DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Dannel Funeral Home in Grayson County. Now, some families pass down a farm. Some pass down a hardware store or a name on a courthouse wall.
The Dannel family passed down something a little more solemn — and a whole lot more essential. It started, as these things often do, with a father. John C.
Dannel's father owned and operated an undertaking parlor back in Illinois, where John was born. The son watched, learned, and when the time came, he went off to Chicago to train formally in the mortuary sciences. He came back with a certificate, a new wife — Flossie Louella Wade — and a plan.
That plan brought them to Sherman, Texas, where John purchased the Sherman Undertaking Company. Their first funeral parlor sat at the corner of Walnut and Houston streets. But the business grew, and in 1913, the John C.
Dannel Undertaking Company — as it was then known — moved into a renovated pool hall on the south side of the courthouse square. Now there's a sentence you don't hear every day. Then came 1917, and John Dannel did something that seemed perfectly reasonable to him — he introduced the first motorized hearse to the area.
The local livery stable, which had until that time been supplying the horses and carriages for funerals, did not find it quite so reasonable. They sued him. The fight played out right there in the local newspaper, for all of Sherman to read over their morning coffee.
Dannel eventually won the case. Progress, it turns out, can hold its own in a courtroom. By 1923, Dannel was ready to build something that had never quite existed in this part of Texas — a structure designed from the ground up as a funeral home.
He hired architect John Tullock to design and build it, and it was one of the earliest such structures in the area. The building had bedrooms for the family, staterooms for the bereaved, and a chapel for the services themselves. A proper place for a serious business.
John's son, Charles O. Dannel II, joined the family firm after graduating from the University of Texas, making it three generations deep. Charles died in 1961.
His father John followed him in 1963. And at that point, John Carlton Dannel II stepped in and assumed management — the fourth generation of Dannel funeral directors. John Carlton Dannel II died in 1997, and then his wife took the reins — assuming both ownership and management, and carrying on the family tradition of service to the citizens of Sherman and the surrounding community.
Four generations. One family. And a town that, through every loss it ever suffered, knew exactly where to turn.
What the marker says
After training in the mortuary sciences in Chicago, John C. Dannel moved with his new wife, Flossie Louella Wade, to Sherman, Texas, where he purchased the Sherman Undertaking Company. John’s father had owned and operated an undertaking parlor in Illinois, where John was born, and he followed his father into the business. The Dannel’s first funeral parlor in Sherman was located at the corner of Walnut and Houston streets, but the John C. Dannel Undertaking Company, as it was then known, moved into a renovated pool hall on the south side of the courthouse square in 1913. Dannel introduced the first motorized hearse to the area in 1917, but he was sued by the local livery stable which had until that time supplied horses and carriages for funerals. Dannel eventually won the case after a public fight that played out in the local newspaper. In 1923, Dannel hired architect John Tullock to design and build a structure dedicated specifically as a funeral home, one of the earliest such structures in the area. The building featured bedrooms for the family, as well as staterooms and a chapel for funerals. John C. Dannel’s son, Charles O. Dannel II, joined the family business after graduation from the University of Texas. Charles died in 1961 and his father died in 1963. At that time John Carlton Dannel II assumed management of the family business, becoming the fourth generation of Dannel funeral directors. John died in 1997, and his wife assumed ownership and management, continuing the family tradition of service to the citizens of Sherman and the surrounding community. (2009)