korsmo is respected throughout the funeral industry,” he says. “This means making a personal commitment to serving the community that Sarah and I will conduct business with the same integrity and honesty. Over the last two years of working here, I’ve seen that that is how we serve families every day.”

His own family, he says, will offer the same kind of commitment. At year’s end when Sarah joins the staff full-time and the Korsmos retire, he knows his own family will face the same challenges two generations of Korsmos have known. “When the phone rings at 10 or 12 at night, you know that worries have been keeping someone awake. We’re here to assure them that all is being taken care of just as they want it.”

Though the need is eternal, the funeral business is changing, he observes. “We see more and more funerals take place here in the funeral home in our chapel. Many families aren’t as well connected to the church as they were in the past, though we still see strong ties in this part of the country.” Too, families are often scattered across the country today rather than living close together, as past generations usually did.

Cremations are becoming a larger factor for Korsmo Funeral Home, though the number of direct cremations – holding a funeral without viewing the body – remain relatively low. Most still choose to hold a viewing before the service, he says. “We meet the family where they are. Every family grieves and processes a death in their own way.”

One significant trend, he says, is the growth of preplanning.

The Covid pandemic, Shawn suggests, has created a “new normal” in accepting the normalcy of death. “We have seen so much unexpected death all around us,” he says. “We have opened up about our wishes. Families have gotten more creative … in a good way. They are remembering their loved ones in different, more personal ways.

“It takes a lot of courage to walk through the door and plan for your own mortality,” he concedes. “We will all face death someday. Preplanning means you’ve made your wishes clear, safe and confidential.”