Funeral Services
For a long while, funeral services were held in private homes, with families caring for their dead. This began to change during the Civil War when bodies began to be embalmed.
Family funeral businesses began to spring up in communities. Many of these families were already in woodworking businesses, building furniture and coffins on request, so it was a natural transition for them to expand into full-service funeral homes. They became known as undertakers, because they “undertook” the responsibility for all the funeral arrangements.
In Delano, in 1881, John Coolen on River Street monopolized the furniture trade. He had been in business for five years and had always done well. Besides furniture, he also dealt in coffins, caskets, and general undertaking.
The Delano Eagle, in 1893, promoted The Delano Furniture Co. It was composed of Messrs. N. K. Coffin and E. S. Babb, both of whom were first-class carpenters and cabinet workers. And, “while the undertaking business is not very rushing, as the country is so healthful that there is not a great deal of illness of death except from old age, yet they are fully prepared to meet any demands for this kinds of work.”
Newton Kimball Coffin and Elmer Sydney Babb are both enumerated in Delano on the 1895 census, occupation – furniture store. The families lived next door to each other. In 1900 they were still in Delano, occupations listed as carpenters. N K Newton was in Delano in 1905; E. S Babb had moved to Portland, Oregon. N K moved to Washington by 1910. Both continued as carpenters or in the building contracting business.
E. S. Redmond began a new livery stable in Delano in 1899. His ad included “Funerals Furnished Throughout” - “I have the only Undertaking Business in Delano and have always on hand a full line of Caskets and Trimmings. A Handsome New Hearse, Mourners’ Carriages, Etc. I take full charge of Funerals and am always ready.” He purchased the old Borsch store on the corner of River and Franklin , and moved it next to the Gilmer Hotel, with the intentions of occupying the upper rooms for a dwelling, and using the store as undertaking rooms. The Eagle reported in 1901 that E. Stacy Redmond had received word that he had passed a very satisfactory examination as an embalmer, one of only sixteen out of sixty applicants to do so.
When E. Stacy Redmond died in 1907, T. B. Rader bought his business. T. B. Rader dealt with the undertaking goods, but his wife, Mattie Belle (nee Murphy) Rader was the embalmer.The Delano Eagle reported in August of 1908 that “Mrs. T. B. Rader and Walter Tautges finished a course in embalming and funeral directing at the State University last week and are now waiting for their diplomas”
Walter M. Tautges was featured in The Great Northwest Magazine , Wright County Edition, in 1909 – “The subject of this sketch, Walter M. Taugtes, established in Delano three years ago as a licensed undertaker. He has fine parlors, 25x60, the equipment of which is equal if not superior to any undertaking parlors in this section of the country – including the only hearse in the city. In this undertaking department, may be found a full line of caskets. Mr. Taugtes has devoted considerable time and attention to mastering the art of embalming and has learned a method which is pronounced by professionals as being the nearest to perfection in existence. He is kind, affectionate and full of sympathy for those in distress and ever ready to administer consolation to the afflicted. He is a good, thoughtful man in the truest sense of the word”.
Walter Tautges was born August 4, 1886, in Medina, Hennepin County. In 1905 Walter was living in Delano, working as a livery man, but by 1910 he had established his own undertaking and embalming business. Walter married Ida .I Lohmiller Sept. 15, 1914. Walter continued as an undertaker in Delano until his death in 1925. His widow Ida carried on the business until 1930.
Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Boyce, operators of the Boyce Funeral Service in Delano and at Waverly, succeeded the Tautges Funeral Service in 1930. In the spring of 1941, the Peschek building was purchased by A. J. Boyce in which to house the Boyce Funeral Parlor. The Pescheck building was on River Street adjoining the Stein barber shop, and across from the current (2021) location of Delano Floral and Gifts.
They maintained a dignified funeral chapel on River Street where their display room was also located. In 1946 the Boyce Funeral Service made plans to build a Funeral Home on Third Street and Elm Avenue, where the parking problem would not be as difficult as it was in their downtown location.
These photos are from the Tautges River Street chapel, as published in the “Mainstreet” special edition of the Eagle in 1946:
