Janicemarie Wrote:
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> Ewalds on Southport. Anyone heard of that of one
> ?


Yeah, they're still around, too. My aunt used to live just south of there, across the street from the Milwaukee Road office building (now the convalescent home). Wasn't there another funeral home around the corner to the east on Fullerton?

tonyfromchicago, I ran that paper stand across the street from the funeral home,and St Joseph's on Sundays in the early 1960's

Yes I remember Ewald's on Southport. Kind of a small place. Herdegen was on Lincoln just northwest of Diversey. Powell's used book store occupies the site now. Herdegen joined forces with Brieske on Southport, Lincoln and Wellington. Went to St. Alphonsus with his daughters. I think the old Cooneys on Southport is now Lakeview funeral home next to St Lukes. In a different area, Andersons on North ave a block or two west of Kedzie is still in business. Seems I was there annually for a few years. Been to all above mentioned places for friends and family. And many more. We all gotta go sometime.

I need to sit down with Louie Barlock at Ewalds to check records on a Grandfathers funeral / burial info.

Ewald's handled way too many funerals for my family & frends.

My grand uncle, Edward Hammond Vance, was a partner in a funeral home at 730 E. 63rd Street, which matches the address of a Skeeles-Biddle FH in the 1930 Polk's Directory. Skeeles-Biddle handled the burial of Clarence Darrow, in 1938, I think it was. Partners with Edward were Thomas J. Shannon and Robert H. Kirkham. That's the only info I have about them, although I'd love to find someone who may have known my uncle. We lose track of him in 1942 when he was working at Cook County Hospital.

Can anyone tell me if the Burkhard Funeral home on Irving Park and Talcott is still in Operation? It was run by one of my great-grandfather's relatives.

Also, does anyone have information on the Birren funeral home on Lincoln ave. I thought I read it was one of the first funeral homes in the Lincon Park area.

Both of these funeral homes were listed on many of my family's death certificates.

ChiTownJim Wrote:
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> Can anyone tell me if the Burkhard Funeral home
> on Irving Park and Talcott is still in Operation?
> It was run by one of my great-grandfather's
> relatives.
>

I think you mean Leavitt, not Talcott. I don't think Talcott ever crosses Irving Pk.

Burkhard was at 2157 W Irving.
It is a real estate office now.

On my Dad's side, his family was from a long line of Undertakers going back to Germany.

Their original funeral parlor was at 4256 S Mozart in Brighton Park. The family lived at 4318 S Mozart and between 1910-1912, they embalmed 3 of their children who died before age 4. They also handled a good amount of Eastland casualties.

The building there is now the Ocwieja-Robles Funeral Home. Apparently the current owners bought it from the Szczylaks in the 1960s sometime, who bought it from the Mrochs (my fam). Otto Mroch died in the mid 1950's as far as I know. His mother was killed in the Hackettstown, NJ Train wreck of 1925.

PKDickman Wrote:
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>
> I think you mean Leavitt, not Talcott. I don't
> think Talcott ever crosses Irving Pk.
>
> Burkhard was at 2157 W Irving.
> It is a real estate office now.


Yeah, I meant Leavitt. I didn't have the street name in front of me when I was writing and for some reason, Talcott stuck in my mind.Thanks for pointing that out.

Patka Funeral Palor was probably the busiest of all that serviced St. Joseph's. It was on the NW corner of 48th and Wood. Directly kiddy korner from the church! When my 6 yrs old sister Marlene was buried from there on Sept. 7th, 1938 they took the coffin in the hearse and all the mourners walked behind all the way to our parish of St. Cyril's. My brother and sister said that it was the saddest thing they had ever seen. People just joined in the procession and cried and the whole while the church bells rang. When they got to the church the entire 1st grade class filed in. Marlene was to start school that day and these would have been her classmates. There was also a florist on the SW corner of 48th & Wood. I'm not sure how long that lasted though.
Patka's had a a basement and us kids would go down there and have our own party. We ran around most of the evening. The men drank shots and the women drank highballs.

The previous posting reminded me that as a altar boy in the 60s, since the three funeral homes that were used by parishioners of our parish were within a block of the church, the priest and altar boys would go to the chapel on the morning of the funeral to lead prayers. The casket was then placed on a rolling stand and everyone would accompany the casket and pallbearers to the church. After mass the hearse would be parked in front of the church and then everybody would follow inn their cars to the cemetary.

I have been a Realtor on the north side for over 40 years and have had the opportunity to buy and/or sell several funeral homes over the years. I sold Hursen Funeral Home on the 900 block of Belmont to the Ann Sather restaurant people. The restaurant has since moved down the street and the building is now occupied by a clothing store. I bought Linn Brothers funeral home at 3419 Clark St and converted it to my real estate office and operated my business out of there for 18 years and still own the property today. After leaving Clark St, I bought and moved in to Burkhard Funeral home on the corner of Irving Park and Leavitt St. My office continues to operate from that location today. I was also involved in the sale of several others in the area and as a kid I recall Scanlon Brothers on Clark St, Herdegens on Lincoln & Wellington, Ewald on Southport and there was one other that I sold located on the 2200 block of W Huron St but I cannot recall the name of that one. Funeral homes are typically made with higher quality materials and include unique architectural elements (stain glass, natural wood trim, custom light fixtures, etc) not found in most commercial buildings.

