Lakewood Lore

McGorray Funeral Home continues family tradition

McGorray Bros., founded by Mark McGorray in 1873, is the oldest Lakewood funeral business whose single family identification has continued since its inception.

"When my great-grandfather, Mark, started at 3040 Lorain Ave. on Cleveland's West Side, we were primarily a livery stable," said James W. (Jim) McGorray III, who has operated the company for the last 22 years.

"In the early days, it was not unusual for undertaking to be tied in with either a livery or a furniture store," he explained.

After founder Mark McGorray's sons, James W. I and Joseph, came of age, they joined the business. Following their father's death in 1891, they became the brothers in the McGorray Bros. company name. Joseph also served as sheriff when famed Tom L. Johnson was mayor of Cleveland.

"Our first hearses were horse-drawn," Jim III pointed out. "Late in the last century, funeral street cars were interduced, and then came the automobile.

"Early limos that found their way into the funeral business -- Packards, Pierce-Arrows and Cadillacs -- were often cars that had been once owned by wealthy families."

About 1919, McGorray's bought the first motorized hearse in the Cleveland area and eventually grew to become the most prominent Catholic-oriented funeral home on the West Side.

"Friends sometimes used to chide us by referring to Calvary Cemetery as McGorray's Farms," Jim recalled.

The third generation of McGorray ownership came on the management scene after James II, father of the current owner, returned from fighting in France as a doughboy in World War I.

Veteran James II moved his family from the West Side to Lakewood's Wilbert Road in the early '20s, and in 1934 opened a branch office at the current business location on Detroit at Robinwood.

In 1960, the original building on Lorain was sold and both operations were consolidated in Lakewood. The parlor here, built in 1907, was once the home of the William Buse family. Buse was a well-known restaurateur in downtown Cleveland's former Taylor Arcade.

Current owner Jim III has headed the business since the death of his father at age 76 in 1968. Today's Jim was graduated from Lakewood's St. Augustine Academy in 1937 when it was a co-educational school. He later went on to St. Ignatius High and John Carroll University before serving as a sergeant overseas in World War II.

Jim, 66, married Mary Kathleen Bixler, a native Lakewoodite, in 1949. The couple have seven children and two grandchildren. Daughter Mary Susan is now a licensed funeral director working with her father.

Other staffers are funeral director Gilbert (Gil) Hanna, who has been with McGorray's for 35 years, and Gregory Hayden and Michael Alten, both of whom are embalmers as well as directors.

Jim, a past president of the Cuyahoga County Funeral Directors, has seen many changes in the business. Perhaps the biggest was the shift from private homes to funeral parlors for viewing, which started back in the '30s.

"Visitation periods have changed, too," Jim noted. "They used to be at least three days. Now they are down to structured hours."

This article appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post May 31, 1990. Reprinted with permission.

[Note: Mr. McGorray passed away in 1994. His obituary appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer December 20, 1994 and in the Lakewood Sun Post December 29, 1994]

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