Monday, December 7, 2009
Lost Memphis Funeral Homes Running Ambulance Services
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Such expertise, I said, didn't provide much comfort to nervous patients in those ambulances, and if you ask me, it was almost a business conflict. Was it really in the best interest of the funeral home to get those patients to the hospital on time — and therefore lose a paying customer? After all, I imagine the costs for a funeral service would be considerably higher than the cost of an ambulance ride.
Anyway, I thought I'd present you here with a couple of eye-catching advertisements I found in a 1949 city directory. You'll note that Thompson Brothers bragged they had "the only crematorium in the South" right below their announcement of "Ambulance Service." Yikes! And Spencer-Sturla (below) squeezed their own "AMBULANCE SERVICE" notice in between the description of their "efficient and sympathetic" funeral service and their "burial insurance plan ... a fitting tribute to the departed."
This is just so wrong. It would be like morticians sitting in the emergency rooms, with an embalming kit in their laps!
Comments (3)
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I worked at three different funeral homes that ran ambulances. The reason was simple, we had the equipment! Our hearses had removable side panels that would reveal windows and not the curved landau bar that funeral cars all come with. We were on 24-7 call anyway, and by taking this loss as a community service, we had access to hospital and nursing home business for the elderly. Even some new moms, coming home from the birth would ride in our nice Cadillac "Combo" hearse/rescue unit.
We kept a fully stocked first aid box, and the stretcher was always made up and attached to the side rail of the car. Siren was connected to the horn switch, and under the hood, and lights in the grille, and also one BIG red rotating beacon could be quick-mounted to the roof, and the wire connection fed down to the zipper in the headliner of the front seat. Took less than 5 minutes to get the funeral stuff off, and the medical "look" on.
BTW we did not service colored clients as the black funeral homes did that, and requested unless a life-or-death situation we keep it separate. As I recall it truly was a community service for towns too small to front a full-time emergency rescue service, and we were all Red Cross trained, and Christians as well. Worst memories? DRUNKS!
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Back in the 1950s and 1960s Cadillac coach builders offered several different "Professional" chassis. (Cadillac never built even one hearse or ambulance.) Companies like S&S, Superior, Hess, and Eisenheart and Eureka would receive a one-ton truck chassis with the front end of a Cadillac from the front two doors all thr way to the grille built onto it.
In other words, take a new Cadillac, cut it in half just behind the driver's seat and that is what they started out with. They would build a steel cage, rear left and right doors, roller table, rear floor for the casket-stretcher mount, and other extras like, if it was going to be a "Life Liner" (full-time) ambulance, it could have an extended roof the attendant could stand up in, squad bench, rescue tools, suction, oxygen holder, etc. Most of these went to fire departments.
If a full-time straight hearse (remember the white one for Elvis) just the funeral set up. Combo would be an ambulance hidden under the funeral service package as I outlined above. Cost of these units was sometimes as much as the funeral home! Extremely expensive and the ambulance service would shorten the life of these shiny Cadillacs. I bought for my car collection, a 1973 Cadillac fiberglass roof High Top Life Liner in 1990. No longer made on car chassis, the Cadillac Ambulance is a very rare and collectible unit if you can find one.
