Embedded Files
INTERVIEW WITH NORMA, DICK AND DAN TOBIAS
I’m Joyce Grabill with the Belmont Historic Society. It’s February 10, 2000, and today I’m visiting with Norma Tobias and her sons, Dick and Dan. Also with me today is Ed Back, and the cameraman is Clarence Jones.
Joyce: Alright. So glad to be here! So tell me where we are here today.
Norma: Well, this is Sterling House…out there is Sterling House, and it’s 3839 Indiana Ripple Road. We have 42 apartments here; some of them have two people, but most of them are one. It’s a small place. We have this square, closed courtyard out here, and the building is built around it. There are only two entrances – one right here, and at the opposite end of the building. It’s private; no one can enter unless they come through the building.
Joyce: It’s very lovely.
Norma: It’s quiet; you don’t hear much traffic back here.
Joyce: It’s a nice big home. How long have you been here?
T: I think it will be two years in August.
Dick: Sounds good to me, Mom.
Norma: I know I came on August 10, but I can’t remember the year. (chuckle) But I think it’ll be two years. It had only been opened a short time before I came.
Joyce: You were one of the first ones then.
Norma: Well, not the first one, but I think there were about three people here.
Dick: You’re a homesteader. You’re a homesteader.
Joyce: She put down her roots here. Well, it’s hard, and I’ll explain when we talk to people, it’s hard to separate their lives and their businesses. So that’s why I gave these two sons a special invitation to come along. Otherwise, Norma, it would just be you and I. But we need all the input we can get, so you can start and tell us where you were born, all about Lamar, and how you met.
Norma: Well, we were all born here.
Joyce: In this area.
Norma: Yes. Well Lamar was born in Greene County, I think. Isn’t that right?
Dick: Just across County Line Road.
Norma: Oh, yeah, back where the picture show was.
Dick: One side was Greene County, and the other side was Montgomery.
Norma: By the Belmont Drive-In. There was a house there. I think they tore that house down.
Dick: No, I believe it’s still there, Mom.
Joyce: Was that the Tobias farm?
Dick: No. No, Grandpa and Grandma rented that. I don’t even think they farmed it. Grandpa was an electrician. He worked at Dayton Power & light, then started in business for himself. But that was back when there were eight children in the family. Dad was the oldest, and they didn’t live there that long. They moved several different times into Belmont. Hazel Avenue was one.
Norma: His dad was an electrician, and he was very good. He did a lot of the electrical work in the Belmont United Methodist Church.
Dick: …Watervliet Avenue.
Joyce: He did? The first one, the old church?
Norma: No, the new one. And the building…oh, what do they call that building?
Joyce: Like an education building?
Norma: Yes.
Joyce: So, let’s get back to talking about Lamar. What were his parent’s names?
Dick: Howard was his father; Laurelle was his mother.
Joyce: What was her maiden name?
Dick: Grandma…was Clark. She was from around Springfield. We used to go to that Clark Reunion.
Joyce: What was the relation with the other Tobias farm? There’s a big Tobias barn at Beavercreek.
Norma: I think they were relation, but I don’t know.
Dick: That's a distant relation. I don’t know whether that was Sam Tobias who was a well-known gunsmith out on Beaver Valley Road years and years ago. He had several sons – one’s name was Richard L., like mine. (chuckle) He’s a professor, or was, a college professor over in…
Norma: California, I think.
Dick: Well, I forget where he is now, Mom. He’s probably retired now.
Joyce: Then, so the whole family moved into Belmont then, from off of County Line Road? The Tobias family?
Dick: Yeah, but I don’t know how many were in that family then. Dad was the oldest of eight children. Now I know not all of them were born there because Uncle Bob, the youngest, is around my age.
Joyce: Where did they move to when they came into Belmont?
Dick: Ah, I don’t know whether they moved onto Hazel Avenue. They did live on Hazel Avenue at one time. They lived at one time on Smithville Road right across from Belmont School, the red school house. Then they lived on Watervliet Avenue, almost the corner of Bellaire and Watervliet.
Joyce: So we’re talking in the years what, 19…
Dick: Oh, when I’m talking about Elmont, Watervliet and Smithville, I’m talking the 40s or real late 30s.
