Faces of Downtown - A Story About Staying

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As Downtown Blue Springs celebrates fifteen years as a nonprofit Main Street organization, we begin our Faces of Downtown Blue Springs series with someone whose story is woven quietly into the deeper history of this community. Some businesses choose a location, while others choose a community. Marty Meyers chose both.

Marty didn’t grow up dreaming of owning a funeral home. He grew up in a small Missouri town, working after school for a family friend, where he cleaned bathrooms, washed cars, and handled the small jobs that slowly taught responsibility. But curiosity has a way of guiding people closer to the work they are meant to do. He began making removal trips for the funeral home, driving to Kansas City, Columbia, and wherever a family needed someone to bring their loved one home. What began as a job started feeling like something more.

He started college as a music major at Central Methodist. For a season, that was the plan, but something didn’t feel right. After finishing the year, he stepped back from college and returned to the funeral home that had first shaped him. In the fall of 1981, he enrolled in mortuary school. The program lasted twelve months back then, and by 1982, he was licensed and hired by Newcomer.

At nineteen years old, he was the youngest funeral director and embalmer they had ever hired. “They called me the kid,” he laughs, though the title never mattered much. What mattered was the work. At its heart, this profession has always been about trust. Families were placing their trust in him during the hardest moments of their lives. Early on, he understood that this work was not about numbers or scale, but about showing up, doing things the right way, and earning trust one family at a time.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the funeral industry began to change as corporate buyouts spread across family-owned funeral homes throughout the country. Longstanding local businesses were being purchased by large companies headquartered far from the communities they served. Marty had always wanted to own his own place.

In 1993, he became a minor partner at Webb Freer Funeral Home, a business that had served eastern Jackson County since 1903. It carried history and family stories. Butwhen corporate ownership entered the picture, he felt something shift. “It just wasn’t personal anymore,” he says. “It was about the numbers.” He tried it briefly, but it did not take long to realize it was not how he wanted to serve people.

So he made a decision. He purchased the old Newcomer building just around the corner in Downtown Blue Springs and stepped out on his own. It was not the easiest path, but it was the right one.

And then something meaningful happened. The community followed him. Within a year, he was able to purchase the Webb Freer building and business back, bringing that long-standing legacy under the Meyers name. Today, it remains one of the few large, family-owned funeral homes in the Kansas City metro.

For Marty, keeping the business family-owned was never simply a business decision. “My name’s on this building,” he says. “My daddy gave me that name.” He says it simply, without emphasis, but the meaning is clear. He has seen what happens when family names are absorbed into corporations and slowly lose their identity. “It’s important to me to keep that name good,” he says. “I’ve seen corporations run family names into the ground. I just can’t do it.”

The sign on the building represents more than a business. It represents his father, his family, and the generations connected to that name, carrying with it a sense of responsibility that guides how he serves families.

That philosophy shaped the space he built. People often say the funeral home feels homey when they walk in. That was intentional. Families who come through the doors are often facing one of the most difficult days of their lives. They do not need a corporate environment; they need a place that feels calm, human, and safe enough to carry grief.

Inside the funeral home, small details carry meaning. In 2006, the butterfly became part of the Meyers identity. When weather allows, families may participate in a butterfly release during services. Often a young family member opens the box and watches the butterflies lift into the sky, symbolizing prayers carried upward when words are too hard to find. The butterfly was chosen because it represents a quiet kind of hope, a way of saying goodbye without needing many words.

Over the years, Marty has watched Downtown Blue Springs change. He remembers when parts of it felt uncertain, when buildings needed repair and investment moved slowly. There were seasons when it would have been easier to move closer to newer development along the highway. In fact, he considered it once, but he could never bring himself to leave.

He has watched renewal take root over the years. Sidewalks improved. Storefronts refreshed. Arches lighting Main Street during winter evenings. The work has been steady, patient, and intentional.

“I’m excited about the future,” he says. “Not so much for me, but for the ones coming in behind me.” He talks about bringing younger families back downtown, about making it a place where people gather again, and about keeping it personal, local, and human.

Meyers Funeral Home has quietly supported downtown improvement efforts, including voluntary participation in the Community Improvement District to help fund community projects. For Marty, that investment is not separate from his business; it is part of being part of the community that has supported him for more than three decades.

There is a small habit that reflects that connection. When someone calls and asks for directions to the funeral home, Marty tells them to come from 7 Highway. He could offer quicker turns and easier routes, but coming from 7 Highway brings people through downtown. It brings them past storefronts, sidewalks, and the places that have shaped this community for generations. Even on one of the hardest days of their lives, he wants families to pass through the heart of Blue Springs.

Downtown is not just where his business sits. It is part of the story.

Marty does not talk much about himself. When asked what he wants people to know, he pauses. “I just love this community,” he says. “They’ve put their trust in us. That’s an honor.”

And perhaps that is the simplest way to understand his story. For more than thirty years, families have walked through those doors in moments of grief and remembrance. They have trusted the name on the building. Marty Meyers has worked every day to make sure that name continues to mean something.

Every downtown has stories. These are the faces who helped write ours.

Originally posted by Downtown Blue Springs via Locable