I grew up in the North-Pulaski area in the 1950s and 60s. There were three funeral homes in the neighborhood. First was Elgass on Armitage, previously discussed. This the "parish" funeral home for St. Philomena.I remember attending a few wakes at this rather plain chapel and also receiving annual parish calendars and schoolbook covers "courtesy" of Elgass. This home closed sometime in the late 70s. The second FH was Anderson on Lowell and Armitage. This FH was still open in 1990 but closed some time thereafter. I think that for some time, there was a merger of Elgass and Anderson, perhaps after Elgass closed. The third FH was Moeller-Halleman on North Ave. between Kedvale and Keeler. I don't remember ever attending a wake there. This FH had a handsome building, which still stand and is in use as a Latino church. M-H was still operating in 1974, but closed some time ago. We moved out of the area in 1968. As Polish ethnics, we used Malec & Sons, located at 834 N. Ashland, for our family needs. This firm, founded in 1935 near Holy Innocents Parish, opened a second location on North Milwaukee in the mid 70s and continues to operate from that location. In 1988, Malec was purchased by SCI and SCI subsequently closed the Ashland facility about 1995. There are no Malec family members associated with the home anymore, as is the case with many of the FHs gobbled up by SCI.

lets not forget Granadas Funeral Home on 69th. and Paulina Auv. It was across the street, from Naples Bakery. My brother and I had a Chicago Today paper route, and the Granada family was on our route. We would go out on Tuesday night ,to collect for he paper. The Granada family lived over the funeral parlor. On time Mrs Granada answered the door, and said You can collect the paper money from Mr. Granada,you can find him downstairs,working. Oh Man!thats ok...We ll be back tomarrow...

Demnicki Funeral Home. 3630 W. George Street served St. Hyacinth Church for many years. The funeral home is gone but the building still stands across the street from St. Hyacinth Church. The Demnicki family moved to Schaumburg and its now called Michael's Funeral Home located at 800 S Roselle Rd, Schaumburg, IL

Original location for Malec & Sons Funeral Home was on 834 N. Ashland Ave. Chicago. In the late 1960's they moved to 6000 N. Milwaukee Ave. The Ashland Ave. building is still there and looks like a funeral home. Holy Innocents and St. Boniface were Catholic parishes very close.

I am doing some research on my father's side of our family, and I am told that his grandmother's family on his father's side owned a funeral home in Chicago. Her maiden name was Emma Wolff, and she married Fred Schmidt.

I don't know if the family funeral home was named Wolff or not. Since it was her side of the family who was in the business, I don't imagine that Schmidt was part of the name.

If anyone has some recollection or info on this, I'd greatly appreciate hearing from you. Thanks!

I noted today (January 7, 2015) the obit for Eleanore Schielka, the wife of John Schielka, who founded the Schielika Addison Funeral Home on West Addison Street. I have driven by this place for years and never been in it. I was surprised to see that John and Eleanore sold out way back in 1981 and moved to Montello, WI. John died in 2004 per his wife's obit. Once, when tracing what happened to the old Sbarbaro Funeral Home on N. Wells, I was surprised to note that while the old funeral home on Wells was now something else, a listing existed for Sbarbaro's at the address of Schielka Funeral Home. I believe John Sbarbaro, the funeral director and state's attorney, died in a plane crash over 7th Avenue in Park Slope in Brooklyn in 1960, but there seems to be a current tie in with Schielka.

Back of the yards also had Satala's, Wolniak, Pataka, Kozera's, Broda's, Eudikis and many others to serve all the churches in the yards.

St John of God also had Urbanek on the south side of 51st. St Michael's also had Kubina-Tybor on 47th, and on 51st-Western was Stransky. The Lutherans used Fruendt just SW of St Martini's on 51st. Englewood had a couple more like Ketchum, which I believe was on the Blvd, just east of Halsted in an apt bldg.

CURLYS fUNERAL hOME,new location is in Chicago Ridge, on 111th. St. We lived on 79th. and Elizabeth. I believe that Curlys was on 79t.st, next to Dressels bakery. This was back in 1967.We lived in the first house,behind the Bulkos gas station. Does anybody remember this corner? Back to Curlys, I here their doing good, people are dieing to get in.

[i]Groan![/i]

Well a corny joke is better then spam,any day.

We had Stransky near Oakley Playground 51st street and Tabor near St Michaels

Back to the top

I think every other block in Chicago had a funeral home and just as many taverns. LOL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2016 12:37AM by SWEDE.

John C. Meiszner's Funeral Home at Irving and Parkside has been around for a long long time. Meiszner founded it when he was quite young, and became heavily involved in both the German Donau Schwaben Society as well as being very active politically. He was the Collector of Customs in the Port of Chicago, and was also a U.S. Marshall for Chicago. I believe he died back in 1987, but his widow and daughter continued the business. His widow, Helen, was the leader of a German Women's club here for years, and just recently passed away. I wondered if the funeral home would continue, but the ads are still coming out every weekend on the German radio programs. The Meiszners were very active in helping refugees from the German settlements in Eastern Europe, and worked very closely with Sen. Everett Dirksen. They are still very supportive of German American activities here.

I can't remember the funeral home, however, it was close to St Joesph Church on the southside and during the wake several of us went to this Polish tavern across the street and and the juke box was playing a Beatles record in Polish.
Weird!!! I'm Polish and Slovak.

btt

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