Patti Muldoon
Patti MuldoonPresident
Patti Muldoon has been president since 2018. She is also a trained end-of-life doula, helping individuals and their families through the dying process and with after death care and memorials. “My interest in the end of life journey began with my father’s death 25 years ago. As my family vigiled during his last days, we took turns painting stories of his life on a cardboard coffin my siblings finagled from a funeral director. My eldest brother told the stories shown on the coffin as our dad’s eulogy. Six months later when that brother suddenly died, we again had an Irish wake at home. Old and new traditions merged to fit my family’s needs. I think everyone should be able to shape their own funerals as they want and can afford.”
Paula Chasan
Paula ChasanMembership Secretary
Paula Chasan is retired from her very satisfying job as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Answering our phone line, she has enjoyed meeting people who call with questions that come up around the death of a loved one. These calls often lead to the growth of her own knowledge and understanding about the issues consumers face at what are oftencrisis times, and she enjoys helping them find solutions. Paula has been a member of FCAEM since the 1960’s when the organization was known as The Memorial Society, Inc. Before becoming Membership Secretary she served on the board as Treasurer.
Claire McNeill
Claire McNeill Treasurer
Claire McNeill became treasurer in 2018. She has been a member of FCAEM since 2013. Before moving to Massachusetts in 2012, she had been president of the Funeral Consumers Information Society in Westchester, New York for over 10 years. That FCA affiliate had to close due to the inability to find enough active people to take responsibility. Claire is happy to see that FCAEM is still a going venture. She has enjoyed working with other members of the expanded Board since last summer, clarifying our roles and modernizing our website and outreach materials.
Ruth Faas
Ruth Faas Member of the Board
Ruth Faas was thrilled to learn about FCA in 2006, both because of the way it offers important information and because she thinks every industry needs a watchdog. She knows her relatives who are funeral directors work with integrity, but when her father died in 1984 the cemetery acted stunningly unethically. Ruth found that using art and personally-meaningful creative expression was an important way she grappled with grief after her mother died. She founded Mourning Dove Studio in 2007, which provided green burial containers that can be decorated and helped people plan their after-death care choices. Ruth was nominated for a Leadership Award by the Green Burial Council.
Fred Hapgood
Fred HapgoodClerk
FRED HAPGOOD spent most of his career as a science writer, writing books and articles for National Geographic, the Atlantic, Smithsonian, and other publications. These days he is a counsellor with SHINE, an organization of volunteers dedicated to helping seniors and disabled people negotiate the complexities of health care insurance. Now at an age when the FCAEM mission feels particularly relevant, he is spreading the news of rapidly changing end-of-life practices, customs and options. Since being elected to the board in 2021, Fred jumped in by taking on the role of clerk and is helping accomplish the funeral home price and services survey.
Eva Moseley
Eva MoseleyMember of the Board
Eva Moseley joined FCAEM (at that time called “The Memorial Society”) more than 40 years ago, but became active in it only around 2010–11. Through 2017 she fetched and opened the mail and welcomed new members. Now she attends board meetings and shares what she hopes is wisdom. Before retiring in 1999, she was curator of manuscripts at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. During her three decades there, she learned how to help acquire and organize the archival evidence for some forgotten aspects of that history. She used the knowledge of archives gained there to find a home for FCAEM’s historical records.
Frank C. Singleton
Frank C. SingletonMember of the Board
Frank Singleton retired after working 50 years in local public health and environmental health positions. He remains active in a voluntary capacity on several boards and commissions that work on health and environmental issues, such as the Weymouth Conservation Commission. Frank became interested in FCAEM after his experience as a local public health representative on a steering committee working with the state to revise the antiquated paper-based burial permit and death certificate system, to the present digital on-line system. Doing this work, he found he wanted to learn more about how the death industry operates and how it is overseen by government. Using his background and skills to support the work of FCAEM, Frank is glad to be helping achieve our mission.