Stories from the Third Ward: A Pastor, a Teacher, and an Ex-Pharmacist Walk into a Funeral Home

In this special episode, Miranda Ruzinsky and Katie Truax – UH graduate students in public history – highlight the tradition of community support in Third Ward demonstrated through the institutions and public spaces associated with the funeral process. The role of black-owned businesses, churches and religious leaders, and public remembrance like murals are central to the neighborhood’s resilience in difficult times of death and grief.  

This episode was researched, recorded, and produced by Miranda Ruzinsky and Katie Truax for the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. 

To learn more: 

Beverly, Trevia Wooster. “At Rest: A Historical Directory of Harris County, Texas Cemeteries (1822-2001).” Reference Material, n.d. Genealogy Collection. Houston History Research Center. 

Bruines, Myron. “Walter Allen Ford.” Funeral Program. McCoy & Harrison Funeral Home: 4918 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Houston (Tex.), 77021; Jones Memorial United Methodist Church: 2504 Almeda Genoa Road, Houston (Tex.), 77047; Houston Memorial Gardens: 2426 Cullen Boulevard, Pearland (Tex.), 77581, April 14, 2016. African American Funeral Programs. Houston Public Library Digital Archives.  

Houston Mural Map. https://houstonmuralmap.com/. 

Najarro, Ileana. “Black Funeral Homes in Danger in Some U.S., Houston Communities.” Houston Chronicle, January 23, 2019.  

“Our History - McCoy & Harrison Funeral Home,” June 11, 2018.  

Wilson, Ezell. “Third Ward, Steeped in Tradition of Self-Reliance and Achievement.” Houston History, April 18, 2011. 

All check out the amazing collections at the African American History Research Center at the Gregory Campus. 

Oral Histories conducted by Miranda Ruzinsky:  

Dickson, Pastor Donald, Interview, March 9, 2024. 

McCoy Abernathy, Helen. Interview, February 24, 2024. 

Music courtesy of:

Freesound.org

"remix of 45145__hammerklavier__GOSPEL_INTRO_TRADITIONAL_even_BRIGHTER_reverbed.wav" by Timbre. CC BY-NC 4.0. 

"Street Gospel Hip Hip Piano - 75bpm - Bbmaj" by nnaudio. CC BY 4.0.   

Freemusicarchive.org

"Little Wooden Church" by The Trumpeteers. PDM 1.0.   

"Free Spacy Organ (F 003)" by Lobo Loco. CC BY-SA 4.0.  

https://sarah-bereza.com/hymn-accompaniments/

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

Transcript

M: An ex-pharmacist, a teacher, and a pastor walk into a funeral home…Sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? But it’s not. It’s a narrative spanning almost one hundred years. It’s a multigenerational family history. It’s an untold tale from the city’s largest African American neighborhood. It’s the true story of the power of community within Third Ward.  

M: My name is Miranda Ruzinsky.  

K: And I’m Katie Truax.  

M: We are graduate students at the University of Houston, and we wanted to understand how death and grief are handled in Third Ward, a historically black neighborhood located southeast of Downtown Houston. From its inception as a home for recently freed slaves in the Jim Crow South, Third Ward was destined to have to fight for its survival. The community saw its heydays in the 1930s and 40s when Dowling Street and Lyons Avenue bustled with black-owned businesses, but Third Ward’s time as the city’s hub of black culture and society waned as city development and desegregation encouraged its slow decline into one of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods. We wanted to know how this community stayed so resilient at one of the most vulnerable moments anyone could face: the funeral of a loved one. 

M - In the initial stages of our project, we learned of a funeral home in Third Ward that has been owned by the same family for almost 100 years. If anyone knows about navigating death and grief, it would be them. 

K - Miranda, that’s right. It’s the McCoy and Harrison Funeral Home, which was established in 1925 by Homer E. McCoy Sr. One day, he came home to his wife Blanche and said, “I’m going to start a funeral business.” Ninety-nine years later, the funeral home now serves clients from all over Houston.  

What’s remarkable is that all that time, the funeral home has stayed in the family. After Homer McCoy Sr. passed away, his wife ran the business with the help of their son, Homer E. McCoy Jr., who ultimately became Funeral Director In Charge in the 1950s. Alongside running a family business, Homer McCoy Jr. was a teacher, school counselor, and track coach in Houston Independent School District. He encouraged his two daughters to continue his legacy, and in the 1970s Helen McCoy Abernathy became Funeral Director in Charge and Brenda McCoy Lee became Corporate Secretary. Today, Helen’s son Homer J. Jordan, without even a nudge from his mother, chose to become the head of the family business.  

M: In my interview with Helen, she emphasized how much their family really cares about the Houston community and the people they serve as they prepare a loved one for burial. Let me play you this clip. 

Helen McCoy Abernathy: My business is not a business where, you know, you are here today, and we don’t care about you tomorrow. It’s not that kind of business. So, we do have a care about our practice. 

M: She discussed many times that getting on a personal level with the grieving families is important. And her family’s way of doing business is intimate and this has contributed to successive generations of clients from the same family returning even after they have moved out of Third Ward. 

