Less than 12 hours after she witnessed my father's traumatic death, my mother found herself at this funeral home. She went there, as everyone does, for assistance with my dad's final arrangements. After almost 59 years of marriage, she was obviously in distress. My sister was with her and I, who lives almost 4 hours away was on my way there. When I called to check in my sister informed me that they had picked out the urn and were trying to figure out what the obituary should say. Mr. Shearin, the funeral director, was "helping". My sister was very uncomfortable and felt very pressured but did not want to upset my mother. I still don't understand why is was so important to get everything done RIGHT THEN- it had been less than 12 hours! Mr. Shearin took them to a conference room and handed them a very generic form to use to sum up my dad's life for the obituary. He sat there and waited but offered no assistance, prompting or comfort. The form didn't even ask where he was born or grew up, about military service, etc. Mr. Shearin also did not know some very necessary information about urn sizes for remains going to Arlington that could have caused a catastrophe. He did tell my mom that he was experienced with these procedures. Later that day, we hurried and got a decent picture to send to him so it could be uploaded. My sister sent it in a text and his response was "Ok, thx". I still hadn't even arrived yet by this time. The next day my sister was upset that the picture wasn't attached to the obit so she could share it, since they still thought there was some kind of hurry to get this done. She was uncomfortable about texting him, he was very frustrated with his job and had made that very clear. I sent him a very nice text about the picture and his response to me was: "send the pic". Wow, rude. The next day I went in there with my mother to drop off paperwork needed by Arlington National Cemetery. We had to go looking for someone and found two men sitting in a small office. They looked up from their coffee cups and asked "can I help you?". They both still sat there just looking at my mom as she explained why she was there. I was thinking to myself- get your behind out of that chair and stop treating her like she is interrupting your coffee break. After a few minutes, the man did stand up and begin acting much more pleasant. A couple of days later my mom and I were talking about dad's basic and boring obituary and she started to cry. It told nothing about him and she felt like she had minimized his memory and was upset with herself for allowing someone to push her around like that. I was so sad and angry for her. It was not her fault, she is a strong woman. My father was in the infantry in Viet Nam. He was wounded twice earning two Purple Hearts and the terrible exposure to Agent Orange was probably instrumental in his demise. He was proud of his service and they were both proud to have stayed married through it all. His name was Richard Baxter and he and my mom Valerie deserve much more respect than you offered. I want to say to the entire staff and owners of Cornerstone Funeral Home: How dare you treat my family this way. I did try to contact you to settle this between us, but you ignored me. I sent a request explaining my upset on Friday, June 21st and received the auto response confirming that you received my request. You have not bothered to respond as of today, July 2nd. Don't bother reaching out now, we all know how much you care.

Cornerstone handled all of the arrangements for one of my uncles in December of 2011 and handled another uncle in December of 2015. Both times our families have used their services they have done an outstanding job. The staff is extremely helpful and compassionate and the facilities are beautiful. I am a Funeral Director in another state and my grandmother just recently passed in Rocky Mount and I handled everything from my Funeral Home. The staff of Cornerstone more than willingly stepped in to help me handle all of her arrangements. We could not have asked for better experiences any of the three times we have enlisted their help for services.

We recently lost our infant son and reached out to Cornerstone Funeral Home to setup a graveside service. Donald was absolutely amazing during this tragic time. He walked us through everything with such respect and had many pieces of advice that helped us so much. During this difficult time, Donald made this process so much easier and we could not be more thankful for his expertise, experience, and grace. He truly made this tragic experience more bearable and his advice allowed us to capture memories we will forever cherish.