Joyce: But your dad had moved in much earlier, much earlier.
Norma: Yes, as a young boy. We were married in 1930.
Dick: Yeah, I’m saying in ’39 or around there; maybe that’s when they lived on Smithville. Well, they lived on Nordale Avenue, too.
Joyce: This is very typical.
Dick: Right next to Kricks.
Norma: They used that afterwards for a parsonage.
Dick: And Starling Good. They lived right between Starling Good and Krick on Nordale. I almost forgot that one.
Joyce: So where were you born?
Norma: I was born in Dayton…on Monument Street in the east end. I lived there until around age 13 when the doctor told my mother that if she didn’t get out of town, she’d be gone in two months’ time. So my father took us to DeGraff, Ohio, and we were there 18 months. She did not like it and could not feel at home there, so we had to come back. The funny thing was, the house my father bought in DeGraff had been the house that Howard Tobias was born in!
Joyce: Incredible.
Dick: I took Mom up there awhile back and the house was still there.
Norma: It was over 100 years old then. Put together with wooden pegs, and my father said the foundation was three feet thick. He wanted to add a room onto. He made a furnace room, and that was it. (chuckle)
Joyce: Oh, that’s right, because there was no connection then with the Tobiases. What was your maiden name?
Norma: Pfoutz
Joyce: Fouts…
Norma: P-f-o-u-t-z
Joyce: Oh, the German way.
Norma: No, that’s Swiss.
Joyce: So when you moved back from DeGraff, where did you go?
Norma: Came right back to the same house I was born in.
Dick: 45 South Monument.
Norma: Then I finished school at Stivers, then went into training at Miami Valley, and I met Lamar. I worked in the Receiving Ward and in the Emergency Ward, and he would come in with an ambulance every so often.
Joyce: So had he started his business? Or what was he doing at the time?
Norma: He was working for Bill Roberts. They had an ambulance service, and so he would come in. And whenever he came in the hospital, somebody would come and tell me. Everybody in the hospital knew that was my best boyfriend. Whenever he came…
Joyce: You’d leave your post and…
Norma: The head nurse would say, “hurry, or you won’t get there in time.”
Dick: Want to hear something strange? That’s where I met my wife too.
Joyce: In the…
Dick: In the Emergency Room. She was in nurse’s training.
Joyce: Isn’t that wonderful?
Dick: Forty-three years ago, or whatever. Like father, like son. Or, like son, like father! (laugh) Same hospital.
Joyce: Tell them the story that you told Julia. My daughter is a graduate also of the nursing school, and she and Norma were talking, and…what was it about…Lamar would come to….or would come to see you afterwards? What would you tell him…to meet you someplace else?
Norma: Oh, the nurses’ home! When you were in training, you lived in the nurses’ home. No matter if your home was in Dayton or not, you lived in the nurses’ home. So, of course I had to move into the nurses’ home then. And a couple of times when they called me to the phone, by the time I got there, there was another girl on the phone, and it was my call. So, I thought “uh-oh”, I knew what was going on. So I didn’t say anything to anybody, but when Lamar would call me I’d say, “Don’t drive up to the Nurses’ home. You park your car down the street, and I’ll walk down to the car.” “But,” I said, “don’t come up to the nurses’ home.” Well, he was a real good-looking man, you know, and all the girls up there were crazy about him. One of them even said to me, “How in the world did you get a date with that fella?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know.” And she said, “Well, don’t you know that everybody up here’s been trying to get a date out of that fella? And when he does flop, he flops for somebody like you.” (laughs)
Joyce: He was smart. He knew…he knew.
Norma: So you know why I had to keep him from coming up there. Self-preservation is the first law.
Joyce: You did a good job.
Norma: Oh dear, we laughed about that a lot. (chuckle)
Joyce: A handsome couple then…a handsome couple.
Norma: We had a lot of fun.
Joyce: So, where were you married? Was there a special church?
Norma: My home.
Joyce: In your home.
Norma: Mmmm-hmmm.
Joyce: What was the year?
Norma: It was October 18, 1930, and just before 8:00. You have to get married while the hands are going up.
