Our History

Our Family & History

Our dedicated and supportive staff are here to guide you through this difficult journey. We take pride in doing our absolute best to ensure your needs are met. Our staff has more than 105 years of combined experience in the funeral profession and dealing with the community. Please take a look at our family picture above and read our biographies if you have the opportunity.


Mitchell Family Cremations & Funerals, Inc. has been serving our local communities for many years. Our three generation family business started in 1957 when Rho Mitchell and Kenneth Scharett started the Scharett-Mitchell Funeral Home at the 21 West Ave. location in Albion. In 1971, Michael Christopher who owned the Christopher Funeral Home on State St. in Albion joined Rho and Ken in a partnership with the Scharett-Mitchell-Christopher Funeral Home. In 1972, with the desire to expand, the location at 16650 State Route 31 was built to serve the families of the Holley area. Mr. Scharett retired in 1975 and Mr. Christopher retired in 1982. Rho's son David joined the family business in 1984 thus becoming the second generation. David began purchasing the business from his father Rho in 1994 and in 2012, his son Joshua would join the firm to become the third generation funeral director in the family business. 

In December of 2017, the Bates, Wallace & Heath Funeral Home in Middleport, NY was acquired as well as the Merrill Grinnell Funeral Home in Albion and Holley in an effort to expand our business and help serve more families. In a continuing effort to help bring our business into the future we purchase the Sherrie Bream Funeral Home of Gasport, NY and Kenneth H. Sherrie Funeral Home of Newfane, NY from the same corporation from Texas that we purchased the firms from in 2017, bringing a total of five funeral homes in our area back to local family ownership, something that we are truly proud of and honored to be a part of.

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