After 12 years as a Maryland state trooper and six years as co-owner of a funeral home in Baltimore City, Mark Bailey has returned to his old stomping grounds in Baltimore Highlands to open a funeral home.

The mortician has fond memories of the neighborhood he returned to last fall.

"I used to ride my bicycles on this very parking lot when I was a kid," said Bailey, 35. "I used to play baseball on this parking lot."

Bailey's Funeral Home and Cremation Service opened in November on Annapolis Road, next to the Woodman Liquor store.

Charlie Kountz, president of the Lansdowne Business and Professional Association, said filling empty storefronts shows the neighborhood's vigor.

"I think the importance is it shows the vitality of the community," Kountz said. "It certainly improves the outward appearance."

Before the funeral home opened, Bailey sought feedback from the community at a meeting of the Greater Baltimore Highlands Improvement Association.

Once people at the meeting realized the funeral home wouldn't be doing cremations on site, they were more receptive to the funeral home, Bailey said.

Craig Rankin, president of the Lansdowne Improvement Association, was at that meeting.

"It seemed like it was a pretty good idea," Rankin said.

And Bailey apparently made a good impression.

"He seemed like a very nice young man," Rankin said.

Born in Lakeland, Bailey attended Overlook Elementary School in Anne Arundel County and graduated in 1992 from Old Mill High School, in Millersville.

At 17, while attending Catonsville Community College, Bailey was walking through campus and saw a sign that would bring him into the business of caring for the dead.

"For some reason, I walked by a sign that said 'Mortuary Science Department'," Bailey said. "It just snowballed into becoming a funeral director."

Before his next birthday, Bailey was already working at a funeral home.

The college, now the Catonsville branch of the Community College of Baltimore County, still offers an associate degree program in mortuary science.

A few years later, while working for Barranco & Sons Funeral Home in Severna Park, Bailey was told by the owner, Robert Barranco Sr., to get out and experience life, to see the world a little before spending the rest of his life in a funeral home.

Bailey agreed with the idea.

"I just wanted to experience a little more," Bailey said. "I always knew I was going to return" to the funeral business.

Barranco suggested he look into the Maryland State Police.

Bailey graduated from the State Police Academy in 1995 and was a state trooper for 12 years, most of them spent working out of the Glen Burnie barrack.

"I've worked on a lot of crash sites in which people passed away," he said.

Bailey also delivered a lot of death notifications, and he thinks his funeral home experience helped him in that capacity.

"I think that's why I got called a lot to do the notifications," Bailey said.

"They knew that my convictions and compassion were very high," he said.

Bailey added to his understanding of the funeral business while in the Army National Guard. He joined in 1997 and later attended the Mortuary Affairs Officer training course.

In 2000, while still a state trooper, Bailey completed a degree in criminal justice from Coppin State College in Baltimore, followed by a mortuary science degree from Arapahoe Community College in Colorado in 2005.

Around that same time, Bailey became a partner in Rendon-Bailey Funeral Home near Patterson Park in Baltimore.

Bailey's wife, Heidi, was with him throughout this journey -- they married when he was still at community college -- so it was no surprise to her when he opened Bailey Funeral Home and Cremation Service.

Rather than shy away from Bailey's work, she is an active participant, as are their two daughters, Destinee, 16, and Mykenziee, 11.

In fact, their daughters are one of the reasons Bailey opened his own funeral home.

"I wanted to leave a legacy behind for my children," he said.

By helping at funeral visitations from a relatively young age, Bailey said, he hopes his daughters will understand the business as a whole.

"They're learning the business from the ground up," Bailey said.

"They need to understand how every facet of this business runs," he said.

Though Mykenziee is talking about being a doctor when she grows up, Destinee has expressed an interest in going into the family business.

According to Bailey, Destinee once pointed at the sign outside the new funeral home and told her father "my name's already at the top."

"She said, 'we're already partners'," Bailey said.

"Business has been good," he said. "We've had a lot of support from the community."

Bailey has been invited to speak to students at a local school about what he does for a living and has joined the local American Legion post.

He hired Chris Lancaster, of the English Consul Volunteer Fire Company, to help out with transporting remains.

Bailey seems eager to serve the neighborhoods where he grew up.

"They're trusting us -- my family -- to take care of their family," he said.

"How we take care of our dead is tied to our values, our morals, our beliefs," he said.

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