Joyce: Who was in your wedding? Was there someone…
Norma: Just…it was private. Just the family. Russell stood up with Lamar, and my sister Ruth stood up with me. Russ, of course, isn’t living anymore, and my sister lives in a nursing home after a massive stroke.
Joyce: How is she?
Norma: She knows us when she sees us, but she’s bedfast.
Joyce: It’s hard.
Joyce: Can you tell me, what brought you to…oh, you say Lamar was already working for Mr. Roberts in Belmont?
Norma: Yes. By that time, I only had a little while to finish before I would be through with my course. Except, I was sick a couple of times, and if you miss a day, you make it up. So I had some time to make up. He wanted to get married right away. I said “no.” I said, “I spent three years trying to learn how to do this. Now I’m going to do it for a year.” (chuckle) “Then I’ll get married.” But I didn’t work steady a year. I wasn’t able to.
Joyce: Where did you live after you were married?
Norma: We found a house, a half of a double, on Wayne Avenue. 3512…it’s out in Belmont and, ah…We lived there then until after Dick was born. It was a two-story house, and the doctor said I had to be all on one floor. So my sister was living in this little house on the corner of Holly and Wyoming, and since it was the Depression, her husband lost his job and got another one in Buffalo. So they moved up there. They were such good friends with their landlord, they were able to get the house for us then. So we lived there until we moved into the funeral home. About 7 or 8 years.
Joyce: Was that a regular house in Belmont?
Norma: Yes: Who owned that home? Who did you buy it froNorma:
Dick: Woodalls. Alma?
Norma: No. Miami Valley Hospital owned the house.
Dick: Well, it would have been the Woodall residence before Miami Valley either inherited it, or whatever, from the Woodall family.
Norma: I think the family willed it to Miami Valley Hospital.
Dick: Starling Good had it listed. It was originally the Woodhall or Woodall…Mom, do you remember?
Norma: I don’t really know.
Joyce: We were speaking of the original Tobias Funeral Home which was a home on the northwest corner of Fauver and Watervliet. So you were saying you probably think that maybe the Woodalls might have built it?
Dick: I know they owned it…the Woodalls. And then Starling Good was the realtor. He belonged to Belmont Church. He knew a lot of them. Dad was looking for a place, and Starling told Dad, “Well what’s the matter with that Woodall placed over there?” And Dad said, “I never even thought about it.”
Joyce: So what would that date be then?
Dick: Well, that probably was 1940. It was early in the year of 1941.
Norma: It was in the spring. He had one more month in school. And I didn’t want to take him out until he finished school. I told them that if they’d let him finish the year out, I personally would take him to school every day on the bus. And I’d come after him. They wouldn’t let him stay. He had one month to do in the third grade.
Joyce: When was your brother born?
Dick: Which one? Dave. I’m the oldest. Dave, he was born in 1936. He is 4 years younger.
Joyce: So you said that probably the Woodalls maybe deeded that property to Miami Valley Hospital?
Dick: I don’t remember…it was tied up with Miami Valley Hospital in some manner. I don’t know whether it might have been willed to the hospital or if they might have purchased the land, or the place, and then…I don’t remember.
Joyce: So where did Lamar take his training?
Norma: Cincinnati. Cincinnati College of Embalming. It has a very good school with a wonderful reputation.
Joyce: It’s been around many, many years.
Norma: Everybody around here thinks that’s the best there is.
Joyce: That’s good to know. And you mentioned Mr. Robert. Ed, did you have a question about that?
EDick: Yeah. Roberts was our family funeral director.
Joyce: And you’re admitting it sitting here in this room? (chuckle)
Norma: I won’t permit them to hurt you. (laughs)
EDick: He was distantly related by marriage. And he lived on Watervliet. Did he ever have his funeral business on Watervliet?
Dick: No, but there was a funeral home next door to where we are now. Dr. Boles’ house? It was somebody from down around Bellbrook, I think. Dad said he was only there a very few months, and he only knew he had a funeral home.
Joyce: I think it was the name Boles because across the street was Dr. Werner.
Dick: Werner, yeah.
