In my lifetime I have only known two funeral homes in Pea Ridge, the Sisco Funeral Home, which has been with us many years now, and the Miller Funeral Home, owned by Ralph and Mae Miller. I don’t know exactly when the ownership changed hands, but the location has stayed the same. I have also learned in the past several years that at one-time Dr. Chris Walker had a funeral home.
That must have been well before my time. I knew Dr. Chris and Nell Walker from the early 1940s until I left for college in the late 1950s. They were neighbors to my grandparents on the hill west of downtown. To my knowledge, they never mentioned ever having a funeral home. But, I have seen a funeral home fan with “Walker Funeral Home” printed on it.
Ralph Miller was a very versatile man about Pea Ridge, always involved in the things going on about town. My family knew him mainly as the funeral director and as a leader in the Presbyterian Church. But he had several other business interests and involvements as well. In the early days, the 1940s, a funeral home was more like a regular home, but with rooms arranged so that family visitations and funerals could be held there. Many of the settlers of our country had come from parts of the world where it was common to have a wake at the home of the deceased, in which neighbors and friends would come to visit the family and someone would sit up with the dead.
I think the custom of having funeral homes grew out of that tradition. When the home of the deceased was not large enough or not suitable for the wake, the funeral home could be made available. The family would send someone to the funeral home to sit up with the dead, or the funeral home family might do that for the family of the deceased. In the early days, the funeral home would probably not have a chapel, but instead would have several rooms adjoining together which could accommodate those who came to the funeral. The custom of having a family room at the funeral home grew out ofthe practice of having different groups in the different rooms of the house.
I also remember Ralph Miller as the proprietor of the City Drug Store, which was located between the old Bank of Pea Ridge downtown and Webb’s Feed & Seed Store. In those days, drug stores commonly had soda fountains and sold ice cream, milk shakes and sundaes. I actually thought of it more as the ice cream store than as a store for buying medicine. I think Pauline Foster worked in the drugstore for Mr. Miller, as also did Beulah McKinney Laughlin.
In 1947 the Presbyterian Church built a new church building, and Ralph Miller was in the middle of the project to get that done.
He had architectural skills and carpentry skills, as well as undertaker skills. I remember watching from the schoolhouse when the high rafters were being nailed into place on the new church building. The new church project also was related to the new Masonic Lodge Hall project in downtown Pea Ridge. When the old Presbyterian Church building was torn down, the upstairs floor beams were preserved, and were used to build the upper floor of the new Lodge Hall. I’m pretty sure Ralph Miller was a Mason, as was my own grandfather, Scott Nichols.
After the Masonic Lodge merged with another lodge and moved to Brightwater in the 1950s, the Lodge Hall soon became known as the Extension Homemakers building. Today it is the Pea Ridge Historical Society Museum.
Probably many people are not aware that when Beaver Lake was formed,many low-lying community cemeteries had to be moved to higher ground before the lake could be allowed to fill. Ralph Miller moved a number of those cemeteries to new locations. One that I know well is the Bland Cemetery, located today on the south part of Moberly Lane in Bentonville. My mother and other members of our family are buried there. When Bland Cemetery was moved to that location, it was far out in the country. Today, Bentonville and Rogers have grown so that there is no “country” between them any more, just a line to cross.
I have a picture from about 1950, showing Ralph Miller and other members of the Pea Ridge Kiwanis Club, posed with the new Pea Ridge fire truck, which I think they had helped make possible for the city.
I think Ralph was mayor of Pea Ridge at the time.
The truck was a late 1940s Dodge truck, and hadbeen outfitted with pumps and hose racks and other fire-fighting equipment by Charles Hardy, at the Charles Hardy Garage, located just south of the downtown intersection.
The first fire station still stands on North Curtis in downtown Pea Ridge, just south of the telephone company property.
Ralph and Mae Miller had a son, Charles, and a daughter, Mary Ann.
Mary Ann married Charles Hardy. After Luther Martin retired, the Miller’s came to own the old Capt. Cyrus Pickens farm, out on WestPickens St. across from today’s new Pea Ridge High School. They built the first new house on that property, at the corner where today’s Hayden Road intersects West Pickens, then later a newer home to the east of the old Pickens house.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/28/2012