OUR STORY
Millard C. Hurley opened the Hurley Funeral Home in 1919.
After attending mortuary school in Dallas in 1925, Millard became the first licensed funeral director in Atascosa County. In addition to directing services, he dug the graves and then returned to the funeral home, changing into his suit to officiate over the service. Caskets were transported to the cemetery on a flatbed pickup. After the family had returned from the cemetery, Millard would change back into his work clothes and go back, fill in the grave, and arrange the flowers. The family funeral home also offered burial garments, with his wife, Thelma, sewing suits and dresses for the deceased. She also baked a chocolate cake and presented it after the funeral to every family the firm served.
During the 1930s, Hurley Funeral Home flourished through hard work and sacrifice. They acquired a vehicle that served as an ambulance and funeral car, and a small funeral establishment was eventually completed in Poteet. Millard’s cousin R.C. joined Hurley Funeral Home. He worked there for 13 years until he started his own business.
The Hurleys’ business dreams were beginning to take shape, despite the Great Depression. Envisioning opening a funeral home for the area, Millard went to borrow money. The banker refused the loan, telling him that people would always go to the church for funerals and that a funeral home would never work.
The Hurley’s continued, undaunted, and in September 1937 purchased the G.A. Schroeder Funeral Home in Jourdanton. After several years of hard work and saving, they were also able to build their own establishment in 1938 and operated funeral homes in both Poteet and Jourdanton until Millard moved these establishments to the funeral home’s current location in Pleasanton.
In 1940, Rudy Moseley joined the staff and made his home at Hurley Funeral Home, giving his undivided attention to the business for the next 41 years. He, R.C. Hurley, and Mr. and Mrs. Millard Hurley carried a heavy load during the years leading up to World War II, with few physicians and no hospital in the county. The staff often worked around the clock, carrying the sick and injured to and from San Antonio hospitals. The wartime tire and gasoline shortages made these trips doubly difficult.
Charles Hurley, Millard’s only son, left his studies at Baylor University to enlist in the Merchant Marines when war broke out. When he returned to Pleasanton after World War II, he attended mortuary school in Dallas, graduating in 1947. Charles became a partner in the business, and his wife, Joyce Lorraine Hearn, became an organist, adding immeasurably to the Hurley funeral services.
“My grandfather paid keen attention to detail,” Patrick Jr. said, “and when it came time to get the hearses ready for services, my grandfather, himself, would get a toothbrush to go over the wheels, making sure everything was spotless.”
Aside from his passion for perfection, Charles Hurley was instrumental in the desegregation of the schools in Atascosa County during the civil rights movement. “My father believed it was a silly idea for the kids to go to school separately,” recalled Pat Hurley. “Life Magazine had sent a photographer to record the desegregation, but when they saw things were going smoothly, the photographer was overheard to say, “Well, there’s no story here.’ My father turned and, using fairly colorful language, echoed, ‘You’re right. There’s no story.”
According to his grandson, Charles Hurley was also a man who was true to his word. “My grandfather stood for what he believed and never backed down,” said Patrick. “He had a very strong idea of what the business should be and was extremely focused on making it live up to all of these ideas.” He told his newly licensed son that he was “making arrangements with a family, not for a family.”
When Pat Hurley got out of the service, he and his father had registered cattle, and his mother’s side of the family was in ranching.
“I could see the cattle business was a lot of fun, but I might not be able to make a living at it,” Pat admitted, “so I came back to the funeral profession.”
Charles and Joyce Hurley’s son, Patrick Charles Hurley, Sr., attended college and mortuary school at San Antonio College, becoming a licensed funeral director in 1973. He and Charles Hurley ran the ambulance service in the county until 1980, when they donated their ambulance equipment to the county to start the first EMS services in that area of Texas.
In addition to running ambulance services until 1980, Patrick Sr. also dug the graves for all of their funerals. “It was a tough schedule,” his son, Patrick, recalled. “He was always busy.”
When Charles Hurley died in 1993, every one of his employees asked to be his pallbearers. “He always carried us,” they said. “Now it’s our turn.”
Charles’ wife Joyce worked at the funeral home until her death in 2004. Patrick said, “Until she went in the hospital the week she died,” said Patrick, “she stayed active in the office, paying bills and keeping us in line.”
The Hurley family is proud of its long record of community service. “Somebody in this family has been on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year since 1919,” said Pat. “We love this community, and so many of the people we serve are our friends and neighbors. When you know how important it is for these people to know you’re there when they come, you always do a little extra.”
“We still answer the phone when it rings at night; we go on first calls, even in the middle of the night, and we’ve remained active in our community,” said Patrick Jr., a past president of the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. “It’s always been a priority to let the community know how much we appreciate them, and we’ve continued to invest in our facilities, making certain we offered our families a funeral home that was state-of-the-art.”
Since Patrick Sr.'s retirement in 2019, Patrick Jr. and his wife Christina have taken over the day-to-day operations of the company and look forward to keeping the family firm on a steady course for generations to come.