Joyce: And Marjorie Werner told me about a man across the street.
Dick: And Bill Roberts lived right next door, see, to Werners. Directly across from us.
Joyce: Then where was his business?
Norma: Brown and Magnolia.
Dick: Down on Brown. 921 Brown Street…corner of Brown and Magnolia, right below Miami Valley Hospital.
EDick: Yeah, my uncle told me that he had had his business there, but then the zoning changed so, ah, he couldn’t have it there anymore.
Joyce: In Belmont? But evidently he didn’t then. It was Mr. Boles then you were probably thinking about.
Dick: Doc Boles had his office there. He was a chiropractor.
Joyce: Oh, I see.
Dick: The big red house that they moved down at the end there…the Herron house…I told you, the next one left. They moved most of those houses…bit two-story, two-and-a-half story houses.
Joyce: They moved them.
Dick: Yeah, and then they built the Kroger store there.
Joyce: And where did they move the houses to?
Dick: Right at the end of the parking lot, there’s a big red house. You can see it right now, still red, or did they side that? I don’t know. I’ll have to look.
Joyce: At the end of Fauver?
Dick: At the very end…behind the bank. And behind where the (unintelligible) center is, used to be Krogers. Right at the end, there’s a big house there. And across the street from it, oh, up maybe one or two houses from the curb, there’s a great bit two- or two-and-a-half story house. It was west of that house on Watervliet. Herrons owned it. (unintelligible) Doctor MacCauley’s house was the…or office…was the last house. Then there was the Herron house. But there was a lot of ground there. Used to be a big fruit orchard back in there. Went clear down. We can see when you go back in that parking lot how the properties on Watervliet used to go back so far, then…see the size of that place. And all that orchard…
Norma: Herrons’ house, they were the second house from the corner on Watervliet.
Dick: Ah, our house, Boles house, MacCauley…
J?Norma: Mundale. From Mundale.
Norma: MacCauley was about in the middle of the square.
Joyce: We don’t have any names yet, do we, on those houses?
EDick: On Mundale?
Joyce: Did you have them up to Mundale?
Dick: Well, this was back when.
EDick: No. I did all businesses.
Dick: When was the grocery store built? I’ll tell you one thing about it. Remember Johnny? From Philip Morris Cigarettes? That little midget guy?
Joyce: He came?
Dick: When they opened that Kroger store, he was there. And I talked to him out front of the funeral home where they got that wall, that stone wall? I don’t know, whatever year that was, and he was out there. He was just a little guy. I was like a giant compared to him. Had that little funny hat on. “Call for Philip…” (chuckle).
Joyce: So that was Kroger?
Dick: Yeah, Kroger. “CALL FOR PHILIP MORRIS”, or something like that. (chuckle)
Joyce: (to Dan) Aren’t you happy that your brother can remember all that?
Dan: Yeah, that was good. (laughs)
Joyce: Well, let me think now because I go off on tangents here. I think, ah, that we caught up. You’ve had the two boys. You moved into the funeral…into the house, and he started his work there. And then, ah…
Norma: Danny was born.
Joyce: Dan was born. What year was that?
Dick: 1946.
Norma: Ten years difference between Danny and, ah, Dave.
Joyce: Can you remember, all I can remember is a story that my uncle who did the bricklaying, Richard Roehm…said that he remembers talking to Lamar, and at the beginning your father said… (Interrupted by vacuuming off-camera) They don’t realize it.
Dick: Well, at least they’re clean. (laughs)
Joyce: Oh, we’ve had sweepers practically coming in front of us. Oh, we’ve had a lot of interesting things happen. We had, one time, the person we were interviewing left. She said, “I’m going to go get something.” And so she went and got it and she came back. I think that was Vivian King, wasn’t it? So the story continues that your father had just started the business, and I guess he was enlarging it. So my uncle was putting this enlargement on, and it was a big job, and I think my uncle was overwhelmed. And your father said, “You have to continue. You can’t stop now.”
Norma: You can do it.
Joyce: You can do it. So then your dad said, “Dick, if I get two funerals a month, I break even.” Isn’t that incredible? That’s what he needed to keep it going.
