Deal Funeral Home

Walter W. Deal, Proprietor (~1886-Nov 1960)

My grandparents, Henry Thurtell and Julia Mary "Mate" (Snow) Thurtell, lived at 1217 Delafield Place, Washington, DC NW from 1911 until each of them died. Henry died in 1941, and his wife in 1956. My grandfather, Henry Thurtell, was the first commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission. He is listed in the 1929-1930 edition of the book Who's Who in the Nation's Capital.

The WW Deal Funeral Home was at 4812 Georgia Ave. NW, Washington, DC, for many years. They handled the funerals of many of my relatives, but my family members who lived in DC are all deceased now. I am sure the WW Deal Funeral Home closed many years ago. I'm trying to find any the funeral home's old records.

I lived in DC also until January 1951 with my parents. I enjoyed "touring" that house on a website done by a realtor when the house was for sale years ago. I last visited that house when I was four years old. I now live in Illinois, and many of the funeral homes in this area have been owned by families for generations with some of the old records still available.

--Susan Thurtell Miller, 2024 Jun 28, ggm81@aol.com or sptm928@gmail.com

1. Walter Wright Deal was born in Baltimore MD about 1886. He married Marie C. Duchon about 1906, in Balto, MD. After attending Morticians School in Baltimore, he relocated to DC in 1906. He established his first funeral home at 816 H St, NE, in 1906. In 1937, he built the second funeral home at 4812 Georgia Ave, NW. He maintained the H St business until 1952.

2. The Deal family lived at 6402 16th St, NW.

3. In 1948, Walter Deal’s sister (Mary Ann Deal Wilhelm) died. Her obit listed her son, Robert E. Wilhelm, Jr., as a secretary of the Deal Funeral home. It is unknown if Robert Jr continued as an officer of the funeral home.

4. When Walter died 05 Nov 1960, his funeral was held from the Georgia Ave funeral home. There was no mention of his nephew (Robert E. Wilhelm, Jr.) as a survivor or as working at the Funeral Home. Funerals were held from the Deal Funeral Home by as late as January 1963.

Walter W. Deal Dies; Funeral Home Founder

Walter W. Deal, 74, founder of the Washington funeral home which bears his name, died yesterday at 7702 Old Chester road, Bethesda, the home of his daughter, Mrs. Clifton G. Hall. He had lived with his daughter for the last 13 months. Mr. Deal had suffered from a heart ailment for several years.

A native of Baltimore, he was the son of the late John F. and Mary Ann Deal. He began the study of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, but later transferred to a morticians' school in that city.

He came to Washington in 1908 and established his funeral home at 816 H street N.E. the same year.

In 1937 he built the present funeral home, located at 4812 Georgia avenue N.W., and maintained the original establishment until 1952.

His wife, Marie C. Deal, who served for many years as treasurer and vice president of the firm, died here in 1957.

Mr. Deal was a member of the Joseph Milans Lodge of the Masons and the Cleveland Park area Lions Club. He was one of the founders and an honorary past president of the Argyle Country Club in Layhill, Md.; a member of the National Funeral Directors Association and a former member of the Washington Board of Trade.

Besides his daughter, he leaves a brother, H. Clifton Deal of Baltimore, a granddaughter and a great granddaughter.

Friends may call at the Walter W. Deal Funeral Home, where services will be held at 1:30 P.M. Tuesday. Burial will be in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

-- Evening Star, Sunday, November 6, 1960, page 30

5. I found no evidence that the Deal Funeral Home business was sold. Similarly, I found no evidence that the assets of the business were sold. Typically, if the family has no plans to continue the business, at least the assets would be sold off - if not the business itself. It is possible that another funeral home quietly came in and purchased the business and/or assets. Today, the building at 4812 Georgia Avenue, NW, is occupied by Industrial Bank. It is unknown if this is the same building that served as the funeral home.

6. In the publication, African American Architects, A Biographical Directory (1865-1945), the Deal Funeral Parlor was listed as built in 1938. The name of the architect is not given.

Sometimes (but not always) details in the funeral home records will be forwarded to the cemetery. Some cemeteries keep copies of the obit, names of those who arranged for the funeral, and similar details.

I am attaching a few news clips on the Deals [9-page pdf]. I also searched for couple of your family names. The details I found on the Thurtells and the Snows[29-page pdf] are in a separate file. I found some news clips, some government pay records, some land purchases from the Bureau of Land Management, and some yearbook items. I was hoping I would find Freeman Snow’s photo in the Harvard yearbooks, but my oldest yearbook was 1895. I thought for sure there would be an in memoriam or black line for him since he died in late 1894, but there was nothing. What I found might not pertain to your line, but you can best judge that.

Regarding the Deal Funeral Home: I am sure if the business had been sold, there would have been newspaper ads – but I found none. As speculated in that email, perhaps another funeral home approached the surviving Deals and offered to purchase the business and assets. If that happened, there would be no ads. However, subsequent to my email I did locate a news clip [2-page pdf] of May 12, 1963, stating that the Industrial Bank was remodeling the building at 4812 Georgia Ave. The clip included a photo of the proposed front elevation. That’s attached. It looks like the Industrial Bank was owned and operated by an Afr-Amer family, so that explains the reference in the cut/paste from the book on prominent Af-Amer architects; it was an Af-Amer who did the remodeling of the structure. I think the last reference to a funeral was around Jan 1963; so it looks like only a short period of time elapsed between the Deals and the new Industrial Bank. I did notice that there were Deal Funeral Homes currently in WV and GA. But in browsing through the websites, it didn’t look like the owners descended from the DC Deals.

Mortuary Records: I suspect the records were trashed when the family gave up the business. In Virginia, records must be kept for 3 years after a final entry is made in the file. (A cut and paste of the Virginia rules is attached.) Each state likely has its own rules. In DC, mortuary services are governed by the DC Board of Funeral Directors. Perhaps they can help you with any rules about disposition of the records after the funeral home shuts down. They may also be able to help you with application for licenses and renewals of those licenses. I think application for licenses must be made to the DC Mayor. Those applications would likely list all employees of the funeral home, including licensed professionals, interns, and administrative staff. Formal rules for the operation of funeral homes came about after 1900 or so.

--Susan Salus, 2024 29 Jun, jsalus2@verizon.net