Hepburn's Hearse

Will, you have talked about your old black hearse, your hippy vehicle. How about some more stories? 

Hearse stories from back in the day

Will Hepburn MPHS 66

I owned a 1959 black Cadillac hearse in 1970 and 71. The kind with the huge fins. I kept it stock except for the 8-track and full sized stereo speakers mounted in the back.

The first weekend I kept it parked in front of our house on Damen. Trinity Methodist (our church) parking overflowed onto Damen and most of those folks going to church assumed someone had died. My mother received condolence phone calls for days.

A long haired kid driving a hearse back then was a red flag to cops. I got stopped at least 20 times in the year and a half I owned it. Got searched about 15 times and never got busted. And I got 8 tickets for rinky-dink stuff like not using a turn signal, having a for-sale sign in the back window that blocked my vision or registration issues. Back then I had Illinois and Kansas driver’s licenses and when I lost the Kansas one due to so many tickets, I was able to keep driving on the Illinois license.

One night in Iowa we came upon a really bad head-on accident. 6 cars involved, one on fire, a few people killed and a whole bunch injured. As the cops waved us through the detour one stopped me and asked if I was the ambulance they had called. I said, “no, but I’ll help”. They loaded a woman with a broken leg and other non-life threatening injuries along with a cop in the back and we took her to the hospital. When we got there, there were trails of blood coming from several directions, in through the doors and off into different rooms. Lots of screaming and bad vibes. We helped the cop get the gurney out of the back of my hearse and left as quickly as we could. Ugh.

A couple of months later in the same town I was stopped at a safety check and was cited for having expired plates. They weren’t mine, either. They belonged to Kirk Jone’s mother. The cops were nice enough and even gave me a ride to the DMV office to buy Iowa plates. On the way over I struck up a conversation about the traffic accident I helped out with, and the cop riding shotgun turns and said “I thought that was you. Didn’t you have Kansas plates on then?” Gulp. But like I said they were nice about it all.

The hearse could attract trouble all on its own. Over Thanksgiving 1970, Kirk Jones and I were riding west along Leavitt on the way to meet up at Kirks’ house with 4 friends we had found at the bar on 111th west of Kedzie (Can’t remember the name). Four kids in a car in front of us began messing with us, stopping in the middle of the street, tossing beer cans out the window at us and cutting us off as I tried to pass at 101st and Leavitt. At 103rd and Leavitt I blew the stop sign to get around them when they stopped, and Kirk, the hot-head, leaned out the window, grabbed the other driver’s head and slammed it into the steering wheel. Then the chase was really on. Those four against us two. They probably thought they would have some sport with us until we got Kirk’s house at 105th and Bell and there were our four friends waiting for us. It was a pretty good fight, but didn’t last long.

John Thompson and I were drinking one night in 1971 in a bar on the north side, when a guy came in bragging that he had just parked-in some hippy wagon outside. John and I quietly slipped out and sure enough found this guy’s Riviera bumper to bumper with my hearse. I fired up the hearse, put it in first gear and pushed his Riviera into the middle of North avenue, backed up and drove away leaving his car as fodder for Ross Kosko’s Lincoln Towing.

At that point I didn’t really know that Lincoln Towing was a mob operation, and later that same night my hearse got towed to a chain linked fenced lot. I didn’t have enough money to get it out, so I figured I’d hop the fence and drive it right through the gates to get away. As soon as my feet hit the ground in the lot, I heard dogs and I sprinted across the lot, hurdle-jumped one foot onto the hood, the other foot onto the roof and was over the fence on the other side just as the dogs arrived. When I later rounded up some money and went to bail my car out there were 3 thugs sitting sneering at me with ax handles leaning up against the wall. I think I was lucky the dogs chased me off.

Back then I carried pot with me all the time. Fortunately the ’59 Caddy had a dash board behind which I could hide my stash where even a shining flashlight wouldn’t find it. So although I was carrying every time I got searched I never got busted.

One night on the way to da nort’ side with a pound of pot (too big for my hidey-hole) in the foot well behind the driver seat, I got stopped for the for sale sign in the side window that supposedly obscured my vision. The cop began to search the car and I figured this is it, busted for sure. But although he shined his light under the seat, being down in the wheel well kept the pot from being seen and he never folded the seat forward from the cabinetry to see if anything was behind it. Big time whew!

I was working construction in Lake of the Ozarks. A buddy and I were sleeping in the back of the hearse after a night of bar-hopping, and had selected a dark spot behind a billboard sign. It was a classic cop-speed trap sort of location, and the cop must have been pissed we took his spot because I woke up with a knee on my chest and a flashlight in my eyes as cop #2 searched the front of the car. Saved again by the hidey-hole, the cops told us we couldn’t stay there or anywhere in their county, so at Oh-dark thirty we had to drive to the next county and find a place to sleep. The Facists!

The dash board of the ’59 Caddy was so big that we could buy a 9 quart Falstaff tapper keg and put it on the dashboard when at the Starlight Drive In. It was a great party car, rolling or not.

