R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press Keith and Lisa Anderson, owners of Anderson Funeral Homes, place flowers in preparation for a service at 2200 Ludington St. recently, one of the generational business’s two locations.

By R. R. Branstrom

rbranstrom@dailypress.net

EDITOR NOTE: The Daily Press will be featuring a series of articles on local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run on a regular basis in the Daily Press. — — —

ESCANABA –Business operations are different at Anderson Funeral Homes today than they were when C. Arthur Anderson started out; people now engage in various practices to honor their deceased loved ones, as opposed to the single tradition of the past.

In 1897, James B. Wilkinson opened a furniture store in Escanaba, originally at 1004 Ludington. A short time later, his business moved into the third floor of the Fair Savings Bank department store at 1100 Ludington Street.

As was common at the turn of the century, because furniture makers possessed the skills and materials to make caskets, Wilkinson also offered funeral services. The offices of J. B. Wilkinson Furniture and Undertaking Company operated out of the third floor of the Fair store, and it was there that young Clauss Arthur Anderson was employed before a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy during World War I.

Upon C. Arthur’s return to his birthplace of Escanaba, he and the Buchanan brothers, Frank and Joseph, took over Wilkinson’s business and formed the Anderson-Buchanan Company. In July of 1919, C. Arthur became a licensed embalmer.

Though the funerary business had an office and undertaking rooms where bodies were stored prior to a service, there was no need for a funeral home until later. It was common for a 1920 obituary to read, “the body was taken to the Anderson and Buchanan undertaking parlors to be prepared…”

Services usually took form as visitation in a family’s residence, a funeral in a church, and then burial at a cemetery. A couple obits from 1921 and ’22 said that “funeral services were held at the Anderson-Buchanan chapel,” but it is unclear where the chapel may have been.

As early as 1922, mention was made to “Anderson Funeral Home,” but funerals were not held there; the place served as a morgue and preparation facility.

In the summer of 1922, Anderson-Buchanan dissolved. C. Arthur gained another partner — Hans B. Bonefeld, who was the Postmaster in Stonington and operated a dray line business. Together they formed the furniture and undertaking firm of Anderson and Bonefeld, which continued to operate on the third floor of the Fair store.

The first reference in the Daily Press to funeral services actually held at the Anderson Funeral Home at 1220 1st Ave. S. came in 1926. The house had previously been the home of the John O’Meara family.

In 1928, the Anderson and Bonefeld furniture store relocated to the Semer building at 915 Ludington St, which until that autumn had been occupied by J. C. Penney.

The two businesses that had both been operated jointly by the H. B. Bonefeld and C. Arthur Anderson diverged in January of 1935: Anderson exited the furniture business by selling his share to Bonefeld, and Bonefeld exited the funeral business by selling his share of that to Anderson.

In 1950, C. Arthur’s son, Arthur G. (“Art”) Anderson, joined the business. In this new era, another service was offered — ambulance rides.

There were several private ambulance businesses in those days, including a couple others in Delta County also provided by funeral homes. There was Fubens Funeral and Ambulance Service that used modified station wagons in the mid-1940s, Allo Funeral Home’s ambulance service using a funeral coach, and the service Anderson provided from 1950 using a Chevrolet “ambulette” and a converted Chrysler station wagon.

Also in 1950, ground was broken on a new, purpose-built funeral home, which finally opened in early 1952, way on the western end of Ludington Street.

“The buzz in the town was that Anderson Funeral Home probably going to go out of business because they built too far out of town,” said current co-owner Keith Anderson, Art’s son.

Well, the townsfolk were mistaken — that concrete-and-brick building is where the business still operates, and the highway relocated right next to it.

in 1960, Anderson sold their ambulette vehicles and equipment to Kemp Sabourin, who provided ambulance services to Delta County for about another eight years before selling to Jim Schwalbach, who named it City Ambulance.

The three-story Anderson Funeral Home at 2200 Ludington St. has undergone some renovations. What used to be the ambulance garage is now the fellowship area, with a kitchen and dining room for luncheons.

In 1965, Anderson Funeral Home expanded into Gladstone with the purchase of Kelly Funeral Home at 903 Wisconsin Ave. from Gordon Kelly, who was retiring. Kelly had purchased the business in 1943 from Art and Noble Swenson, who had purchased their father’s business — Swenson Brothers Furniture and Undertaking Co. — which had been established in 1887. Under the Swensons, the service had operated on first Superior and then Delta Avenue; it was Kelly who moved the funeral home to where Anderson continues to operate today.

In the 1980s, Art Anderson’s sons joined the family business — first Chris and then Keith. Chris’s daughter Christina stepped aboard in 2006.

Funeral Director Joshua Gatiss is another key player in the business. Funeral directors take active roles in helping families navigate all sorts of plans.

A couple years ago, Keith’s wife, Lisa Anderson, began to act as business manager. She also handles a lot of pre-planning funeral arrangements, which is more popular than it used to be.

Pre-planning is a way for people to make sure their wishes are met without putting the burden on a grieving family, the Andersons explained. A person may pick out their own tombstone, specify what type of flowers they’d like, and direct on what they definitely don’t want.

“It just kind of personalizes it even more. And that’s what makes it special, is when all those pieces come together,” Lisa said. “Because it’s not an easy situation, no matter what the age. But it has to be special.”

Personalization in a number of ways has made funerals more unique in recent years.

“There’s many options that people have, such as cremation, green burial… Back when Grandpa started, when a person passed, everyone had a traditional funeral,” Keith said.

Clientele come from a number of different faiths, and more and more people don’t practice religion at all. So while many funerals are still somber and presided over by a priest, a number of others take the form of a “celebration of life.” People dress more casually and bring in items that reflect the deceased’s unique hobbies and passions.

For military funerals, delegates from the various branches come to pay their respects. The 21-gun salute takes place right outside double doors on the eastern side of the Escanaba funeral home.

Funeral homes today feature television screens to display digital photos that family members provide, and Anderson even goes a step further to put video slide shows next to obituaries on their website.

“If you’re in, say, California and your aunt passes and you can’t be here, you can read her obituary and underneath is her video tribute,” Keith said.

Another thing that has changed is that more people die at home these days, because hospice has made it possible for the ill to remain in their own environments rather than spend their last days in a hospital.

Anderson Funeral Home is always on call — they go to people’s homes at 2 a.m. if that’s when they’re needed.

Part-time and support staff also enables the business to run smoothly.