Ivy Funeral Home

Before the 1860s, caring for the dead was viewed as a woman’s role. Death care tended to take place in the home, and the cultural perception of women as more intuitive and emotional made them an obvious choice for the job. Additionally, because women were the ones who helped deliver infants, and the infant mortality rate was high—in 1850 it was 216.8 for every 1,000 live births among whites and 340 for every 1,000 live births among blacks—dealing with deaths was seen as part of the birthing process. Women in death care were known as “shrouding women.” They collected corpses, washed them, rubbed herbs on them to reduce odor, dressed them, and posed them for the wake and burial. In most cases, men were responsible for constructing the coffin and digging the grave only.

The Civil War changed all of this. As thousands of American soldiers died far from home, families began to request that their loved ones be embalmed and transported home. Until then, most Americans viewed the practice with suspicion. It was seen as unnatural, something that took place in medical schools. However, the realities of war helped soften attitudes about what would be acceptable to do to bodies for the sake of a ceremonial goodbye. Funeral homes, gravedigging, and memorialization became commercial enterprises. Embalming was pushed forward by a false belief that bodies were hazardous to public health, as many believed it was the only way to safely sit with the dead. Funeral directors themselves upsold the value of embalming, as this procedure led to more profits. Women were often still involved in home death care and even moved into the commercial funeral industry. However, they were rarely designated as professional morticians, and a culture of women-led death care largely fell by the wayside.

During the Victorian era and into the 20th century, women were generally not allowed to be in business. They were unfairly left on the sidelines. Furthermore, as the funeral industry burgeoned, editorials in trade journals, such as The Casket and Embalmer’s Monthly began arguing that women were especially unfit for the funeral industry. The industry’s cornerstone was the science of embalming, the editorials contended, and women don’t do science; nor were emotionally fit to deal with death itself, or the physical demands of funeral work (ie. picking up dead bodies.)

Founded in the 1920s by an African American mortician, Ivy Funeral Home remained family-owned and operated for its entire existence. At a time when racial tensions were high and, many white-owned funeral homes refused to bury African Americans, the funeral home was designed to offer proper burials to a growing but segregated community. The business contributed significantly to the infrastructure of the community, often working with other black-owned institutions such as insurance companies and banks. In a time, when women in the funeral industry were still considered rare, the owner’s daughter began working in the funeral home at a young age. She helped out where needed with such tasks as cleaning or lining the caskets. After attending mortuary school, she returned home to work alongside her father. As an adult, she worked as a funeral director and served in various capacities for the state funeral directors association, from secretary to becoming its first female president. She continued to serve the community and work in the funeral home until her death nearly a decade ago. After her death, the business closed and has been abandoned. Since closing, the roof has been damaged from several storms resulting in severe water damage throughout the funeral home. Many issues plague the property including black mold and rotting floors.

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