My interests sometimes run a bit toward the macabre.
As a hgh school freshman I fully intended to attend mortuary school but didn't.
As a church organist I've played for a ton of funerals, gotten to know a bunch of funeral directors and have even gone on a couple road trips with a hearse, with silent passenger.
Anyway, I'm just curious as these things seem to be scarce as hens' teeth.
I did get a model on ebay though.......
Dude, that's a "killer" model!
"gotten to know a bunch of funeral directors"
Craig, you most likely know a few of my relatives in Iola then.
Floyd
I sure do Floyd! And the Voies here are all doing fine.
But now it's Mark Peskie and Mark Olson.
The last time I went with Peskie to Wisconsin Memorial Park near Milwaukee I drove the hearse back.......
Danial, those 1/18th models (there is a BLACK one too) come up on ebay fairly often.......but you won't often get them for I what I paid......
Craig:
I have the same model, in standard Ford black. A gift from my present employer with whom I graduated AAMI back in 1973.
Bob Jablonski
We are currently working a TT for one of our clients. When it is done, I will post some pictures, but don't hold your breath.
If you search the forum through google you'll find some threads with pictures of hearses, so even if they're rare they do exist; http://alturl.com/onzmk http://alturl.com/cehrq
Thanks Roger but I have searched for T hearses. Interestingly almost every result links to THIS site.......
Andy......I look forward to seeing some pics! ANY pics......
There is a nice one on Put in Bay in the middle of Lake Erie. If I was smart enough to post pictures I would!
Craig, I have attempted to email you a picture of one in our SouthEast Iowa Antique Car Club owned by the Carvers. I sent it to a link on your company web site that started with "info@. . . " It is to large to put on this forum and I am not versed at reducing the sizes. If you don't get it, email me at hdaw01@hotmail.com and I will try sending it directly to you. The Hurst should be on display at the Old Threashers reunion at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa over labor day weekend.
YAY! I JUST received this photo in a email.......
He wrote: In response to your Model T Forum post on a Model T hearse, there is one in our club at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa owned by the Carvers. I am sure it will be on display at the upcoming Old Threshers over Labor Day weekend.
Is this forum great or what?
Glad you got it. And yes the Forum is terrific as long as we leave out E timers and what kind of oil to use and a few other things.
The vehicle is as nice as it looks. The reunion has trucks in a separate building next to the car building and that is where this usually is. As you can see by the running board, it is a big vehicle on a truck chassis.
There is a funeral home in Laurenburg N.C. that has a usable T hearse. I say usable because they used it for a very good friend who died and requested the use of the T. He was one of the founders of the HCCA region in N.C. The funeral home I believe is McDougle.
i think the correct Southern response to the model is...
Oh my. Doesn't it look natural!
A few years ago, I heard of one, and saw pictures of an unrestored TT hearse in the Spring (Houston, Texas) area. it was in fabulous condition for its age, needing only moderate mechanical and cosmetic restoration. If my memory serves me correct, it came from a small town in deep South Texas.
Steve.......that's the hallmark of a GOOD mortician........LOL
I don't know WHY but it would sure be fun to own a T hearse.......maybe use it for picking up dead T's on tours?.......
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/47640.html?1204204441
This was at Ford Carlisle 2011
This thread reminds me of something that I saw in a National Park campground many years ago but that for some reason, has stuck with me all these years and that I think of every time I see a hearse:
A fellow that looked like he was left over from the '60's had a very old and beat-up Cadillac hearse that he was using for a camper. He had a sign all across the bottom of the rear window that was neatly lettered in fancy white lettering that really stood out against the very morbid black curtains. The sign read,....and I quote:
"It takes a heap a' liv'n to make a hearse a home"!
Here is one that is on Put-In-Bay Island in Ohio.
There was an unrestored one at the Chico Concourse (Northern California) a few years ago, but I can't find my pics. I think it was on a car chassis, but can't swear by that!
T'
David D.
We have a local fellow here that has / had a 1913-14 ? Hearse it was in the photos on mtfca. Pretty cool car go take a look and see if it's still there.
I bet plenty are just dying to get a ride in that...
LOL just when I thought there wasn't much more obscure than the Model T hobby itself . . . Model T hearses.
I was trying to figure out why anyone would want one and what you'd do with it if you had one, but then I realized the black one from Mt. Pleasent would AWESOME to take kids trick-or-treating in!! Coolest trick-or-treating ride EVER.
The actual hearse is from somewhere in the Central Mass area and has been used in a few services for club members in that region - The second picture is how Mark Winkley was carried away - Mark was a long time member and T enthusiast from Ossipee, NH who passed away in 2008 at the age of 96. He was a regular on Maine tours to the end and drove his T just about everywhere. He is fondly remembered here...
