Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

“Smith’s,” as we called it, was a staple of the neighborhood.

Other staples like Farrell’s, Rae and Otto’s, L&J bakery and Red’s shoe store…all establishments we couldn’t live without, right?

When someone passed away, they were waked at M.J. Smith’s & Sons; across the street from Holy Name Church.

Besides paying my respects to the deceased, as a kid during the afternoon if I didn’t have any change for a drink I’d stop in Smith’s to get a drink of water from the fountain. I was never sure if I should take a pixie cup or sip it from the fountain? I’ve said it before on the blog, Smith’s had the coldest water around.

Trish Bright has been a loyal reader of the blog and has been kind enough to write an essay on her time as a kid living over Smith’s.

My father never liked being called a mortician, Undertaker was better. Caretaker was a more accurate title if you consider the job description of inheriting a family business while the family isn’t quite dead yet.

That’s how it all began in 1960 when my father, Peter V. Smith II, inherited our family funeral parlor business at 248 Prospect Park West.

After a two-year undertaker apprenticeship at the prestigious Walter B. Cooke Funeral Home in Manhattan and pallbearer training during funeral services at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where he learned how to shoulder carry a casket, my father began his job as undertaker at M.J. Smith and Sons Inc.

The ‘Sons’ in M.J. Smith and Sons stood for the four boys out of the nine children that my great-grandfather had after he came to Brooklyn from the country Cavan, Ireland.

He then established the Parlor in the late 1800’s. Around that same time his cousin,  Rev. Thomas S. O’Reilly, was appointed to establish Holy Name Church and Holy Name School.

Father O’Reilly served the parish from 1878 until his death in 1918.  My Great Grandfather died in 1927. They are both buried in the Smith Family plot in Holy Cross cemetery.

The dead weren’t the only people my father took care of while operating the funeral parlor. There was also my Grandfather, my Grandmother and my Great Uncle Mike.

Uncle Mike was a handsome, dark-haired bushy eyebrowed, Irishman that always dressed in a suit and loved to drink scotch.

One day he drank so much at Farrell’s that he got into the wrong Buick and started it up. He drove around 9th avenue for days until my father got in the car with him and said,”Uncle Mike, your upholstery looks different.”

When Uncle Mike wasn’t at Farrell’s, he was at the Hotel St. George bar in Brooklyn Heights drinking with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Uncle Mike was called, “The Official Undertaker of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” even though he died before burying a single one of them.

My Grandfather, Peter V. Smith I, was also a licensed undertaker. He was a gentle soul who was loved by everyone that met him. My Grandmother, Grace Catherine Miller, who my Grandfather married in Holy Name Church in 1933, had intelligence, street smarts, looks and determination that could take her anywhere.

After marrying my Grandfather she devoted herself to teaching in the public schools in Queens and volunteered tirelessly for the American Red Cross.

My parents raised four of us, Maureen, Michael, Peter and me. We had two bedrooms in our apartment above the parlor.

When I was in the 5th grade my father saw a decline in the amount of funerals coming into Smith’s. The neighborhood was changing so my father made a decision to sell the business and move to the country.

In 1973, Joe Duffy Jr. and the Kenny family bought the funeral parlor and requested to keep the Smith name.  The parlor continued on with different ownership and recently relocated while still keeping the Smith name.

Smith’s served the neighborhood for over 100 years.

From 1960 to 1973 my father brought the amount of wakes Smith’s performed from around 50 a year to close to 300 wakes a year.

To this day he can recall the names and families of most, if not all, of the people he waked at Smith’s.

More importantly he can recall everyone he didn’t wake!

If I mistakenly tell my father he buried someone, he snaps at me and says, “Nah, I didn’t bury them, they went to Duffy’s.”

Thanks to Trish Bright for this wonderful look back at Smith & Sons.

Respectfully,

Steve

Hoops135@hotmail.com