Norma: And he let me put two bricks in that wall. The part that’s the garage now.
Dick: Dick was the bricklayer. Guy Herron was the contractor.
Joyce: Oh, that was Guy Herron.
Dick: Guy did all the woodwork in there.
Norma: But I don’t think Guy was living when we put the garage up.
Dick: No, Mom. We’re talking about the Fauver Avenue part.
Joyce: It’s that extension that comes out?
Dick: Yeah, Johnny Dresbach did the garage. Er, no, Guy Herron did the garage? The original garage. Then Johnny Dresbach put the garage on after…
Joyce: Well, you know, while we’re on this subject, let’s go into the business a little bit. Then we’ll backtrack and come back so I can get some things you remember from Belmont…the church and things. Can you gentlemen tell me, ah, like what were your years that you had your best growth, or when you decided to do…what was your first…?
Dick: First year, they did 32 funerals.
Joyce: Oh, okay.
Dick: And everybody predicted he’d never make it. (chuckle) And he helped other funeral homes around that needed help, you know. And he did make it.
EDick: Was this in 1941?
Dick: It would have been a little later than ’41, wasn’t it? I’ll say ’44…’43, somewhere…the leaner years by far.
Norma: Well, Danny was born in ’46.
Dick: That’s when he felt out of bed, wasn’t it?
Norma: Dave fell out of bed.
Joyce: What happened to him?
Dick: Oh, they had a service going on…a Knights service or Eastern Star, or whatever. And our bedrooms were upstairs. Dave or Dan, one of them fell out of bed.
Norma: It was Dave.
Dick: Big kaboom! (laugh)
Norma: And everybody knew what it was. We just had to say “Dave fell out of bed!” (laughs)
Joyce: Tell me about, what was the first extra? I mean when you enlarged [the funeral home]. Where did you go first, toward Beavertown…er, Beavercreek? Was that the first?
Dick: No. The first extension was west. We always call it the Kroger chapel…on the west side.
Joyce: Where was that located? No, I mean when you actually built another building.
Norma: Oh, that was Beavercreek.
Dick: Oh, Beavercreek. In ’76, yeah. I thought you meant the additions to Belmont. There have been about three or four.
Norma: I was after my mother and father died, and that’s where the money came from to build that.
Dick: Well, it was ’49 I think, Mom, wasn’t it? Or was that…
Norma: I think you were about 12 or 13 years old, weren’t you?
Dick: I think I was older than that, Mom. It was 1949. I went into the Marine Corp around 1950…er, no I graduated in ’50. The first addition was the west side Kroger room. The one Uncle Dick made was a two-story addition with the buff-colored brick.
Norma: And I got to put two bricks in.
Dick: And then they built the garage on the back. Two different garages were added, but they’re all in one. And then the one was converted, you know, later, into a chapel, and they built another. Those were eight-car garages.
Joyce: So then, so your business then, the biggest boom was in the ‘50s and ‘60s? Increased…
Norma: Gradually every year.
Joyce: Gradually every year?
Dick: Every year. Gradually, yeah.
Joyce: Was there any reason that you decided to go to Beavercreek?
Norma: That was Lamar’s dream, to build a funeral home from the ground up. But see, we didn’t have the ground or anything.
Dick: We did a lot of business. There’s nothing between Belmont and Xenia really.
Joyce: I see.
Dick: And there’s a lot of people out of that area, so it was feasible.
Joyce: It was logical. Yes.
Dick: And Belmont wouldn’t handle it. We had gone to the limit in Belmont as far as adding on, or whatever.
Joyce: So what was the date of the Beavercreek one?
Dick: ’76.
Dick: 1976. The coldest day of the year, we had our grand opening. (laugh). Twenty below zero.
Dan: We had like, what, 200 people there?
Dick: We had people standing in line.
Dan: It was amazing.
Dick: We had it for two days, didn’t we? Saturday and Sunday.
Norma: Yes.
Dick: And we also had to open it up early. Dad said, “We got eight or nine death calls. I won’t open it. We can’t open it.” I said, “Dad, we’re going to have to do something. We have to.” We called the city fathers, and they gave us the permit. Remember, Mom?
