Sam Isaacs and Son funeral home is located on Hanover Street in downtown Kingston. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)
Keeping it in the family
Over 100 years and counting for Sam Isaacs and Son funeral home
FOR some, the thought of interacting with corpses throughout their lifetime might be unimaginable, but that has been the reality for Gordon Chuck and four generations of his family who’ve operated Jamaica’s oldest funeral home — Sam Isaacs and Son Limited — since 1912.
Located on Hanover Street in downtown Kingston, the funerals of former prime ministers Michael Manley and Hugh Shearer, cultural icon Louise Bennett-Coverley, and Olympian Herb McKenley form part of its rich, storied history.
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The funeral home’s origin story began when founder and great-grandfather to Chuck, Polish Jew Sam Isaacs, fled his home country in search of a better life in the United States. In his youth, Isaacs travelled to Jamaica where he fell in love with the island and its people. However, it was one woman — Hilda Downie — who truly captured his heart and later became his wife.
During his time on the island, Isaacs, an entrepreneur at heart, is said to have noticed the urgent need for a first-rate funeral home, so he went back to the US to study the fundamentals of funeral directing.
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“Back then, I think each family used to take care of their deceased loved one, and then the burial would be the next day, so they would actually keep the person at home and then bury them soon after; so at that point in time, 1912, he started the first funeral home in Jamaica on Orange Street, which is Sam Isaacs and Son,” current Managing Director Chuck told the Jamaica Observer.
He shared that his great-grandfather worked tirelessly, building coffins, designing and dressing caskets, embalming, carving the angels in marble headstones, and more. The business grew rapidly, and the funeral home was moved to its current location on Hanover Street.
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Sam Isaacs and Son also became the first funeral home in Jamaica to offer cremation in 1968 — another historic moment Chuck attributes to his great-grandfather’s visionary thinking.
Isaacs is said to have passed these skills to his children, who took over the funeral home when he died in 1975.
Kathleen Clarke, Isaacs’s daughter, was managing director from her father’s death to 1995. The business was then passed to Lloyd Chuck, Isaacs’s son-in-law, who ran it until 2010, when Gordon Chuck took over as managing director.
“It’s definitely a legacy, and it is something that I am very proud of. I am very proud to be able to continue it because I see where generations prior to me have really invested a lot of time, a lot of effort; and dedication, so to be able to fly the flag to continue, it means a lot,” he shared.
“I have been coming to the funeral home pretty much ever since birth, so I’ve grown up in the business. I started to work here as a teenager while going to school, so I pretty much know everything, inside out. I also went abroad to study, so I am a licensed funeral director and embalmer. I used to drive the hearse; I do everything. I do embalming, I work around the back, and I work around the front,” Chuck told the
Sunday Observer.
He also shared the favourite part about his job.
“[It] is really just helping family members, helping them through difficult times, because…when you lose someone, it is the worst time. It’s the worst time in your life…so to be there to help families, to guide them, to advise them, to make the send-off meaningful, it’s self-fulfilling for you as a funeral director,” he explained.
Chuck said that it was always the intention of his great-grandfather to pass the business from one generation to the next.
While sharing plans about the funeral homes’ future, Chuck said that he has three sons who are very versed in the business. However, they have not shown much interest in the funeral home. If they do not wish to take over from him, he shared the family has contingency plans to pass it to cousins or other relatives who work at the funeral home or might be interested.
Orville Chambers, Sam Isaacs and Son general manager for almost seven years, shared that it has been a great honour to be a part of such a rich history.
“People would say this is a morbid place, but it’s certainly not. We have fun, we have jokes, and we are a happy family here. It’s like everybody has each other’s back,” said Chambers.
“We have a history nobody else in Jamaica has as a funeral home, and I would dare say several parts of the English-speaking Caribbean. We are a pioneer in the business in terms of exhumation. For years this was the only company you could come to…the same thing having to do with cremation,” he told the
Sunday Observer.
“We pride ourselves not in making money, but more so the service that we offer,” added Chambers, who said that they will always stick to their slogan, ‘A tradition you can trust’.
