‘I’ve witnessed bodies in the alley’

In the fall, Mosley will go to Southern Illinois University to study mortuary science. That means classes, of course, but also an apprenticeship, which Leak & Sons has said they want him to do with their business. He’ll eventually need a state license to become a funeral director so he can embalm bodies and help families make arrangements. Mosley said he wants to come back to Chicago when he finishes school, but Blakley said college is a chance for her son to leave Englewood, where police said 50 people were murdered last year. About 20 people have been killed in the area this year. Mosley said people have been shot near his home, and he knew kids at school who were killed by gun violence. He said he doesn’t like to spend time outside because of the shootings. Instead of walking, he prefers to drive everywhere he goes. “I wish I could drive from my porch to my car every morning, but I can’t,” he said.

“At night, I don’t take the garbage out because I have fears of taking the trash out. It’s in the alley. I’ve witnessed bodies in the alley just taking the trash out. When will it ever stop? Will it ever stop?”

Mosley said someone shot at him in September of 2016. It happened just hours after his grandmother died. The family gathered at her Englewood house as they grieved, Blakley said, and Mosley and his sister left in the evening before everyone else. “As soon as they hit the corner, I heard gunshots ringing,” Blakley said. “I looked down the street and I heard brakes squeaking, turning really fast onto a busy street.” Blakley said she left the house and jumped into her car to look for her children while calling their cellphones. She said she kept getting voicemail, and it was the most terrifying seven minutes of her life. She said she eventually found her children, shaken up but uninjured.

‘This place has really blessed me’

After college, Mosley said he wants to come back and run his own funeral home in the community where he grew up. He said he’s prepared to see the aftermath of the city’s gun violence. Afterall, he’s already worked funerals for murder victims. “There are many times when we have to cover up scars or wounds,” Mosley said. He said he imagines running a business that invests in the neighborhood and becomes a community fixture that promotes peace. That is his goal. But now, as a young man in an area with lots of shootings, he sees the Leak & Sons funeral home as a safe space.

Mosley walks through the lobby of Leak & Sons, where a portrait of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington hangs.

(Andrew Gill/WBEZ)

Earlier this summer, Mosley said he stopped at the funeral home on his way to meet up with friends at 31st Street Beach. And then he got an alert on his phone: Two 16-year-olds had been shot at the beach. “That’s where I was on my way to,” Mosley said. “That’s why I feel like this place has really blessed me, gave me the opportunity to not be out here on the streets, not to be at the beach being a target, not to be on the corner being a target, or standing on my own block taking my trash out being a target. I’m just grateful.” Colleen Cicchetti, executive director of the Center for Childhood Resilience at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, said people surrounded by traumatic experiences often look for places to find support — and a funeral home is a place where there’s an outpouring of love.

The funeral business isn’t for everyone

Historically, the funeral industry has been a family enterprise, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. That’s true of Leak & Sons, which over the years has handled the arrangements for big names such as the late Mayor Harold Washington and comedian Bernie Mac. Funeral director Spencer Leak Jr. said more young people have contacted him in recent years to learn about the business — but many don’t last. “That makes or breaks you, whether you’re going to work at a funeral home.”

“When they actually see us bring remains in, when a family is about to view, some people can’t take that,” Leak said.