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HISEY TPS ESTABLISH“FUNERAL HOME” AS A NEWHisey. Titus,' undertakers, who for several years have had an office and parlors at 213 North Illinois street, have occupied, their new quarters, “The Funeral Home, at Delaware and St, Joseph streets. They have leased the John Woe her homestead for, a long: period, and with very slight changes have converted .it to their use as a funeral home.“The Funeral Home occupies practically a quarter Of a block on the northeast corper of Detawafe- and St; Joseph Streets, running to the alley on the north, with a large laWn on the Delaware street side. The residence, a substantial old brick of massive proportions, distinctive in lta exterior design and convenient in its interior arrangements, contains fourteen' -rooms, which, with the exception of one? minor, remodeling operation, will remain as they were before Hisey Titus tookjfie residence. 7The front rooms onthe first floor are devoted to a reception parlor, a dohbtc parlor for the conducting of. funeral -services,-, and an offlce-The double parlor was made^by the removal of i, a part of a dividing wall. The four front rooms, with' the spacious hall dividing them, are so arranged that all of them can be thrown together for a funeral service. To the rear is an embalming’-room, connected by a covered,passageway with the garage, which has been moved’ so that it is now continuous with the residence.On the second floor are' a guest room and three display, rooms, together with rooms for the undertakers’ assistants. The basement contains the trimming and stock rooms.The Funeral Home, as such, is new to Indian-asolls, although for some time residences? have been utilized as places of business by undertakers and funeral directors; But in the ease of the Funeral Home of Hisey Titus, however, a large residence'has been cKoSen to servemore than the single use of an office and a plaee—-r of husiness. It was with a desire to obtain a large residence completely adaptable to the 1 new requirements of the service, as well as their own needs, that the firm selected, its new place, and gave it the name of “The Funeral Home.” “Changing conditions of living, due to the growing density of population in large cities, render indispensable such an institution as the Funeral Home, said Edwin R. Hisey. “The idea of a homo, in place of an ‘establishment,' took hold some time ago in other cities, and now a number of places have their 'funeral homes, as different from the earlier undertaker^ office in the business district as a mdn’s desk space in ' his residence is different from his office in fa skyscraper.“Today a great .many families live in apartment houses and flat buildings, or In family hotels. The .larger the city,. the higher is the '•Tdtio~~of: apartnfent ‘dwellers fto the'fota'I pfipiS=— lotion, Urn nations of space in an apartment house or flat render difficult, if nojt impossible, the holding of funeral, services. .Erivacy would.. . be lacking, even if rqorn were available in which relatives ar\d friends could congregate to pay their last tribute to the departed. The alternatives in such cases are either a .church or an undertaker’s chapel or funeral parlor. Not in- 1 frequently a church is out of the question, not contributing to the privacy the immediate fajn-ily desires in the last tribute. likewise, there’-is a want of privacy and homelike atmosphere in an undertaker's parlor in the congested business district.“Our home is a home^n fact as well as .in name. It is centrally located on . one of the principal thoroughfares north and south. It combines privacy and quiet with ample space, and it is practically in the center of. population of the entire city.• In another aspect ‘The Funerai Home’ will be found increasingly serviceable, owing to the changing requirements of present-day life. Not only does it meet the need'for a-convenient and homelike...place for the .last'service' in the case of persona who“ ai-e“flat, ■apartment or-hotel——dwellers, but it provides a fitting, place also for a funeral service for persons who expire away from ’their home- city, The home will be for those persons who bring their dead from other cities to Indianapolis, as well as for those who want to hold services here before removing the body to a distant burial place. The survivors of those who have expired while undergoing treatment in local hospitals have called attention to the need for su*;h an institution, and In' opening The Funeral Home wehave been guided in part by a desire to meet the need they haye pointed out. .“A guest room has been Especially fitted for strangers in the city.who are here-to attend the last rites,, or are escorting a body either to or from the. city, .“The service of The Funeral Home ,is offered to all persons so circumstanced that they are without^ their own home to conduct a ' funeral, as . well as those whose homes may not he conveniently arranged for a service and. desire to use it. It was our aim, in seeking a building, _to get a place that.need- not be compressed into Tt* litiSineW^estabnsfiffjefitr- Tn our choice oiTa ’ residence district and In our selection of a house suitable to’ our plans, we were guided by the ..conviction that a home, with strictly homelike surroundings, has become an indispensable institution, because of changing conditions in cities. Our .‘Home’ we desire to make an institutional feature of the city, .with i all the exclusiveness and privacy of any- individual’s home for the concluding service of life, v“Funeral' homes have been established in a number of. citidg. The idea is not new. Aurora, 111.; Rattle Creek. Mich.; Brooklyn, N. Y.; Bast Orange, N. J., and. Vincennes, Ind., ar'e among the cities having homes along the lines we have projected.”. 'In adapting the residence to the uses of a funeral home Hisey Titus made only a few changes. The removal of the stable so that it becomes continuous with the residence was nee- • essary to provide a covered passageway into the home. The new location of the stable, which becomes a garage now, gives a continuous driveway through the garage from Delaware street on the west to St. Joseph street on the/ south 1 and insures an absolute privacy in every A^espect.—- “—.....\
Newspaper Details
Indianapolis Star
Indianapolis, Indiana, US
Wed, May 17, 1916
Page 13
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
DC, USA 09 Nov 2023
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