Norma: (shaking her head) No, I don’t remember that.
Dick: When we opened the first time, we had five bodies laid out the first time we ever laid anybody out.
Joyce: Oh, my lands. Was it something to do with the cold, do you think?
Dick: No, it was just, you know, sporadic. You can go for two days and nothing happens, then sometimes you can get eight or ten deaths overnight.
Norma: One time we got three calls in an hour, in three different directions of town.
Dick: It’s crazy.
Norma: and I was on the telephone, and I wondered, how am I going to get people to go three different directions at the same time?
Dick: Back then, it was kind of slim pickings, you know, because during a war there wasn’t anybody there. My grandpa, my dad’s dad. Me, I was young. Then we had an ambulance, too, on top of all that.
Norma: Our friend would come and help us out.
Dick: Yeah, like…
Dan: Freddie Gardner.
Dick: Freddie Gardner helped, and…
Norma: And Bob Spangenberg, and Chuck….mmm-hmmm.
Dick: And Uncle Harold.
Joyce: I can see, then, because of the labor…It’s very labor intensive. Because you have people going out, and you have people working.
Dick: There wasn’t anybody to work really other than, like, Dad and…
Norma: I did everything, but conduct the funeral, or drive the funeral coach, or embalm. I did everything but that. (chuckle)
Joyce: That’s what wives are for.
Dick: Mom and I used, when I’d get home from school, we used to work. We’d have to move flowers. We’d have to…
Norma: I remember the first time that I was alone, and a whole couple of truckloads of flowers came, and I had to arrange them. And I had never even tried to do it or paid much attention to how to do it. I was doing other things. And I thought, well I have to get these flowers up because people will be coming in. So I fixed them, and Starling Good came in and he said, ah, “Well”, he said, “I’ll help you, but I think we ought to change these a little bit.” So he changed the ones I put in and fixed them different, and Lamar came home and he took one look at it, and he said, “I hate to tell you this. There isn’t one that’s right.” They all had to be changed. (laughs)
Dick: Oh, Starling Good helped a lot too.
Joyce: Was Starling there to hear that?
Norma: No, he waited until Starling was gone. I sat down and cried.
Joyce: You didn’t know, though.
Norma: No, but the time came, a lot of times when I would arrange flowers or he was arranging them, and he’d say “Come and help me”, and “Where do you think this would look better?”. I think he did that just so I wouldn’t remember what he said the first time.
Dick: I remember one time, I don’t know what year it was, we always put the Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve. We put the Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve and then we took her down Christmas morning. We got so busy, we had to take the tree down so they could put the bodies where we had our tree. (laughs)
Joyce: You don’t realize, people don’t realize, in every profession all of the backstage things and whatnot, and particularly how all of the families had to help in the very beginning.
Dick: Oh, yeah. That’s what made it what it is. But, boy, today it’s a whole different story.
Norma: Everybody was interested in helping us. We never had anybody refuse to help us.
Dick: Look how many people we helped. Dad, he’d get called out to help Bill Roberts. After he left there, he went back there and did a lot of their embalming for them, you know. Bud, I don’t know whether Bud was out of school yet or not. And they helped each other. They’d call up somebody and say “we need a car”, and Dad had that ’39 Plymouth, and he’d take it and help some funeral home, and he’d need help or he’d call, and they’d be right there, or whatever.
Norma: After we got to going good and Lamar was beginning to be well known…I’m not going to tell who they were…but there were two or three different funeral directors in the City of Dayton who came to see me one time when Lamar wasn’t home. They said, “We want to see you, not him.” They wanted to try to talk me into leaving and going to their place, and they thought that if they could get me to like it and go, he’d go. I said I wouldn’t do anything like that. I said no. I wouldn’t be a part of that.
Dick: I know who they are, Mom. I’m not saying anything. (laugh)
Joyce: But they knew that you knew the business.
Norma: It made me mad for one thing. When I’m mad, I guess I get unreasonable. (smile)
Dick: I’ll tell you what Dad said one time, and it’s still true today. Never worry about why you didn’t get somebody that passed away, even though you might have known them. You worry about the ones you do have, because if you spend time worrying about that one, you’re taking away from the ones that need you. He said there’s always a good reason. You may not understand why, but eventually you’ll probably understand or find out. If you don’t, so you don’t. That was always his philosophy, and mine too, really. You might wonder, you know, but there’s always a reason.
