Just
Hearse’N Around is a not-for-profit car club. We do not collect
membership dues, and we do not engage in fund-raising activities. All
of the costs associated with this website and various activities are
personally covered by the web master, and these ads are a way to
recover some of the expense. The following paragraph is here to better
target the ads that appear on this page.
A hearse is a purposely built professional car, used to transport
deceased, dead bodies and corpses from a funeral home to the cemetery.
These vehicles start out a large sedan, manufactured by Cadillac or
Lincoln and converted into a hearse by a coach builder such as
Superior, Sawyers and Scoville (S&S), Miller-Meteor, Eagle,
Federal or Bevinton Cotington. Styles vary, but hearses generally
include a landau bar on the side of the cargo section. Sometimes the
hearse is used as what is called a first responder, meaning that when a
person dies at home, a funeral home, coroner or medical examiner needs
to pick up the body, or cadaver. Depending on state law, the body may
need to be taken to the medical examiner’s office, in order to perform
an autopsy, and sign a death certificate. In addition to the medical
examiner, mortuary school students are typically employed by the county
to perform the bulk of the autopsy itself. After the body is delivered
to the funeral home by hearse, the mortician processes the deceased by
means of a process called embalming. To embalm a body, the embalmer
drains the body of fluids and replaces them with embalming fluid which
is a formaldehyde based product. The body is then placed in a casket or
coffin for viewing during the funeral. After the funeral, the casket is
carried by pallbearers, typically friends or relatives of the deceased,
into the hearse. The hearse then leads a funeral procession, made up of
vehicles driven by friends and relatives of the deceased. Once at the
cemetery or grave yard, a graveside memorial service is typically
performed, which may or may not include a eulogy. The specifics of the
burial depend on the individual cemetery, but the grave is generally
marked with the deceased’s name, date of birth and date of death on a
tombstone or other grave marker. Sometimes the casket is placed in a
mausoleum, also known as a family crypt, and contrary to the movies,
the tomb is not guarded by a crypt keeper. After the hearse is retired
from service, it is typically purchased by individuals that are
interested in the macabre or horror movies. They decorate them for
Halloween, or drive them to zombie festivals, sometimes called
zombiefest or zombie walk, or drive them in parades. Some owners
believe in ghosts and ghost hunting, but the majority just drive them
to horror related events and haunted houses. There are several hearse
clubs for owners to join. In 2011, Just Hearse’N Around, along with
several other hearse clubs and individual owners, established a
Guinness World Record for the Largest Hearse Parade, in Hell, Michigan.
