Our History

DeMoney-Grimes Funeral Home continues, after our first 100 years in 2015, with the beginning of a NEW CENTURY of service to Columbia City and Whitley County.

In addition to the story of our beginning in 1915, the Cyrus B. Tully Mansion, the devastating fire, and the new facility on Countryside Dr., our story tells WHO we are, HOW we and our profession have changed and progressed over the years, and WHAT our work is like today. It tells how we are connected as friends, family, and community.

By sharing our stories we pass along our legacies from one person to another and from generation to another. Think about it. More than the mere recitation of facts, stories are what put things into perspective. It is by knowing our past that we come to understand our present world. More and more people today are thinking about their legacies, how they themselves will be remembered. Sharing our story or your story is a gift, really, to future generations. It’s what connects us with those who came before and those who will come after us.

In 1915 when J.A. DeMoney started the business, funerals were held in the person’s home. The ‘undertaker’ (often the owner of the local furniture store that sold coffins, too) came to your house. He did the embalming there, and set everything up for viewing in your ‘parlor’. Eventually the undertaker offered his own home as a convenience to the family in mourning, which was the beginning of the ‘funeral home’. As time went on, undertakers became licensed funeral directors and expanded the services they offered. This included livery service, ambulance service, and delivering chairs, china, and coffee urns to your home for family gatherings after a funeral. And as is still true today, they took care of all the funeral details. Writing the obituary and placing it in the newspapers, setting the funeral time and location, arranging details with the minister and organist, taking care of the cemetery and grave opening or the cremation arrangements, securing the death certificate, getting the casket and vault or the urn, preparing the body for viewing, arranging the flowers for visitation, and printing the memorial folders or prayer cards.

Today, while still taking care of every one of those details for you, our story includes a larger, state-of-the-art funeral home, and a deeper personal mission. Our facility is a full service funeral home providing complete facilities and services for funeral and memorial ceremonies, receptions, interments, and cremations. Our broader mission centers around commitment to overwhelming personal service, to excellence in all that we do, to exceeding the level of value and service families deserve and expect, to community support, and especially to caring for you in your darkest hour.

If you or the children in your family have questions about death and funerals we will happily take you on a tour of the funeral home so you can quickly see that it is a warm, friendly, uplifting experience. For more in-depth information you can attend one of our Education Workshops. At Christmas time we welcome you to our Holiday Memorial Service, and you can also participate in the Holiday Helps Workshop if you like. We have wonderful on-going grief support with the Compassionate Friends program and our Walk to Remember. One of our favorite community programs is Coats for Kids where we help provide coats for kids in need so they’ll be warm in the winter.

Here at DeMoney-Grimes Funeral Home we want to be known as the place where families feel safe shedding tears, knowing life can be celebrated, and that life ends but love and memories do not. With the shedding of tears, healing comes. This is often accomplished by sharing the significance of the life that was lived. We are committed to helping you do this by sharing the story of your loved one–we do this by writing the story, by having you share your favorite photos–in print and video–and by inviting family and friends to share their memories with you.

Today we incorporate new technologies to help keep memories alive. The desire to be remembered lives within all of us. It’s the age-old reason we carve our initials in trees, leave our hand prints in cement and chalk our names on rocks. We are committed to remembering those you have loved and lost . . . to help you mend, heal, and live.

The staff of DeMoney-Grimes understands the difficulty adjusting to a death. In response to the needs of the families and community we serve. Visit our grief resources page for more information about Compassionate Friends and other helpful resources available.