When I was a kid, I went to school with a girl whose dad was the town's undertaker. Although there were separate entrances, their living area was in the same building as the funeral home. EEEK.
There were 2 funeral homes in town. In the other one, someone spent the nite with the body. I'd remember hearing my grandma talk about so-and-so is going to spend the nite at the funeral home. I was always like---what the heck!!!?? I didn't ever want that job.
Not long before my time, tho, people kept their loved ones' bodies in the house for viewing until burial.
When I was going to college, my ex wife and I lived in a mortuary. There were two apartments above the funeral home. One door accessed a dark stairway which went up to the apartments. The door where first-call (the guys that picked up the bodies) staff wheeled in the bodies, caskets, etc. was right next to our door. While the funeral home and ambulance service had split years prior, the owner still ran both businesses. I was on paramedic duty every other weekend and she would answer the door bell to great people wishing to view a loved one, etc, when the funeral director or staff wasn't there. The place was old, the back smelled of formaldyhyde (sp), but we were never creeped out. I suppose it was because we knew everyone downstairs was, for the most part, dead. Heck, my ex was afraid of the dark, but not the mortuary.
Brad