A 1931 photo of an Ivers & Alcorn hearse with the funeral home in the background.
The respected Ivers & Alcorn Funeral Home on Main Street opened in 1930.
The landmark Ivers & Alcorn Funeral Home on Main Street in Merced — a pioneer Merced County establishment serving the community for generations — has closed its doors and redirected families to another local service provider.
Notices were sent out earlier this month to business clients and family members who have pre-planning policies, informing them of the closure. There’s also a notice that currently appears on the company’s website, including this excerpt:
“The Ivers & Alcorn and Mariposa Funeral Homes have lost our building lease. After months of continuous efforts to resolve this challenge, we have been unsuccessful. It is disappointing to share that we are forced to close our funeral homes.”
According to one employee who talked to the Times, the properties are said to be controlled by a family trust involving distant relatives to the actual founders who started the company back in the early 1930s. The business itself, with locations in Merced, Mariposa and Atwater, was purchased years ago from an out-of-state company. The Atwater location was closed several months ago, reportedly due to needed repairs linked to the external weathering of the building located on Winton Way. That operation was subsequently merged with the Merced location.
The posted notice also refers family members to Evergreen Funeral Home and Memorial Park in Merced, another local historical site that offers funeral, cremation and burial services. Evergreen is honoring policy holder plans from Ivers & Alcorn. They remain valid. New calls for service to Ivers & Alcorn are also being forwarded to Evergreen.
“The state has been notified, and we are all in communication,” an Evergreen spokesperson told the Times. “We are glad we were able to take over for them, and honor those contracts. It’s a good thing. Sometimes, in situations like this, or if the state takes over, families can get shortchanged.”
There are five funeral homes in operation in the Merced area; however, Ivers & Alcorn was at the top for name recognition, quality of service and just a great overall reputation.
J. Vernon Ivers helped start the downtown Merced business in 1930, making it the first funeral home of its kind in the entire county. A local merchant, Jo Howard Alcorn, joined the business a couple years later and the Ivers & Alcorn name was born. They later expanded with the Mariposa Funeral Home. Ivers & Alcorn were followed by such funeral home names as Whitehurst and Hillview on the county’s west side. The 1920s and ’30s marked the nationwide rise of funeral homes that offered complete services at central locations for entire communities. These early Merced County companies are considered pioneers in the industry.
The Ivers & Alcorn Funeral Home in Merced was designed in Spanish Colonial style and modeled after the Mission San Juan Capistrano. It was completed and dedicated on Aug. 2, 1930. An interesting feature of the original mortuary was the bell in the chapel tower, which was brought around the Horn to California in the “early days,” and was formerly used in a church in the Mother Lode Country, according to Alcorn’s obituary. He died in 1946. A bell tower remains today at the front of the building at the corner of Main and P streets, but it’s unclear if the bell at the top is the original one.
“I think the closure of Ivers & Alcorn is a big loss for Merced,” said Ken Beard, who was working as the embalmer for the funeral home over the past couple of years. “It’s one of the first names that come to mind when families think about funeral services. It’s been that way for generations. They were known for a high standard of service. I can tell you that the staff members were really great people.”
In recent years, the company employed one manager, two funeral directors, one administrator, one receptionist, and embalmer, and a couple part-time assistants, according to Beard.
“I don’t think Ivers & Alcorn deserves to go quietly into the night,” Beard said. “They were always doing things right, and over the decades, they consistently proved their importance at times when local residents were in need.”