Bob Wasson

Wasson celebrates 80 years of service

By Jessica Weekley Staff Writer jessicaw@nwanews.com

Posted on Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Email this story | Printer-friendly version

Above, Danny, Sharon and Bob Wasson have been a fixture at Wasson Funeral Home. At right, Wasson's provided ambulnce service to the area.

For the past eight decades, members of the Wasson family have comforted the community of Siloam Springs.

On a daily basis, they deliver genuine smiles and sympathetic hugs at the exact right moment while silently arranging details behind the scene

The family, native to the area for more than a century, have the utmost respect for the deceased. As funeral directors, they carry out the last wishes of the departed, console the survivors left in the wake of death and ensure that services go off without a hitch.

Though now run by descendants of the original line of owners, the legacy of Wasson Funeral Home began long before the oldest living patriarch, Bob, was born in Siloam Springs in 1935.

"My dad, Leon Wasson, was born in 1902 and raised in Gentry," said Bob Wasson. "He was attending law school at Vanderbilt University and he started working part time at a funeral home in Nashville to supplement his income."

Leon Wasson, intrigued with the in's and out's of the funeral industry, quit law school to pursue his newfound passion. Not long after leaving university studies behind, he attended and graduated from John A. Gupton School of Embalming in Nashville.

"He was just there to make a few bucks to get him through school and he fell in love with it," Bob Wasson said. "There was just something about the business that got to him. It put him in direct contact with the people."

Soon after graduating from mortuary school, Leon Wasson returned to his hometown where he married Margaret Carl. A tour of jobs at a variety of funeral homes in Arkansas and Kansas eventually led the couple to Siloam Springs where they purchased the McArthur and Son Furniture and Undertaking Company from Stuart and Emma McArthur.

The funeral home was already rich with history when the couple purchased the business in the fall of 1927.

The business had originally opened under the ownership of T.C. McArthur in 1889. Though it isn't known for certain, it is suspected that the original shop sold caskets, coffins and accessories. It wasn't until McArthur's son, Stuart, became an embalmer that the business transformed into a fully functional funeral home.

Soon after Leon and Margaret Wasson purchased the funeral business, the couple moved its headquarters from a building at the corner of Mount Olive and University streets to a large home at 514 South Mount Olive St.

"For a long time it was in the place where Siloam Springs Flowers is now," said Bob Wasson. "I was born at the old city hospital here and lived with my family on top of the old funeral home throughout my childhood."

The funeral home remained at the Mount Olive location until the construction of a new facility, at 441 Highway 412 West, was completed in 1971.

"Even after we got the new place, dad insisted in staying on site," Bob Wasson said. "He wanted to be there, where everything was happening, at all times."

Today, Wasson clearly remembers the days before city ambulance service was provided, when his family's funeral business carted patients to and from the local hospital as the sole provider of local emergency transport. Patients from Siloam Springs and surrounding areas received transportation services for a nominal fee.

He, like the other Wassons before him, spent many weekends and summer vacations on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for both the ambulance and mortuary services.

Hot summers driving hearses before automotive air conditioning was available stick in his mind, as do the thousands of late night calls from area residents in need of service.

Aside from the long-standing compassion and attention to detail, differences in today's funeral business compared to yesterday's business are night and day according to Bob Wasson.

Nowadays, with a fully functional Web site at www. wassonfuneralhome.com, that receives more than 300 hits per day, visitors may view online video tributes, obituaries and sign electronic guestbooks.

"You can actually arrange a funeral online," Bob Wasson said. "The advances are incredible, technology has done so much for the funeral industry

Following graduation from Siloam Springs High School in 1954, Bob Wasson made the decision to attend medical school. His father's deteriorating health, and the fear of the family business being left without a leader at the helm, eventually led Wasson to change his plans.

"I went ahead and went to mortuary school in Dallas before college," he said. "I felt that if I didn't I might get myself into a situation where I'd have to choose."

Following mortuary school Wasson married Sharon Allen, attended and graduated the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville with a degree in Business Administration and moved back to Siloam Springs as a full-time employee of the family funeral enterprise.

"I thought that it was strange way of living at first but it was something that I eventually got used to," Sharon Wasson said. "It certainly wasn't anything that I had ever experienced before. There are so many different things about the business that are unique."

Following the deaths of both Margaret and Leon Wasson, in June of 1974, Bob Wasson took the reigns of the business as President and senior member of the local firm.

After retiring from her longtime post as high school English teacher in 1978, Sharon took on the role of secretary-treasurer, funeral director and executive.

"Things have changed so much, I remember when we used to have to call in the obituaries," Sharon Wasson said. "Now we're able to fax them to all of the papers, but we used to call each and every one. You wouldn't believe the mistakes that got printed."

Junior member, Danny Wasson, born to the couple in 1963, now serves as the Operations Manager, arranger and funeral director.

"I've tried to slow down a lot in the past few years and Danny has really stepped up," Bob Wasson said. "For the most part, you can see me standing in the shadows. My job is to make sure it gets done."

Danny also received a mortuary certificate from the Dallas Institute as well as a degree from the local John Brown University.

The Wassons also have a daughter, Carla Wasson, who works as a lawyer in Siloam Springs.

"We're very proud of Danny and glad that he's here with us," Sharon Wasson said. "You know, when you're in this business it's hard to divorce your children from it. Your phones are ringing and you're going. You sit down to eat dinner always knowing that you might be leaving to go on a call. Kids grow up though, they do the same things as other kids."

For 80 years now, the Wassons have been in one of the most intimate positions that a vocation can put someone in.

"You are on a very personal basis with these people," Bob Wasson said. "At this point in the business, we served five generations of some families in this town."

Seeing the signage to the Wasson Funeral Home is second nature to long-time Siloam Springs residents. Greeting the Wasson family at city board meetings and waving while pumping gas at adjacent pumps is a frequent occurrence.

"When I graduated from high school there were 3,500 people in this town," Bob Wasson said. "Fifteen years ago it would've been inconceivable that I'd walk through the grocery store without knowing everyone I passed, but it's not like that anymore."

Now, with business continuing to increase, Wasson Funeral Home has 12 employees as well as a few part-time funeral directors. When Bob Wasson first returned from mortuary school in his youth he helped with less than 100 funeral services per year. Today, the local funeral home does as many as 250 per year.

"We truly do enjoy what we do and the people that we get to work with," Sharon Wasson said. "Danny enjoys it as well and really has a talent for it. He runs grief support groups and has an ability to talk to people."

Keeping the personal touch, something that larger chains have lost, is the most important thing to the Wassons, Bob Wasson said. Even today, 80 years after the business first opened, members of the Wasson family answer the phone - day or night.

"When people have terrible problems in the night they want to talk to someone they know," Bob Wasson said. "We always answer."