Joyce: There’s always a reason. But I think ‘Tobias’ to most people still means such a family connection.
Dick: Well, there’s a lot of them today that aren’t family. And that’s a trend across the United States. Conglomerates are moving in. That’s not good. That’s not good. We didn’t try to become big. We grew because of the service we provided and our work and…so I understand. That’s what people have told us. Dad would never want, if he came back today and saw what it became, he’d probably drop over…again. It was never…his idea was to take care of people’s needs.
Joyce: Yes, and not…
Dick: Irregardless, you know.
Norma: He always was concerned about everybody, no matter what was going on. I know one time, one Christmas, we were there. And there was a family of five people. And they stayed and stayed and stayed. And, of course, Lamar never told them to go. They could stay as long as they wanted to. So we went upstairs and we had our dinner, and I had the dishes all washed and put away. And pretty soon he came upstairs and he said, “You know what?” He said, “Those people downstairs haven’t had a thing to eat, and” he said, “there’s no place open around here. And he said, “I told them they could come upstairs and we would give them something to eat.” I thought, well alright, if they’re satisfied with what we have to eat. I thought afterwards, it was a good thing they didn’t come up when we were first there. I don’t know if I’d have had enough dishes to go around (chuckle) to feed their family and our family at the same time, because we only had a small table, you know. I thought afterwards, well, the good Lord stood by me when I needed Him.
Dick: Tell them, Mom, about you and the dog, about how many funerals you and the dog used to attend. You and Dukey.
M; Well, whenever we had someone that nobody was there, why, I always went to the funeral, and the dog…
Joyce: That’s wonderful.
Norma: I did. And that dog was crazy about Murn, too.
Joyce: This is Reverend Klepinger we’re talking about.
Norma: We’d sit in the front row, and Duke would sit beside me on the floor. He never moved a muscle. And then Murn would ask me what I would like for him to read, and I always told him the Twenty-Third Psalm. So he would read and talk a little bit, and that dog never moved a muscle until, when Murn was through, he got up and came over to me, and then the dog stood up. But we always went to the funeral.
Norma: Isn’t that wonderful? I just couldn’t stand it.
Dick: Well, you would say, “Well, why wouldn’t there be anyone at the funeral?” Well, here’s the situation. These were people that had no families or were disassociated…they were coroner’s cases. And the coroner would take turns. Alphabetically, he would call every funeral home. If they would accept…some of them would, some of them still don’t today. There’s not that many, but they would call here. They would have this body. Generally it was some type of tragedy case, or whatever. And sometimes there were people who were out of town, or they didn’t even know where they were.
Norma: I just couldn’t stand not to have anybody there.
Dick: So that’s how Mom got involved with that…with nobody coming and you say, well that’s strange. How do you get a body like that and then nobody’s there?
Joyce: Well, that’s wonderful.
Norma: I had a big basket of artificial flowers.
Joyce: So there would be flowers?
Norma: So there would be flowers. And then we’d keep it. But one time, some family thought it was theirs and took it home. (laughs)
Joyce: So the old tried and true basket disappeared. Oh, my!
Norma: There’s always something funny that happens at a funeral.
Joyce: I can imagine. I can imagine.
Norma: If you just watch for it.
Dick: It’s not a pleasant business in the respect of, you know, bad things happen, yet there’s a lot of humor in it.
Norma: There’s always something that happens.
Dick: Like, you know, they took the basket.
Joyce: You know, I think in dealing with it, you just have to realize the big circle…the big circle of life, and there’s humor in every part of it. So it just seems like in our death and in our passing with the families, I can imagine the stories.
Dick: I wish I’d written some of them down.
Joyce: They need to be written down.
Dick: There were some funny things. Oh, yeah.