K – And Helen has made sure to pass down these values to her son, Homer Jordan. 

Helen McCoy Abernathy: I taught him how, and plus my daddy taught him how to do things and do everything necessary and he’s doing pretty good. He’s developed his own process.  

M: I visited the funeral home and met with Homer who connected me with his mother.  I walked in and immediately saw family portraits of McCoy family members lined up on both sides of the entrance hall. The family is obviously very aware that their deep and abiding relationship with the community is important to their success. 

K - Absolutely. A recent article about black-owned funeral homes in Houston noted that many such businesses are family-affairs, and without a succession of the next generation to operate them, they are beginning to close. Even so, Helen is excited for the future of her own business and Third Ward. 

Helen McCoy Abernathy - I just love the area, love being in this area. Like I said to my momma, when I leave here, they’re going to take me out in a coffin. 

M: The support and community that the McCoy and Harrison Funeral Home provides to Third Ward residents in mourning continues through the funeral service. Katie actually found a historical record of this. 

K: I contacted the African American Research Center at the Gregory School and found out that there is a wealth of information available, including a digital archive of funeral programs associated with McCoy and Harrison Funeral Home. Some people may find it a bit morbid to look at funeral programs, but as historian Dr. Suzanne Smith notes, “obituaries and programs kept in black-owned funeral homes are historic records of generations of African American families.” Each document tells a beautiful story of community. The program that drew me in was that of a graduate and later teacher at Jack Yates High School, a celebrated educational institution in Third Ward. Amazing photos of friends and family with the deceased took up four of the eight pages of the program. Four different local pastors spoke about the departed community member, including one we interviewed for this story, Pastor Donald R. Dickson of Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. 

M: Wow, that is so cool. This really demonstrates that the key to the resiliency of Third Ward is the support the community provides to one another. This really stood out to me in my conversation with Pastor Dickson. He grew up in Third Ward and knew Homer McCoy Jr. personally. He actually cleaned the first building of the family business when he was a member of the track team that Homer McCoy Jr. coached in the 1950s. He has led funeral services for Third Ward families for decades. He really emphasizes how the church as an institution and the role of the pastor are vital in helping families grieve the loss of a loved one.  

K: I read the transcript of your interview with Pastor Dickson, and he spent a lot of time reflecting on death as something all humans have to deal with. He says, “To know that since death is inevitable, then the power and the satisfaction we receive from the biblical perspective allows us to understand that we can live beyond the reality of death. Death is sure and it is the reality of living again that helps many of us, many of the families that I counsel.” 

M: Yeah. That is so important. That human support, knowing that you are not alone, your family is not alone, is helpful when dealing with the death of a loved one.  

M: When the funeral service is over, it’s time to lay a person to rest. But I was surprised to learn that there are no cemeteries in Third Ward. Can you tell me more about that? 

K – When I visited the African American History Research Center at the Gregory School, I also investigated historically black cemeteries in Houston. There have been at least 100 throughout the city. Only three remain, but none are in Third Ward. There are several possible reasons that no cemeteries exist in Third Ward. As observed by Houston native and historian Patricia Prather in a Houston Chronicle article, black-owned funeral homes rose up during segregation when white funeral homes would not bury black people. When integration came in the 1950s and 60s, it caused an “exodus” of black families from the Fifth and Third Wards. Black churches and funeral parlors remained in these neighborhoods as families would return for these key institutions, but cemeteries often fell victim to urban planning schemes as new roads, highways, parking lots, and infrastructure were built. There are groups constantly working to get attention and funding for the preservation of the remaining three cemeteries in Fifth Ward, and those efforts are far too late for any cemeteries that might have been in Third Ward. 

M - Pastor Dickson mentioned that most Third Ward residents are buried in Memorial Gardens in Pearland, TX, in the south region of the city. So, this begs the question, if there are no cemeteries in Third Ward, what does remembrance look like within Third Ward? 

K – The absence of cemeteries in no way means a lack of public places to remember. After the tragic death of George Floyd or even non-Third Ward residents like Trayvon Martin, Vanessa Guillen, and Breonna Taylor, huge, bright murals were painted on Elgin and other Third Ward streets surrounded by candles and flowers as symbols of public remembrance. People want to remember their dead, whether through public art like murals, records of lives in funeral programs, or through pastors and funeral homes who know you and your family. 

M: In our conversation today, it really strikes me how important local business and institutions are to the support network of the Third Ward community. There is a long legacy of families serving families. 

K: Yeah. While they are businesses, they are also essential community institutions for dealing with death and grief. This really demonstrates the resiliency of Third Ward and how collective support has allowed the community to persevere through decades of poverty, racism, and environmental injustices. Stories like these show us why Third Ward is so important to Houston.  

K: So, Miranda, you never did tell us, what does happen when an ex-pharmacist, a teacher, and a pastor walk into a funeral home? 

M: The magic of community support, of course.  

K: Thank you for listening to this episode from the Stories from the Third Ward podcast series. If you would like to learn more about this topic or about Third Ward, click on the links in the show notes of this episode or go visit the African American Research Center at the Gregory School.