On a Tour years ago in (Missouri I think) there was a white T hearse. It was on a standard chassis and was only long enough for a child's coffin which it had in the back.
I remember the women on the Tour were not very happy that it was there.
Yeah, the child's coffin would not have impressed me at all.
Making light of death is one thing, but dead kids is way over the top....... .......what the hell were they thinking?
Peter he came to all 3 Missouri (Fulton) tours w/that rig, and we saw him in Decorah Iowa Tour, but I think he has passed on, don't have any idea where the T is or the chlds coffn that was in it
Craig:
The showing or touring of an antique Hearse that was built for this specific dignified purpose, does not rise to the order of making light of death. Given that this display coffin did not contain a corpse, nor was the hearse dragging one behind it, please describe how it is that this owner has offended anybody who has not agree to be offended?
Regards,
Scott
I have to agree with William. I would not care to see a hearse with a child's coffin in it, but you have to remember it in the context of the times. No antibiotics or vaccines. Children died quite often in the 10's and 20's.
My one grandmother had 11 children and lost 3. The other grandmother had 15 and lost 1. It is hard to deal with the loss of a child, but it happens.
In the late 1920's my Father's high school and their arch rival used to take turns leaving a small casket in each others end zones the night before the rival football match.
One of our members living in Bray, Co. Wicklow, (the home town of Katie Taylor - Gold Medal winner at the Olympic Games in London last week) has restored a 1915 Model T Hearse and is occasionally brought out on one of our monthly rallies.
Irish Model T Ford Club
Dave, my great-grandparents had 11 children and only two lived to adulthood. They are buried in an unmaintained cemetery on private property in Palmyra IL. There are a number of small stones around their stone, although only two are visible in this photo. Some have names and ages in the 1-3 year range, others just say Infant Day. It was a different time, for sure.
The white hearse with the child's coffin that was at the Fulton tours may have been the one owned by Merlin Gasser of Wisconsin. I think that he passed away several years ago.
Jay you are correct Merlin Gasser made all 3 National tours, and I ran with him on several other tours
Many do not remember, or have read, about the flu epidemic of 1916-1919. In many rural cemeteries are headstones that tell of that period in history,,,, many infants and children died from the epidemic and many adults. Do not confuse these death dates as war time casualties.
There is a really good unrestored mid twenties TT Hearse in Alvaredo Tx. It belongs to Arrdeen V.
I read somewhere that when Henry Ford died that they couldn't find a Ford Hearse so had to use a Packard??
Seems like there were a few around, maybe they thought a Model T would get him of the grave so they opted not to use one!!!
Peter:
Professional cars were built on chassis supplied by Lincoln, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Packard, even Chevrolet.
Funeral homes in the Detroit area especially were sensitive to families who worked in the auto plants and tried to use a hearse, limousine or flower car built on a chassis of the deceased's former employ.
Henry indeed was brought to his resting place in a Packard chassied hearse, the hearse body probably made by Hesse & Eisenhardt, one of the top custom shops of the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBjDNu3zP1o
The fact that a Packard hearse was used for Henry Ford's funeral is neither here nor there.
Most hearses and ambulances that were available in and around Dearborn at the time of Henry Fords death were most likely Cadillacs, Buicks, Packards and Studebakers, the reason being those were the chassis that companies like Miller-Meteor and Henney were using to build professional cars.
If there were any hearses built on Ford chassis in the 1930s and 1940s, I doubt they were used in major metropolitan areas like Detroit. A funeral home would have much more class than that, especially one hired by the Ford family.
Frankly, it's really no different today where, excluding mini-van hearses, hearses seem to be mainly Cadillacs, Lincolns and Buicks.
Seems I was typing the same time Bob Jablonski added his post.
Bob and Erik,
As you both point out cars such as Packard, Buick etc would be far better as hearses having longer wheelbases and being classier no doubt.
The item I was refering to was a note David L Lewis a Ford Historian who had a regular column in "Car and Parts" magazine wrote that attempts were made to actually try and find a Ford Hearse for Henry Fords funeral as all the ones around Detroit were indeed Packards etc. They searched far and wide before the funeral but could not find any.
When he wrote that I wrote to David and sent photo's of several early Ford hearses that were in Australia. The president of our club at the time worked for a funeral home and they had always used Fords. David and I corresponded for several years and odd happenings that came up over here were conveyed to him for his column.
Having seen some of the Model T examples above I wonder if a Model T hearse would have been acceptable, I would have thought Henry would have approved of being taken to his final resting place by a Model T, maybe the family would'nt have been so keen??
This isn't a T hearse but WOW......what a beautiful thing!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Buick-Other-HEARSE-PRE-WAR-HEARSE-AMBULANCE-BUICK -CADILLAC-PACKARD-/221103889510?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item337ad19c66