Cannon & Son meeting the needs of the community

Published 10:00 pm Friday, September 19, 2014

_Cannon

By Mark Schmerling

 

Many years ago, Franklin Pierce Cannon (He goes by Pierce) knew he had a better future than one spent laboring as a sharecropper’s son in the Inman-Campobello area.

When Pierce observed an insurance salesman dressed in a white shirt and blue pants, he pictured himself in that outfit, and his dream began. “I decided that’s what I wanted to be wearing.” He also figured that the insurance man riding in the car must have felt cooler and more comfortable that he (Pierce) did working in the field.

Though Cannon did sell insurance for a time (in a white shirt and blue pants), he turned his dream into action in September, 1964, when he opened a funeral home, in Landrum.

Fifty years later this September, with son Frank as part of the business, Cannon & Son Mortuary is and still meeting the needs of many individuals in Polk, Greenville and Spartanburg counties and going well beyond their advertised services.

For the Cannons, community service is spelled in capital letters.

The elder Cannon enlisted in the Navy, with a plan – “to get tuition,” so he could go to school for business.

After his discharge from the Navy, the early G.I. Bill helped put him through business school in Nashville. “I was in there (the school) for a year, Pierce recalled recently. From there he studied at Atlanta College of Mortuary Science.

Why there, and why mortuary science? To answer the second part, “It was something that fell on me,” said the elder Cannon, who said that when he was young, “I buried everything – (already dead) worms, snakes, birds . . .”

Why Atlanta? Frank (Whose name is also Franklin Pierce Cannon), explained that in those days, Atlanta had many store-front funeral homes.

To receive a mortuary license, a candidate had to work two years as an apprentice to prove one’s skill in embalming.

Pierce performed his apprenticeship at Woodward Funeral Home, Spartanburg. He then became a “trade embalmer,” performing that service for funeral homes in Atlanta.

And for 10 years he also sold insurance (“Every day,” he remembers, “I wore a white shirt and blue pants”), to help put money away to start his own business.

Moving back to Spartanburg County, Pierce Cannon invested in a piece of property, which at the time was just outside the city limits of Landrum. That was in 1962, and he planned to open a business there.

Back then Frank noted, “You didn’t have to have as much capital to get started. All you needed was a dream. He (his father) had a dream.”

Pierce constructed the building, performing much of the work himself. He also worked part-time at Spartanburg General Hospital at night to earn money to put back into his new business.

At that time, he was married with two young children: Frank and his younger brother Stephen. His wife Azalee and sons were living in Union, where Pierce and Azalee met.

In 1964, no African-American-owned funeral home existed in or near Landrum. On Sept. 14, 1964 that changed when Pierce opened his mortuary.

He waited patiently for his first customer. “I opened Sept.14, and got my first call on Nov. 14,” he recalled.

Was that exciting? “It was,” he remembers. “It was. (I was) nervous, too.” The family moved to Tryon in 1965, where Frank and another young African American integrated Tryon Elementary School.

Prior to that, Pierce ran the mortuary business in Landrum, while Frank, Stephen and Pierce’s wife Azalee lived in Union (Where she was raised and where she and Pierce met).

In 1964, Frank explained, few people in Landrum had telephone service, but the mortuary did.

When local residents needed to make emergency or social calls, Pierce invited them to use his phone. “I learned how important community was,” Frank said. “He (Pierce) had a driven purpose.”

That telephone provided a needed bridge between residents, permitting them to stay connected.

So popular was the funeral home phone that many children listed the number as their emergency contact.

Going a step further, Pierce often drove residents to other towns to keep doctors’ and other appointments.

Pierce also co-founded the Community Fellowship Club, a service organization that raised funds to help support the volunteer rescue squad, provided assistance to seniors and performed other needed services.

As a result, “community matters to me,” Frank said. He’s now on the board of directors of Polk County Community Foundation.

Frank explained another way in which his father helped families of modest income. Long ago, some insurance companies refused to sell life insurance policies to blacks who then could not afford the dignity of a funeral.

As a result, “burial policies” were sold to many individuals to help them afford eventual funeral costs.

By 1964, blacks were able to purchase regular life insurance, but many older residents still had only their “burial policies.” In addition, when perspective clients could not afford $300 funerals (some years ago), Pierce would let the family make payments. “He brought that dignity to families who really could not afford it,” Frank noted.

When Frank came into the business, he performed his apprenticeship by the age of 16, under Pierce.

His own early work involved carrying out children’s funerals. Of the business, he notes, “It was as purposeful for our lives as it was for his. He (his father) is a dreamer.”

For Frank, “The science (of embalming) is what interested me, to see a body and make it as pleasant as possible.”

Cannon & Son Mortuary is located at 703 N. Randolph St., just east of downtown Landrum. Their phone is 864-457-3335. In 1987, they also opened Cannon Chapel and Funeral Service, Inman, to provide services more convenient for local residents. “One business, two locations,” Pierce noted. “We have a reputation and we have an affordable service.”

Cannon & Son serves clients as far away as Asheville, Greenville and Spartanburg, while covering nearer communities including Green Creek, Tryon and Landrum. While Cannon still serves the African American community, all clients are welcome.

Even at 91, Pierce Cannon is on the job, and hopes to be there for a long time.  “I’m very proud of it,” he noted. “I’m hoping to be around to provide the service.”