Norma: All the funny questions people can think of to ask you! Usually I’m the one they’d ask. “Is it true that their hair will grow after they’re embalmed?” And “Does Lamar go down every week to the Mausoleum and take the casket out of the niche and dust it, and comb their hair if it needs combed?” (chuckle) I couldn’t believe some of the questions that people asked me. And I didn’t dare laugh because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but I couldn’t believe some of these questions. Imagine, taking the body out of the casket and brushing the clothes off and combing the hair. Can you imagine that?
Joyce: So, see, people would never even know people were asking those questions. But now, in your profession, has anyone ever compiled a book or story of things that happened?
Dick: I’ve got a lot of them in my head that I was personally involved with. Some of them you could tell, and some of them you couldn’t. I don’t know. Danny, you have a lot of things, too. I suppose everybody’s got them.
Dan: Everybody does, yeah. The more time goes on, the more you run into things, yeah.
Dick: I remember Dad telling stories about things. Well, I can tell one of them. I don’t know whether you want me to record this.
Joyce: Well, remember, I said we can edit anything out.
Dick: Well, this funeral director had a son. He didn’t speak plainly, he had a little speech impediment. He was a nice guy, but… But he had graduated from embalming school, and first thing out of the bag, he had this man that committed suicide. He put a gun in his mouth and then pulled the trigger, you know, not very pleasant. And in most cases, very little you can do with it. But his dad said, “Okay boy,” he said, “there you are.” He said, “Make things the way they’re supposed to be.” The boy did what he could do. Took it home…took the body home. Later on his dad said, “Oh, my God, it don’t look a thing like him.” He says, “Well, if it don’t look like him, then who in hell does it look like?” (laughs)
Joyce: That’s right.
Dick: But that’s the kind of thing that…And that other one, one time all the funeral directors up at…old Mr. Randall, up at (unintelligible), he’s a good friend of Dad’s and our family. He had a young man that drowned up there, and they recovered the body. Mr. VanHorn went over to pick it up. Mr. VanHorn…you’d get in there, you'd never get out. He was kind of a heavy-set man, always wore a big pair of suspenders, you know. He’d sit behind the desk, and he’d just love to tell stories. You’d go up there, and Dad would say, “Now remember, he likes to talk, so don’t stay too long.” (chuckle) So I went up to get this young fella, and he says, “Dick”, he says, “we started this business”…he told me the year, he said “there’s another fella up the road here, this was back in the horse and buggy days,” he said, “we used to help each other out.” He said, “I helped him with this funeral.” He took the body home that day and opened up, and the woman said “Oh my goodness Mr. (whatever)” I forgot the guy’s name. “It doesn’t look a thing like him.” He said, “I’m going to tell you what Mrs. (whatever). I used the best chemicals I got. I did the best of my ability. He’s going to look like this until we bury him. So you get used to what he look like and we’ll shut the lid.” And she said, “Aw, just leave it open, he just looks fine.” (laughs)
Joyce: But anyway, I think I…Do you have any of your old hearses left?
Dick: Pictures.
Joyce: Just pictures of them? I was going to ask about that and, later on, to complete things, I’ll take some pictures and make some copies of them. And, ah, I just wanted to say this family, this is a wonderful family in Belmont. But there were a lot of connections with the Belmont Church…Lamar and all the kids. And ah, so now, do any of the boys…where do you live Dan?
Dan: I live in Beavercreek, not really very far from here.
Joyce: And you?
Dick: In Beavercreek.
Joyce: And then where’s David?
Dick: He’s down in…
Norma: Waynesville.
Dick: Well, it’s Waynesville Ambulance. Down off of…
Norma: Ferry Road.
Dick: Ferry Road. He says it only about 20 minutes from…
Joyce: Around Bellbrook is Ferry Road.
Dick: I don’t know. I think he has to speed to make it in 20 minutes.
Dan: Yeah, that’s on a good day with the wind blowing the right direction. (chuckle)
Joyce: Now is Dave in the business at all?
Dan: Yes.
Norma: He travels around a lot.
Joyce: A lot of people ask me about the Tobias [funeral home] in Bellbrook.
Norma: That’s Bill Tobias, Lamar’s brother.
Dick: Well, he’s not there anymore.
Joyce: Alright, we’re going to stop for this time. Thank you very much.
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