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First Licensing The following scan is of the very first license issued to Gustave A. Miller, by the Department Board of Health, County of Lackawanna for Funeral Directing and Undertaking in Lackawanna County. In the upper left hand corner, although very much faded over 113 years, you can still make out the No. 1. There were absolutely no prerequisites to getting it other than already obtaining a Pennsylvania state license. A scan of our first state license follows. Today most people do not realize that prior to January 1, 1896 there were no requirements to conduct business as an Undertaker and/or Funeral Director. That is one of the reasons that throughout most of the United States, most of the older funeral homes have had, or still have a connection to a furniture manufacturer and/or livery service. They had the means to collect the body from the place of death, build a coffin and transport it to a cemetery. There were so many in the area. One in particular that comes to mind is Teeter's Furniture, Hawley, PA and Teeter's Funeral Home, Hawley, PA. Both to this day still thriving enterprises. Alternative methods to embalming of the body were used regarding preservation because very few knew the embalming process or had the equipment, and embalming was only used in extreme conditions and by those that knew the process. I have no concrete proof, but from I can piece together, my ancestors brought the know how with them from Germany. Which at the time was ahead of the USA regarding preparation of the dead for the purposes of having a Funeral Service with the body present. From what I can gather from handwritten notes of my ancestors, the sudden requirements for licensing by both The state government and local government was due to the outbreak of Diptheria sometime before. But I cannot be positive. I find over time that a lot of accessorial written notes were that of their own opinions. One thing that I learned very well over fifty years of reading old notes and descriptions is that, once a stubborn German had their minds made up it was very hard to change it.
The following scan is of our very first license issued to Gustave A. Miller by Pennsylvania State Board of Funeral Directors to practice Undertaking. It is No. 164.
I've had these documents forever and was really eager to post them on the website, but held off while trying to find out more information, and possibly get duplicates from both Lackawanna County and the state. Lackawanna County just basically laughed at me, in a very nice way, and said, 'Good luck, we can't find last years records.' I submitted the necessary fees for the state to research it and have heard nothing for over three years although I checked back several times. So I just decided to go with what I could put together. It would be nice to have corroboration, and although I came into the picture many years later I have no reason to doubt the notes and memos of the ancestors. |
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