Foreword: This is the fourth and likely final post devoted to funeral home ambulances that have been preserved on glass paperweights and celluloid pocket mirrors. Funeral homes seemed to gravitate to these advertising items and almost always emphasized their ambulance services, despite the fact that in many instances the vehicle doubled as a hearse. While today such dual-use conveyances are banned by law, in many U.S. localities, particularly rural areas, the local undertaker also provides ambulance services. Below are nlne paperweights that help tell the story.
The first weight shown here features the oldest ambulance of the group. It is a horse-drawn conveyance from Hindle & Bayles, undertakers located at Fifth and H Streets in Washington, D.C. The proprietors were Thomas A. Hindle and William A. Bayliss. Hindle with wife Agnes apparently had his residence at the funeral home. Bayliss, an immigrant from Nova Scotia, lived close by with his family.
Although the Mitchell-Fleming Funeral Home no longer exists in Tulsa or its branches in two other Oklahoma cities, the mortician’s records have proven of great interest to historians looking into the Tulsa race riot of May-June 1921. Those tragic events left at least 39 dead, 35 blocks of a middle-class black neighborhood burned out, and an estimated 10,000 people homeless. During that period it appears that the Mitchell-Fleming ambulance operated mainly as a hearse, taking the dead for burial — at least twenty of the black victims to the city’s Oaklawn Cemetery.
The Geo. W. Scott undertakers at 2950 W. Madison Street in Chicago provided a “perfect ambulance service” using a Dodge motor vehicle that quite clearly could double as a hearse. Note the outside ornamentation and the fancy windows. Although I have been able to find out little about this establishment, someone saw it as significant and recently paid $137.50 at auction to own this pocket mirror.
Ford’s Funeral Home in Gastonia, North Carolina, was true to its name. Those appear to be three Ford motor cars lined up in front of the pillared mansion that apparently is the funeral home, some of the vehicles on call for ambulance duty. In its newspaper advertising, Ford’s, located at 137 South York Street, claimed the title “Leading Morticians” and took telephone calls both day and night.
In a departure from the usual, Greenhoe-Hatch ambulance service put photos of the proprietors on their paperweight. They had pooled their talents, Barney W. Greenhoe earlier having operated Greenhoe’s Chapel and Fred F. Hatch employed at the Colonial Funeral Home. They advertised vigorously in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, business directory as “funeral directors and licensed embalmers…service our motto.” They could provide a private ambulance with a “lady attendant” or rent customers a limousine.
Geo. H. Long gives few clues to the city and state in which he plied his “motor ambulance.” A bit of research reveals that Long was doing business in Kansas City, Missouri, located at 10th Street and Barnett Avenue. He was one of 35 undertaking establishments listed in a Independence business directory, indicating that competition was brisk. A large display ad in a 1924 business directory featured photos of both George and his wife, announcing “Kansas City’s Original Independent Undertaker…Assisted by MRS. LONG.”
Sampson Diuguid was a furniture maker who originally was a partner in a firm that made caskets and provided undertaking service in Lynchburg, Virginia. The company advertised that its hearse would make a free run for customers. In the 1820s Diuguid began operating independently to provide a funeral service that continues to this day and is considered to be the second oldest in the United States.
Some funeral homes advertised their ambulance services without having to display the actual vehicle. So was it with the paperweight issued by the Beardsley Funeral Home. Edith and Sam Beardsley were an early “power couple” in Chariton, Iowa, said to be innovators at a time when undertaking was shifting from a furniture store sideline to full-time profession. Like the Longs of Kansas City both Beardsleys were involved in the business so that when Sam unexpectedly dropped dead, Edith continued to operate the funeral home on her own for nearly 20 more years.
The next paperweight uses an illustration of the Frank A. Buley Funeral Home while advertising its ambulance service. Unfortunately I cannot read the smaller type on the items and have not been able to locate the establishment, one that appears to have been sited in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The final paperweight depicts neither motor vehicle nor mortuary, but is strong for the ambulance service it provided in Wichita, Nebraska. This one combines a weight with a mirror on the bottom. Turning it over and looking into it reveals “a friend of ours.” Wichita Undertaking Parlors were the scene of a dispute in January, 1921, about whether a prominent Wichita businessman, Joseph Nichols, had shot himself in a suicide as he lay pinned under his own automobile. The coroner said yes. As he lay at the parlor for the viewing, Nichols’ family and friends contended vehemently that he was trying to fire in the air to call for help but accidentally had shot himself.
There they are — nine more artifacts of a time when a hearse could double as an ambulance, and vice versa. This makes a total of thirty such paperweights and five pocket mirrors presented on this blog — a collection in its own right.
Note: My first article on this subject, “Where to Buddy? Hospital or Graveyard?” was posted during July 2009. It presented six paperweights and two pocket mirrors. A second, called “Chasing the Ambulance: But Wait…Is It a Hearse?” followed in May 2013. That one displayed ten weights. A third entitled “Funeral Home Ambulances: A Conflict of Interest?” was illustrated with five paperweights, two pocket mirrors and three other advertising items. It appeared in November 2016.
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