When people grieved the loss of a loved one, Doyle Shugart instinctively knew what to do and say. The funeral director also knew that loved ones could include beloved family pets.
It was one of Mr. Shugart's dreams to open a full-service funeral home where families could grieve their pets just like they would any other member of the family.
"He got to see that in 2010," with the opening of an 8,000-square-foot facility in Chamblee, said his daughter, Donna Shugart-Bethune, of Dacula. "He always felt that in time people would come to realize there was no shame in honoring their pets. The opening of this funeral home, complete with chapels and a showroom, was a dream come true for him."
Doyle Lee Shugart, of Atlanta, died Sunday at Northside Hospital from complications associated with cancer. He was 71. A funeral service has been planned for 2 p.m. Thursday at H.M. Patterson & Son, Oglethorpe Hill Chapel, which is also in charge of arrangements. His body will be cremated and his ashes will be interred at his family's Oak Rest Pet Gardens in Bethlehem.
In 1960, after graduating from high school, the Calhoun native married the former Maudann DeFoor, and soon enrolled in the John A. Gupton School of Mortuary Science. After graduation, in 1965, he started working for the Oglethorpe Hill location of H.M. Patterson.
He retired from H.M. Patterson in 1996, and started working solely in the pet funeral business, which he'd been doing as often as he could up to then. In 1972, he and Mrs. Shugart started what would become Deceased Pet Care Funeral Homes, which grew to include two cemeteries in metro Atlanta, an office in Rome, and the facility in Chamblee.
Mr. Shugart's involvement with pet funeral care started when he was a young boy, his daughter said. Childhood friends and neighbors would bring their pets to him and he would perform a funeral service.
"This really was a calling for him, a ministry," she said. "He knew how to take care of people in their time of grief."
Mr. Shugart's concern for people, whether they were grieving the loss of a person or a pet, never wavered, said Juliann Brace, a 6-year employee of Mr. Shugart.
"He understood that for many people, pets are an extension of the family," she said. "He really understood what it meant to lose a pet. He really understood how loss, any loss, could affect people."
In addition to his wife of 52 years and his daughter, Mr. Shugart is survived by sons Keith D. Shugart and Kyle L. Shugart, both of Dacula; brothers Herman Shugart of Stone Mountain and Lamar Shugart of Calhoun; sister Vivian Shugart of Calhoun; and nine grandchildren.
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