October 2020

Page A28 OCTOBER 2020 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on A Wilbert’s simpliFi burial vault presentation provides families all they need to know in a short, simple, 3-step process. Straightforward. Engaging. Quick. It’s as simple as that. Call your Wilbert provider to see a demo. SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND ® News Association Professional Car Society, Cadillac & LaSalle Club stage Special Display Tom Hoczyk with his 1953 Eureka Flower Car 1976 Miller-Meteor Cadillac Criterion 1967 Seventy-Five Series Fleetwood. The wildly finned four-win- dow hardtop sedan seen behind it is a 1961 Cadillac Sedan de Ville The special exhibit’s biggest, two-car contribution was a credit to 1999-2000 PCS president Tom Hoczyk, who came up from Fort Wayne, IN with a 1939 La- Salle Carved Panel Funeral Coach and a 1953 Cadil- lac Flower Car that were both bodied by The Eureka Company of Rock Falls, IL. The former, one of only two known surviving Eurekas constructed on LaSalle’s 156-inch, extra-long-wheelbase Series 50 Commercial Chassis, was all-black when it was delivered new to a St. Louis, Missouri mortuary but was changed to deep maroon with clear-coated, detail-accentuating walnut draperies during its early 1970s repaint for Bettendorf, IA funeral director Finley McGinnis. Hoczyk’s 1953 Eureka Flower Car was itself the sole surviving example of the body style built in Rock Falls that model year on Cadillac’s 157-inch wheelbase Se- ries 86 Commercial Chassis. After the Eureka Compa- ny’s East Coast representative Irving Birkmeier origi- nally sold it to the Stanley Winowicz Funeral Home of Trenton, NJ, this resplendent rarity also served a Mill- ersburg, PA mortuary prior to subsequent ownership by a Washington, IN collector and 1986-88 PCS president and first lady Robert and Georgia Parsons. While the body framing underpinning its hydraulically-inclinable stainless steel flower deck was hand-crafted in Eureka’s shops from seasoned ash the old-fashioned way, this car also showcased Cadillac’s biggest styling changes since 1950 between its subtly-hooded headlights and bullet- shaped bumper guards that were soon nicknamed “Dag- mars” after a well-endowed actress of the day. Sandusky, OH CLC member Robert Waldock loaned the exhibit a 1959 Superior Cadillac Broadmoor Skyview sightseeing coach that was one of only six built that model HICKORY CORNERS,MI— The Coronavirus pandem- ic would force its clos- ing earlier than planned and deny it the visitor turnout it deserved. The 2019-2020 exhibit of Ca- dillac and LaSalle funeral vehicles, ambulances and limousines, a collabora- tion of the Professional Car Society along with other auto hobbyist clubs, took place at the Cadillac & LaSalle Club Museum and Research Center on the Gilmore Museum’s Hickory Corners, MI campus. PCS members respond- ed enthusiastically to the invitation extended by CLC Museum president Bill Anderson, museum curator Tim Pawl and col- lection committee Chair Lars Kneller. The glass- fronted building has been an architectural standout at Gilmore since its 2014 opening, as its inspiration was a showroom proposal in a 1948 General Motors publication entitled Plan- ning Automobile Dealer Properties. Continued on Page A36 Associations: Send Us Your News! PO Box 5159, Youngstown, OH 44514 Fax 1-800-321-9040 • Email info@nomispublications.com 1987 Cadillac Moloney VIP Stretch Limo