I just won a hand mirror off Ebay for $16.00. About a hundred years old, the phone number on it is 47, phones must have just been put in. Imagine, from phone number 47 to today's 940-325-4422. I called this number and it was suggested to me by today's funeral home that this mirror was from the 20's. Not sure but think our phone number had four digits when I was little.
One of the first businesses in a town a funeral home, this & it's close ties to the earliest Churches in the town. My imagination was sparked by that movie "Somewhere in Time" with the idea of traveling back to my hometown's earliest beginnings...
Ten years after Judge and Mrs. J. A. Lynch founded Mineral Wells in 1882, Benjamin Holland and Bettie Clements Lattner opened their furniture store and funeral home. The following article was printed in “The (Mineral Wells) Daily Index”, on March 28, 1905:
FURNITURE AND UNDERTAKING ‘B. H. Lattner was born in Franklin County, Georgia, March 7, 1854, and came to Mineral Wells in 1892, where he married Miss Bettie Clements. Both are licensed embalmers and members of the (Texas) State Undertaker’s Association. Mr. Lattner has been in the furniture and undertaking business all his life and therefore he is thoroughly posted in all ofits branches. He has an immense stock of furniture constantly in stock in his two story stone business house, and cordially invites the visitors to call and see him.”
The first business location is pictured to the right with the caption from the book, “Time Was in Mineral Wells a Crazy Story but True…”, by A. F. Weaver: “B. H. Lattner was an undertaker by trade, but dabbled in other businesses as read on the signs in front of his establishment.” (The signs read “B. H. Lattner, Furniture, Light Running Sewing Machines and Coffins”. This building was located at the corner of
S. E. 1st Street and South Oak Avenue and is now a parking lot. Records show that Bettie was the first Texas licensed female embalmer with license #15. The best records available indicate the Lattner’s started their business there in 1892 and continued at this original location for about 15 years.
In September 1905, Mr. Lattner purchased the lot at 116 South Oak Avenue and in 1906, built a three-and-a-half story brick building. The first elevator in the town of Mineral Wells installed to facilitate the movement
of the casket from the second floor where the chapel was located. It is reported that visitors would assemble for the opportunity to ride up and down the new contraption. The business continued there until September 11, 1936, when it was moved to 302 West Hubbard, the present home of Baum-Carlock-Bumgardner Funeral Home. A close examination of the five corner windows on the second row from the top will reveal the stained glass windows currently in the present facility at 302 West Hubbard Street. The building currently houses Mineral Wells Office Supply. Mrs. Lattner had purchased this property on October 30, 1932, four years after her husband passed away.
The Rev. Clyde Campbell who was the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church from 1930-1936 was the construction foreman on the brick and native rock structure. They started building in the spring of 1936, when Mrs. Lattner was 64 years old. Rev. Campbell gave e following account of the construction: “Mrs. Lattner and I drove many miles inspecting funeral homes before we started the building. We bought, wrecked, and hauled four residences from Thurber for the woodwork, and gathered the rock from the mountains. Many persons worked out funeral bills they owed Mrs. Lattner. Times were hard and money hard to come by, I never charged her a dime for my work. She was a good woman caught in a hard condition and I helped her out. I had to beg clothing, caskets and even graves for poor people during that depression and she never turned me down.” Mrs. Lattner operated the business for only about a year in the “almost completed” new building.
Much of this is from Baum-Carlock-Bumgardner website.
Much of this is from Baum-Carlock-Bumgardner website.
