Chicago: Griffin Funeral Home's Closing Ends an Era

[Susan Smith Ross]

Funeral home's closing ends an era

by Kathy Chaney
August 3, 2007

 

The pristine white building with four flags in its emerald green iron-fenced parking lot that could be seen waving in the wind on the corner of 33^rd Street and King Drive each day holds a rich lesson in Black history.

 

The building, that sits on the grounds of the historic Camp Douglas training and prisoner-of-war camp, was the site of services for dignitaries and community leaders.

 

After 60 years the Griffin Funeral Home will close its doors Dec. 31. A spokesman for the funeral home talked with the Defender about the hard decision and the funeral home’s history.

 

“We are a formal funeral home. It’s an era that is not wholly embraced today. Our niche’ has always been the older generation. Now that that generation is diminishing, we are finding that time has met its zenith,” James O’Neal, spokesman for Griffin said.

 

His wife Dawn, a licensed funeral director for 41 years, added “We have experienced so many changes in the profession,” Dawn Griffin-O’Neal said.

 

The O’Neals handle the daily operations of the funeral home, with Alyce Griffin, “Mother,”. Pearl Griffin, Dawn’s younger sister, also is a licensed funeral director. While she is still involved with the funeral home, Pearl runs a catering business.

 

Griffin-O’Neal said that “Daddy’s” philosophy and purpose of the business was that the funeral director was at the helm of every service and quality mattered, not quantity.

 

“I was taught that you were in charge of the services, not the clergy, not the family. He felt very strongly about it and it’s the manner in which we operated,” she said.

 

Times have changed and after a year-long discussion, the family decided it was time to retire. 

 

“It’s time to let the younger generation of funeral directors take over,” Griffin-O‘Neal said.

 

The Beginning

 

Griffin Funeral Home was founded in 1947 by Ernest A. Griffin.

 

Griffin was a partner in the Bell Auto and Undertaking Co. at 3215 S. Michigan Ave. for several years he bought out his partners, changed the name and moved the funeral home to its current location. The building was a factory before it was converted into a funeral home.

 

Services for Dr. Lacy Kirk Williams, president of the National Baptist Convention and pastor of Olivet Baptist Church were held at the old site.

 

The couple said “Daddy” was a creative businessman who always looked ahead and envisioned how he thought the funeral home would look and how it should be operated.

 

Griffin-O’Neal reminisced how her and Pearl helped with the business, starting when they were in grade school.

 

“We had chores. We had to empty the wastebaskets, dust and learn how to properly answer the phone,” she said.

 

Later, she was taught how to record the preferences of their clients, write a funeral bill and she even posed as a cadaver for her parents for an instructional video.

 

Griffin-O’Neal remembered how “Daddy” had a creative niche’ that set him apart in the vastly changing business.

 

“In the 1940s, if a baby or child died, Daddy would prepare the body in a crib or a child’s bed with toys around it and the shoes next to it. He wanted the mother to remember seeing her baby in a crib sleeping, as opposed to seeing her baby in a casket,” she recalled.

 

The only time the family was to see the casket was when it was taken out of the vehicle at the cemetery.

 

“The last memory of seeing her baby was what he wanted. He would position the baby in the crib with its hand resting on the face, just like the baby normally would sleep,” she said.

 

The funeral home never advertised, but its legacy of professionalism was evident.

 

The services of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, and Olympic gold medal winner Jesse Owens, were handled by Griffin Funeral Home.

 

O’Neal said the individuals died in Chicago but the families wanted their loved ones buried elsewhere.

 

“They requested that we prepare, transfer and accompany the remains to their respective locations,” he said.

 

Leaving History Behind

 

What the O’Neals said they would miss most is the historic significance that the funeral home represents. Charles H. Griffin, father of Ernest A. Griffin, trained at Camp Douglas after his U.S. Army enlistment in the 1860s. He served in Company B 29^th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Infantry.

 

“We have brought attention to this area that was Civil War Camp Douglas,” O’Neal said.

 

Many in the Bronzeville did not know the history that surrounded them.

 

“They had no idea that it was an induction camp and then turned into a prisoner-of-war camp. We’ve been able to bring identification and tell a real story that involved the African American community going back to the Civil War,” he said.

 

He said people from throughout the country come to see where their ancestors died.

 

O’Neal recalled the day after the Heritage Wall that stands in the funeral home’s parking lot was dedicated in 1992.

 

The family was tending to upkeep of the parking lot when a young man from Michigan drove up in a van with “Confederate memorabilia plastered all over it.” The man approached the family, with an unpleasant attitude, and was told that his great-grandfather died on the grounds.

 

“You could tell he didn’t want to be there. I asked him his name and we brought him into the building and took the original ledger book off the wall and showed him his grandfather’s name,” O’Neal said.

 

The man and Ernest Griffin talked for thirty minutes and when he left, a smile could be seen on his face and his demeanor was more pleasant.

 

“To see the prejudice dissipate right before your eyes tell you the kind of information lies where you stand,” he told the Defender.

 

In the parking lot the flags fly at half and full mast daily to honor the Union and Confederate Civil War soldiers.

 

A Confederate flag and P.O.W. flag hang at half-mast on one side of the wall, an a U.S. flag and Canadian flag hang at full-mast on the other side. The Canadian flag represents the Griffin’s Canadian roots.

 

The funeral home has received criticism from the Black community for flying the Confederate flag outside the funeral home during the last two decades.

 

The O’Neal’s are in discussions with the Chicago Military Academy to have the Heritage Wall sit inside the school once the funeral home closes.

 

Once the property is sold, the O’Neal’s said there is an agreement that no other funeral home could be erected on the site.