About us

Our beginnings

Strowder’s Funeral Home has been serving the needs of the Greater Cleveland community for more than 70 years. The modern 14,000-square-foot building has three large visitation rooms that open up to one large chapel. We can accommodate more than 400 of people at one time. Additionally, we have a consultation room with wireless internet service, ideal for business meetings and conferences, as well as fully equipped offices.

OUR history

The funeral home was Loretta Strowder’s idea and the couple began planning even as World War II was beginning and Edward Strowder was drafted. Upon his return he would go to college on his veteran’s benefits and Loretta Strowder would work. Edward attended Case Western Reserve College of Mortuary Science. Loretta worked as a model and also founded L’Ecole Charmante, a school for models and wardrobe care, at East 81st and Cedar. Edward Strowder passed the state board and became a licensed funeral director in 1950 after serving his apprenticeship with two funeral homes.

With money from working two jobs, as a mechanic and at the airport, and with $1,500 from his parents, the couple purchased an existing funeral home at Kimberly and East 105th Street. The Strowder Funeral Chapel opened in August 1951. The building’s first floor housed the funeral business and an ambulance business that donated services to the various churches and the community. “My mother-in-law suggested I start the ambulance service and after prayer, I realized I should donate the services,” Edward Strowder recalled. This pre-dated the creation of city-run paramedic and EMT services.

The family lived on the second floor and a tenant occupied the top floor. The couple was the only staff: Edward Strowder was the funeral director, embalmer and driver, Loretta Strowder was the organist, soloist, custodian, and her husband’s assistant, doing the hair and make-up. The Strowders’ business flourished and in 1961 they sold the original funeral home and purchased another larger funeral home across the street.

By 1963 the Strowders had four children, three of whom have been involved in funeral services. Loretta eventually became a funeral director in 1975; daughter Barbara Strowder-Stallworth became a funeral director a year later and for a short time operated a Strowder’s Funeral Chapel at East 116th and Union Avenue. Eldest son Edward “Ted” Strowder become a licensed funeral director in 1977. In the mid-1980s, the elder Edward Strowder retired to Florida and his former wife continued to run Strowder’s along with Ted.

The Strowders were joined by youngest son Howard “Tony” Strowder, a graduate of Howard University and the Cincinnati School of Mortuary Science, a licensed funeral director and a licensed embalmer. His then-wife Mari Hardin Strowder, also a graduate of Howard University and a licensed insurance agent and pre-need expert, later joined the family business.

In 2002, eight years after Loretta Strowder’s passing, Tony Strowder was the driving force behind Strowder’s newest building, the vision of Loretta J. Strowder. Together he and Mari Strowder-Flanagan, the current proprietor, work to preserve the Strowder Funeral Home legacy of service with dignity and compassion.

Our values

“It’s the most rewarding business I think you can be in other than delivering new life into the world,” Loretta Strowder once said. “Funeral Homes are dedicated to the memory of those we repose. But they’re for the comfort of the relatives. After you’ve tended the dead, you have to think about the comfort of relatives and friends.”