Since his first job as an apprentice in his uncle’s funeral home, Ted Cash knew he wanted to spend his career helping families through difficult times. For the next 54 years, he worked as an embalmer and funeral director at the Horis A. Ward Funeral Home and Fairview Memorial Gardens.
Customers of the funeral home asked for Cash even when they knew it was his day off. Warmhearted and comforting, he went to the aid of anybody who needed him, said his wife, Nancy Rosser Cash.
“He was what you would call a real hometown funeral director,” she said. “People would call and he would go in no matter what he had planned.”
In the early 1960s, Cash attended the John A. Gupton School of Mortuary Science, where he learned restorative art and embalming. He had exceptional sculpting skills, enabling him to bring the look of life back to the dead, said his cousin, Alec Ward.
“He was a very good embalmer,” he said. “He was very good at bringing people back to their life-like appearance.”
Theodore “Ted” Dwain Cash, of Stockbridge, died Monday from complications of heart disease at Piedmont Hospital, his wife said. He was 71.
A funeral was held Thursday at Mount Carmel Christian Church in Stone Mountain. Interment followed immediately at the Fairview Memorial Gardens where he worked. Horis A. Ward Funeral Home was in charge of the arrangements.
Cash took great pride in organizing the memorial gardens’ Easter Sunday sunrise services. He also coordinated several patriotic services including the annual Memorial Day celebration, for which he arranged the placement of more than 700 flags at the graves of those who served the country, Ward said.
Always putting others before himself, Cash devoted all his time to his friends, family and customers. No matter what somebody was going through, he would do whatever he could to raise their spirits, his wife said.
“He was always trying to meet the needs of others,” she said. “He was the best funeral director in the world.”
In addition to his wife, Cash is survived by two daughters, Lana Cash of Stockbridge and Amy Cash Pritchard of Stockbridge; one sister, Juanita Cronic of Lawrenceville; and two grandchildren.
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