08/11/2022
On October 13, 2001, Paul Wilson wrote the following article for the Hamilton Spectator detailing the closure of Dwyer Funeral Home:
The oldest funeral home in Hamilton is dead. It lies in state downtown -- Cannon just east of James -- but few are paying their respects.
Real estate agents have found a couple of prospects to take the tour, but there are no offers yet for the handsome arched-door and leaded-window premises of the Dwyer Funeral Home.
Irish immigrant James Dwyer opened his business in 1876. Back then it was often the man at the furniture shop, the cabinetmaker, who did double duty as the undertaker.
The call would come. He would visit the home and prepare the body on the spot. It's done with electrical equipment now, but it was just a simple gravity-feed operation then, with the embalming fluid on a stand, like an IV.
That done, the undertaker would take some measurements and return with a custom-fit coffin. The visitation and service were often in the home, then a procession to the cemetery.
And for Dwyer patrons, it was often a trip to Holy Sepulchre. Dwyer had a good grip on the Catholic trade. The home was a favourite of the Irish, of course. But it got the Hungarians too. And the Macedonians. And the Italians, at least until Friscolanti's opened on Barton in 1960.
A Dwyer bill from Dec. 14, 1884 details the farewell costs for one Henry K. Wheller. Coffin and body preparation, $35. One shroud -- he went in a cloth, rather than a suit -- $3. Two horse-drawn cabs, $2 each. Single grave, $4. Total, $46.
William Dwyer followed his father into the business. So in turn did his own son, Jim.
Jim Dwyer grew up above the funeral home. His wife Helen recalls going there for dinner when they were courting. They walked through the front door, took a quick left and up the stairs to Aunt Sadie's 11-room apartment, a place with big fireplaces and ornate trim.
Helen didn't like funeral homes, but she got used to that one.
"Jim showed me around, into the casket room and everywhere."
She and Jim had seven children, but none wanted to make death their life. In the late '70s, Jim sold the business.
He died in 1992 and that was the last time Helen was in Dwyer's. Until the call a few months ago.
It was from Lynne Lee, area manager for Service Corporation International, which owns half-a-dozen funeral homes around Hamilton. She told Helen that regretfully they were going to close Dwyer's. Helen and a couple of her kids took a final tour.
Royal LePage put Dwyer's on the market at $350,000. It's now down to $295,000. One condition is that the buyer not use the building for a funeral home. Little chance of that anyway.
Lee, who gave me a tour this week, said Dwyer's had a couple of strikes against it. Parking is limited. There are about 15 spaces, not enough for most funerals. And those four lanes of heavy traffic all pushing west on Cannon are a problem for processions.
Beyond that, there is the downtown location. Families that meant business for Dwyer's have moved up to the suburbs and choose to depart from there.
Dwyer used to handle 300 funerals a year. That fell to a hundred.
Lee, a blue-suited professional of 37, was 16 when she arrived at Dwyer's for a week-long high school work placement. They had her do everything. She greeted people, set out flowers, went with staff to hospitals and nursing homes to pick up the deceased. "From the minute I started, I liked it."
She went on to take the funeral service course at Humber and returned to Dwyer's for another work placement. She had the night shift. Sometimes it was quiet and she looked through some of the old records.
Now, 20 years later, we climb the creaky stairs to the attic and blow dust off those record books. They go back to 1888. "You see so many children," Lee said. "And so many marked 'wasting disease.' Probably cancer."
In the visitation room, there are pictures of one of the biggest funerals ever handled by Dwyer, when Rev. Patrick L. O'Brien died in May 1948. Further back in these cavernous quarters, there's a hand-cranked, enamel-topped embalming table, now suitable for museums only.
Other rooms, other treasures. A big picture of Jesus, another of the Last Supper. Vault samples, plain concrete or lined with stainless steel. Chandeliers. Old signs. A light-up crucifix, from the early days of electrification.
They shot a picture here last year about the Harlem drug scene. Look for Paid in Full in 2002.
Beyond a movie set, Lee thinks the Dwyer building could be turned into offices or some kind of residence.
There is a rebirth of sorts in this part of town -- new stores, restaurants -- driven mostly by Asian interests. But they might not be the answer here.
Chung Po (Terrance) Wong of Primeway Real Estate, is active in this sector. He won't be selling Dwyer's.
He says Asians will go to a funeral home for a visitation. "But live or work there? No way.
"Even me. I don't like passing by a funeral home. I move on quickly. I wouldn't want the listing for that building. I don't want to go inside."
