Why would a furniture store in Nebraska employ a mortician in 1950?

Question

I can't wait to hear an answer for this one!

See line 10 of this 1950 census record I found at familysearch.

What makes it even wilder is that Arlo Montgomery was a car salesman before this - unusual career change, wouldn't you say?

Comments

Perhaps their furniture manufacturer also made caskets, so they sold them, too, and it was a "one-stop-shop." Perhaps they diversified their product and service lines to increase profit--kind of like WalMart selling a little bit of everything.

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I was thinking maybe the furniture store was a front to launder money for a crime syndicate and it made it more convenient to have a mortician on site to take care of side effects from some of their other business interests.

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Gaile, you have a creative mind! I would never have thought of that.

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Great plot for a book, Gaile.  I got curious about what sort of place Hebron Nebraska might have been in 1950, so flipped through several pages of that census. Only 2,000 residents so they did need to be creative to survive. Money laundry would boost their economy. The optometrist was also the jewelry store, and a lot of the residents worked at the Implement Store,  selling implements for what?

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One stop shopping?

Answer 1

Found at Newspapers.com

The Hebron Journal-Register (Hebron, NE) 17 Feb 1960, page 3 ...

(Advertisment)

MONTGOMERY

Furniture & Mortuary

24-Hr Ambulance Service

Comments

Now that's diversifying your product offerings!

Answer 2

It was very common for the undertaker to also have a furniture store in small towns in the Midwest even as late as the 1980s where I lived in Coon Valley, Wisconsin.

William Ferguson, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ferguson-11132 one of the first residents of the Scottish Settlement in Argyle Illinois was a carpenter who built furniture and provided caskets for the residents. 

Answer 3

I would think a small-town mortician would be a very slow business most of the time, besides, who better to sell you your forever bed?

Answer 4

Literally, a cradle to grave business.

Answer 5

In my research (mostly Minnesota and Wisconsin), I have found undertakers that also had cabinet making, furniture, or even grocery businesses.  Most of what I have seen was from late 1800s to early 1900s.