By Jarred Marlowe
Long before funeral homes occupied dedicated buildings with vaulted chapels and ambulance bays, the business of the dead in Martinsville was handled on the side—quietly and practically—by furniture dealers and general merchants who kept caskets behind the settees. It was a trade born of necessity in a small city, one that would grow over the course of a century into one of the most enduring forms of community service the area has known.
The earliest chapter belongs to C.C. Bassett, whose furniture and undertaking operation set a pattern that would shape local practice for decades. By 1910, Morton M. Coleman had taken up that work, blending mercantile trade with funeral services. In 1923, Craig & Bassett General Mercantile purchased Coleman’s business, continuing the model. A decade later, a young apprentice named Bill Collins Sr. walked through their doors, beginning a career that would influence the industry for generations.
Within Martinsville’s Black community, funeral service followed its own deeply rooted path. As early as 1914, the Rev. G.P. Watkins operated from his parsonage on Fayette Street, providing dignified burial services at a time when few other options existed. By 1939, his business had grown into what he described as “the finest funeral home in Southwest Virginia,” backed by nearly three decades of service and a full ambulance operation. In the years that followed, the business evolved into Hairston Funeral Home under C. Reginald V. Hairston, who formally established it in 1949 and later added a chapel.
By the 1930s, the industry was beginning to change. In 1929, Roselawn opened its burial park, offering dedicated ground for the community’s dead. Noel Smith operated what would become Smith-Prillaman Funeral Home from a residence on Starling Avenue. Then, in 1935, James McKee opened McKee Funeral Home on Broad Street—the first business in Martinsville devoted solely to funeral service, breaking from the long-standing furniture-and-casket model.
That shift accelerated in the 1940s. Allen Funeral Home opened on Fayette Street in 1940, while Swicegood-Fox carried on the Starling Avenue tradition. In 1944, Bill Collins Sr., now a trained professional, established Collins Funeral Home in Bassett. That same year, Craig & Bassett relocated to a larger homeplace across the Smith River. By 1947, McKee had acquired Craig & Bassett and briefly extended operations into Bassett, linking the two communities before withdrawing a few years later.
The postwar decades brought modernization and permanence. Stone Funeral Home opened in 1956 at Starling Avenue and Clift Street. In 1962, Collins moved into the historic Hollandsworth House in Bassett, while Stone relocated into Collins’ former location, beginning a long association between the two names. Townes Funeral Home, already established on Church Street, added to the growing network of dedicated facilities.
By the 1970s and 1980s, movement and consolidation defined the industry. McKee relocated down the street in 1973, and Collins moved again in 1978 to Riverside Drive in Bassett. Tomlinson Funeral Home served Bassett and Ridgeway before merging with Mize’s. In 1974, Roselawn expanded by opening a funeral home alongside its burial park—at the time, a unique combination in Virginia.
Corporate consolidation arrived in the 1990s. In 1992, Collins-McKee—formed when Bill Collins Jr. purchased McKee in 1986—was sold to the Lineberry Group and later absorbed by the Canadian-based Loewen Corporation, becoming Collins-McKee-Stone. Stone Funeral Home followed in 1996, reflecting a broader national trend.
Even so, local ownership endured. That same year, Norris Funeral Home and Bassett Funeral Home opened as independent operations. In 2001, Nathan Hines established Hines Funeral Home on Starling Avenue, continuing a long tradition of Black funeral service in a new location. A decade later, Wright Funeral Home joined the community, the most recent addition to a lineage now spanning more than a century.
From a parsonage on Fayette Street to corporate boardrooms and back to independent hands, the story of Martinsville’s funeral homes is ultimately about trust—about who a community turns to in its hardest moments, and who, generation after generation, has been there to answer.
Jarred Marlowe is a local resident and historian. He is a member of the Col. George Waller Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Blue & Gray Education Society, and the committee chair for the Martinsville-Henry County 250 Committee. He may be reached at marloweja15@gmail.com.
