Furniture and undertaking → the funeral home line: Bettcher to Palmer

1869 – present

The nineteenth century paired furniture with undertaking, and North Liberty's record of the pairing is unusually complete. George A. Bettcher arrived in 1871 "to assist father-in-law's furniture and undertaking business" — the atlas prints him "Furniture and Undertaking — St. Louis, Missouri — settled 1871," the c.1886 patrons list prints him the same, and by 1884–85 he was also postmaster. P. S. Burkhart stands beside him in the same trade (atlas 1875, settled 1869; patrons list likewise). Jeremiah Steel [Steele] lists furniture across the 1880s gazetteers — the atlas prints a Jeremiah Steele as "Farming and Saw Milling," the same man at two trades or two men, not resolved and printed without merger. J. F. Johnson, furniture, appears in 1884–85 only; J. W. Kring lists as undertaker alone in 1880–81 and 1882–83. The trade's next form is the Finch Block: Louis G. Finch & Company's furniture store in its north storefront in 1909 and 1917, and the Kilmer firm — "Kilmer L. [?], furn and undertkr" in Polk 1916–17, its initial garbled — running furniture-and-undertaking alongside its Finch Block hardware store. Adjacent stands the L. W. Pommert Building at 112 North Main, built 1920 with its datestone "19 L. W. POMMERT 20"; by 1940 the store was L. W. Pommert & Mapes, selling home furnishings — Pommert having been town board president in 1912, the earliest town-board president named in any carrier reached. The modern line is Palmer: Kent R. Palmer graduated from the Indiana College of Mortuary Science in 1958, "served for 35 years in his profession," and died 5 December 2006 (the firm's own staff page); the North Liberty house is attested by 1967 — "PALMER FUNERAL HOME, North Liberty, Indiana — Kent R. Palmer, Owner and Director," in the yearbook's sponsor ads. The firm is now a multi-chapel company (River Park, Welsheimer-North, Bubb, Guisinger, Hickey, West, its Community Complex, Lakeville, and North Liberty, with Southlawn Cemetery), co-owned by Kent's sons K. R. Palmer, in the business since 1984, and Kerry Palmer, since 1992 — printed at the strength of the firm's own staff page. Present state: Palmer Funeral Home, 202 North Main Street (town links). When the North Liberty chapel opened, and whether Palmer succeeded an earlier town undertaker's practice — the Kilmer line above — is stated by no carrier reached: a named gap.