Business

‘How Honored and Privileged I Was’: After 47 Years, Tom Cicalese Retires from Hoyt Funeral Home

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Tom Cicalese was 18 years old when he moved to New Canaan to work at Hoyt Funeral Home. A Hartford native, Cicalese had an uncle and cousins who owned funeral homes upstate. Since age 13, he’d done odd jobs during the summer in the nursing home where his mother worked as an administrator. “It allowed me to see life through a different lens,” Cicalese recalled one afternoon this week from the sitting room of Hoyt Funeral Home on Main Street. He graduated from high school at age 16 and went on to “embalming school” in Boston for two years before sending out applications around Connecticut for a job in a funeral home.

Around Town

Local Businesses and COVID-19: Hoyt Funeral Home

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For today’s Q&A with a local business owner, we hear from Tom Cicalese of Hoyt Funeral Home. He has owned the Main Street business for 46 years. 

Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: The state categorized funeral homes as an “essential business,” so Hoyt Funeral Home along with grocery stores, pharmacies and some others has been able to operate through the COVID-19 public health emergency. What has this been like for you? Tom Cicalese: The pandemic has been especially challenging for us here at Hoyt Funeral Home.