EDITOR'S NOTE: Pam Stephens is one of nearly 100 women that will be honored tonight by Main Street Manning at its annual meeting between 6 and 8 p.m.
Pam Stephens said when her late husband, Ranny, told her his dream of opening a funeral home, she made a promise to him and God.
“I vowed that I would help him make that dream a reality anyway that I could, if it was God’s will,” Stephens said. “After that dream did become a reality, whenever anyone would ask Ranny how he became so successful, he would say, ‘God has blessed me.’”
She said the most enjoyable part of working with her husband was being many families’ “shoulder to cry on” during their time of bereavement.
“It’s the bonds that we have with the families we have served,” she said. “If you listen to the stories families tell at calling hours about the good times and the bad, and you laugh with them and cry with them, you have an everlasting bond that nothing can break.”
Ranny passed away in 2011, and Stephens said she’s had to make adjustments. She stays away from the day-to-day business at the funeral home, leaving the work to son Shayne.
“The most challenging thing in my life has been the change that I didn’t see coming, and the adjustments I have had to make,” she said. “But I know that God is in control of whatever the future brings, and I know he has my good in mind.”
