Genteel business pioneer

To many people in Franklinton, Sadie Fogg Cutchins was simply "Mama Sadie."

Cutchins was as genteel as the nickname identifying her as a "town mother," but she was also an excellent businesswoman, a groundbreaking school board member and a mother not only to her children and stepchildren but also to the grandson she raised from a toddler.

After a decadelong battle with Alzheimer's disease, Cutchins died in July at 84.

"She was a fine person, a very sweet person," said Katherine Perry, who knew Cutchins through shared ties in Franklinton and through their work in the funeral industry. "She loved [Franklinton]. She belonged to most everything there."

Born the youngest of 11 children in Warren County, Cutchins was still a teenager when her parents died. At 15, she moved to live with an older sister in Henderson and began work in a florist shop. Two years later, she married Joseph Cutchins Sr., a funeral home owner from Franklinton who was more than 20 years her senior. She became stepmother to his two girls, who were 13 and 12.

"She just accepted those two children," said Joseph Cutchins Jr., their older son. "When I came along, I was their doll baby."

In all, the family would add three children in four years: Joseph Jr., Bobby and Gwendolyn. Their house shared a building with Cutchins Funeral Home, the space split down the middle.

"The funeral home was home," Bobby Cutchins said. And although such close proximity to death might have left some people nervous, it was part of daily life for their family.

"I didn't know to be scared," he said.

Along with raising her young family, helping with the funeral business and running a florist shop that was an offshoot, Sadie Cutchins worked to earn her license as a funeral director, a goal she achieved in 1960. It would prove invaluable as her husband began to suffer complications from diabetes.

"As his health began to fail, she became more involved in the operation of the business," Joseph Cutchins said.

The couple shared a commitment to education; Sadie would become the first African-American woman to serve on the Franklinton school board.

"Her commitment was to make equal education available to everybody," her older son said.

All three of their children would graduate from St. Augustine's College. Given their closeness in age, all were in college simultaneously at one point.

"That was a commitment that they held firm to, that their children would have a college education," Joseph Cutchins said.

Music and faith

Family was extremely important to Cutchins. The entire family was musical, and all the children took lessons. Sadie Cutchins also shared her deep, abiding faith with them. When Cutchins' daughter died unexpectedly of an aneurysm, no one was surprised that she would take in her 3-year-old grandson, Brian.

"It wasn't even a question," Joseph Cutchins said. "He was an extension of my sister. She took it just like that."

Not long after Brian Spann came to live with his grandparents, Joseph Sr. died, leaving Sadie in charge of the business while raising a kindergartner. Spann remembers all that she did for him, but also for the community.

"My grandmother was just a very compassionate lady," he said. "She was a counselor to a lot of people."

His grandmother's respect for others as well as her deep religious faith were reflected back to her, he said. "She could walk by the pool hall, and everyone would stop what they were doing and speak," he said.

Caring for others

Running the family business took up a lot of time, making it difficult for her to attend his basketball games at Franklinton High, where he was a standout.

"[But] as soon as the newspaper was out, she'd have it in her hands," he said. "Her cheer from home was just like she was in the gym."

That she cared for others so much is what helped Cutchins succeed as a funeral director, her family believes. It's not easy work, but she saw it as more than that.

"It was never just a business to her," Joseph Jr. said. "She was compassionate."