Neenah Library, in conjunction with the Neenah Historical Society, usually puts on a history program every month either in person or virtual. I've been to a couple of them in the past. My favorite being the Dairy Queen one. When I saw they were doing one on the funeral homes for Halloween, I thought it was worth checking out. The hubby wished he could have gone but he was busy doing volleyball.
An employee from Kessler Funeral Home who also worked at the Historical Society was the presenter. She put together a very nice presentation but I felt like it as missing something.
We learned about the history of funeral homes in the area. One of the things I found interesting was that furniture stores used to sell the caskets in the 1800s and early 1900s. It makes sense since they were also building wooden furniture why not sell wooden caskets.
In 1893 there were three undertaking services in Neenah and two in Menasha. All of them would change names through the years but there are still two left between Neenah and Menasha.
The Laemerrich Funeral Home in Menasha not only provided funeral services but they also created the altar and other carvings for St. Mary's Church in Menasha.
The other piece of history of the Laemmerich Family was their Nativity Scene. For many years, the Laemmerich Family would display the hand carved Nativity scene along with Christmas trees outside the funeral home. Once the funeral home was sold, the nativity scene was donated to St. Patrick's Church in Menasha and you can see it as you drive by on Doty Island every Christmas.
That was probably the most interesting part of the program. There was also the history of the Heuer Funeral home in Neenah which later became Westgors.
The other funeral home from 1893 that is still around is the Sorenson and Sons. Several moves and name changes later, Sorenson and Sons is now known as Kessler-Fahrengrug Funeral Home.
Like I said it was interesting but could have been a whole lot more. I was hoping for more stories about growing up in a funeral home and other strange and bizarre tales. It was pretty cut and dry. A little humor but none of the really good details of the funeral business that I wanted to know. Maybe I just hung out with Stacy too long and heard her tales from her childhood.
If you want to watch the whole presentation, you can check out the Neenah Historical Society You Tube page and hopefully it will be uploaded soon. Past programs are available. I might have to go watch the ones I missed. Hopefully I will be able to attend the one in January. No topic is given yet so hopefully it is something interesting.
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