One time coming back from a weekend in Iowa I headed toward Chicago on I-80 picking up every hitchhiker I saw. I had at least 3, maybe 4 guys in the car, stereo blasting, everyone getting herbed up drinking beer and rocking all the way to the South Side. It was a great day.

The next evening at dinner with my folks, my mother shoots me a caustic look and mentions that her boss saw the biggest black car just full of kids having the time of their life on I-80 the day before.

150 miles from home and I got busted by my parents. Sheesh!

I had to sell the hearse when I went into the Army in 1971 but it sure was fun while it lasted.

I have a short hearse story myself. In 1972 I was in college and working part time for an ambulance company in Chicago Heights. They also owned a funeral home. In smaller communities the only vehicle large enough to be an ambulance was the hearse. You just put an emergency light on top of the hearse, and, VOILA!! an ambulance.

I always thought that it would be real depressing to call for an ambulance and see the hearse roll up.

Craig Hullinger MPHS Jan 66
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Uhhhh, no kidding, Craig!  I sure am glad you never came to pick me or mine up in that thing!!!!!  Geesh!

Joan Pettavino. '66
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Actually, having spent time in more than few small towns in my checkered past, I remember couple a of those ambulance / hearse situations. So I concur.

My niece is a paramedic, as is her husband. She and I talk about related subjects and I remember when the two songs with the most accurate beat for CPR were Bee Gees Staying Alive and Queen's Another One Bites the Dust. I told her if I was revived to someone sing Staying Alive I might just decide I had died and gone to Hell. So I instructed her to use Queen if I need CPR.

Tom Schildhouse Jan 66
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How about calling for an ambulance and finding a pizza chef at your door? It happened that our son is an ER doctor who works on the ambulance.  He had worked as a pizza chef all through med school; One night after working at the pizzeria 'til midnight, he went straight on duty aboard the ambulance. Call came right away to go out - a woman was having a heart attack! 

My son got to the house, rang the front bell and the man who answered the door, suddenly put one hand on his chest and grabbed the wall to keep from falling over. "Oh my god", he gasped. "I called for an ambulance and the pizza chef shows up at the door!"  (it seems the man had eaten at the pizzeria where our son had just finished working an hour earlier!)

Marie Stazzone
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Mine was also a combo ambulance/hearse, too. I have a photo somewhere. I'll get it scanned and send it to you. Along with a few more stories - there are a lot of them.

Bob Hart had a 1958 Caddy hearse, purple at the same time. Personally I think the '58 was the better looking rig, but the fins on the '59 were iconic.

Will

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Linda Larson Scalia

Do U Hears-me??? (linlou's funny) say that was a good one??? (I didn't even look aaaanything up like some do....) Don't ya Veenie??

I had a boyfriend, named Don. It was the Summer of ...um...65.........We met at a YFC rally for Illinois. He was from a Southern Illinois town of Freeport.

Oh...handsome...oh yeah...gorgeous...handsome (ALMOST...like my Elvis)...well...he bought a 1945, 35??? packard hearse...black...whatta hunk of car,.like a tank.....even though it was a hearse.....probably....an ambulance also....(see ...2 the guys...you;ll not the only ones...I had a boyfriend that had one...

Continuing....WELL...he came to visit me at 106th pl. in the Summer of 65...around then. I know was still in H.S. and he was a year younger than I...(SEE...i go for younger men...still)ha...

I woulda like to of seen my neighbors faces as Don drove down to my house!!! The McKeens...Delores...she woulda been laughin'...she had a great sense of humor about her anyhow...the Stroms...Jerry, Ron...(he played football at MPHI) and knocked over my snowman, too...Mom got rrrreally upset bout' that!!)..and all the other neighbors.

When Don got to my house, I took a pic of him standing in front of it. I even made a 5 by 7 out of it. I will go through my pics and hopefully get it up for all you "hearse" people..

He took me for many rides in that...I would look back and see all the "space" in it....well, it was hearse, Lin Lou...geez...

Those were some fun times...

He moved to California after he got out of H.S. in 67'. His sister who was 10 years older, was already out there. So, he was staying with her for awhile. I went out there in 67' with my friend, Michele who had friends that got married and moved out there.

Don picked us up from Ken and Sue's house for the 4th of July. I introduced him to Ken and Sue. Ken was a counselor for people with drug use and trying to get "clean." After the night was over, Ken said the next day..."your friend, DOn, is doin' drugs...he could tell by his eyes...dialated small or big...maybe somem of u can enlighted Linlou on that...anyhow...am thinkin' geez, here wee are drivin' round' Calif. with a druggy, Don, my boyfriend, kinda of....scary...he was drivin'.....

Well, after the trip... we had less communication as the next year came. Went back out to Calif. but didn't see Don.

I've tried to use "yellow pages" on internet about 7 years ago...got a hold of a phone number to a Don ..P. but this old man answered and I asked if he was from Freeport Illinois...no he said...so..still haven't located him. 

Hope he ditched the drugs and is alive and well somewhere....maybe someday I will find him......had a lot of good times together...before he got on drugs..... Even met his parents in Freeport when Don drove me down to meet them....during H.S.

So, that's my story, bout', hearse,my boyfriend and drugs....

linlouloves...watchin; the Oscars!!!

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