CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — It was Leslie Hunt’s last wish to be interred in her family plot in Southern California. But the former Cuyahoga Falls restaurant owner’s final journey was derailed this month by suspected thieves at a Los Angeles Denny’s.
“Leslie was meticulous when she planned all this out. She set up the cremation through me, but then gave me the contacts of her friend Bob to contact for the transfer out to California,” said Steve Shoemaker, the owner and manager at Clifford-Shoemaker Funeral Home and Crematory in Cuyahoga Falls.
The funeral home is several blocks down Front Street from the former Hunt’s Restaurant.
“It was a nice, quiet, friendly place with good food and good atmosphere,” Shoemaker recalled. “The ‘Queen of Front Street’ - a lot of people called her that. And she actually gave my dad the name the ‘most handsome man on Front Street.’”
The bar and restaurant closed when Leslie retired in 2019 and is now under new management as “Tiki Underground.” Leslie had been running the business on her own since her husband David died in 2009. Before she died in December, she made plans for her friend to bring the couple’s cremated remains to a cemetery near her childhood home.
“We just became very close friends,” said Bob Gallagher. “So it was her wish that she was taken back to California. We planned that journey and we were honored to do that for her.”
Gallagher was carrying out his friend’s final wishes earlier this month. After landing, he made a stop for breakfast at a Denny’s near LAX. He came out after the meal to find the rear window of his rental car smashed.
“Our luggage and belongings were gone. So were the contents of the parcel we were carrying with David and Leslie,” he explained.
He called the funeral home when he realized his friends’ cremated remains were missing.
“It did take me back. I had to take a couple minutes and say a few words before I could respond to Bob,” Shoemaker said. “And I really gave him the best advice I could, which was really just sit back and hope somebody finds them.”
The following day, Shoemaker received a call from someone at a dog kennel in Rowland Heights, California who found one of the urns with the funeral home’s number written on it.
“I was able to reach right out to Bob and he was about an hour away,” he said. “They jumped right in the car and drove there and picked up Dave’s cremains.”
Leslie’s remains are still missing. Gallagher said he filed a police report and has received several tips about luggage on the side of the road, but nothing has panned out so far.
“To let this be the end of the story - I have to be able to say that we’re trying to do everything we can,” he said.
Shoemaker added, “Even though she doesn’t have a lot of family remaining, it was her wish. So it’s important to her friends that she gets to where she’s supposed to be.”
Leslie’s remains are in a white wooden box with her name and the funeral home’s phone number on it. Anyone with information is encouraged to reach out to Gallagher at 330-777-2004 or the Clifford-Shoemaker Funeral Home at 330-928-2147.
