Willis family enhanced African-American community

By Connie Zeigler

When Cassius M. Clay Willis opened a mortuary at 103 Indiana Ave. in 1890, he probably didn’t realize it would

The fourth and final location of the mortuary founded by C.M.C. ‘Clay’ Willis still stands immediately north of the Walker Theatre Center on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive.

become a business important to his community and culture, as well as his customers and his pocketbook. Or maybe he did.

After all, C.M.C. “Clay” Willis was the first African-American to become a funeral director and undertaker in the state. The diploma he received when he graduated from the Massachusetts School of Embalming (located, confusingly enough, in Indianapolis) in 1895 enhanced his position and granted him state qualifications for “embalming and preserving the dead.”

Willis’s mortuary was located at 103 Indiana Ave. for a short time. Then it moved to 184 Indiana Ave. until 1897, then to 534-536 Indiana Ave. until 1913, and then to 632-634 West St. (now Dr. Martin Luther King Street). About 1927 the company built a new brick building at the old 632-634 West Street address. The 632 building remains today.

Part of a rising black middle class in Indianapolis, Willis was a charter member of Booker T. Washington’s National Negro Business League in 1900. After the turn of the 20th Century, C.M.C. Willis leveraged his status to try to improve the situation of other members of his race. He joined with 10 others to create the Afro-American Realty Co. of Indiana. The officers and directors of the company included some of the best-known names in the Indianapolis African-American community. Among them was newspaper publisher, Charles H. Stewart, an early Civil Rights activist.

The Afro-American Realty Co. offered sales and rentals of homes outside of the traditional neighborhoods where blacks were typically forced to live by the city’s de facto segregation.

Willis’s death in 1920 was grieved by members of the black and white community alike, and his obituary appeared in a number of Indianapolis newspapers, including the Indianapolis Freeman, the Indianapolis Word and The Indianapolis News, the latter referring to him as a “widely known colored citizen.” He was survived by his widow; one son, Herbert C. Willis; and three daughters, Stella Hatch, Addie Davis and Jessie Willis.

Willis’s son, Herbert, had been involved in the family undertaking business since about 1912 when he became an embalmer. After Herbert entered the business, the Willises constructed a new brick mortuary in a modern style with a red tile roof (the building that still stands).

Upon the elder Willis’s death, Herbert became the owner of C.M.C. Willis & Son Mortuary. Although his father had been well-known and important in the African-American community, Herbert was well- prepared to enhance the Willis legacy.

Herbert Willis attended Shortridge High School and Fisk University, a famous black university with many notable alumni, including W.E.B. DuBois. He also graduated from the Askin School of Embalming. He eventually became a member of the 12th District Appeal Board of Indiana’s National Selective Service – an important job in the World War II years.

Herbert Willis continued the good name of the C.M.C. Willis & Son Mortuary. In the 1930s a series of advertisements capitalized on the company’s reputation and longevity. One noted the company’s more than 46 years in business “achieving a reputation for services of fine character at charges within the means of every family.”

In 1936, C.M.C. Willis & Son provided a “complete funeral,” including a silk-lined casket with engraved name plate, the use of flower urns, chairs, biers and chapel, the burial permit, a Studebaker hearse, and cards of thanks for $145 – equivalent to about $2,400 in 2010 dollars. A pretty good price, though not a cheap one in the years of the Great Depression. For an additional $50, the firm would furnish a “massive cloth covered half-couch and a casket trimmed with extension handles and with a matching silk pillow.”

The Willis mortuary’s lovely brick edifice, right next to the Madame C.J. Walker building, became a landmark for the city.

Herbert Willis was proud of his business and his employees. He noted that each of “our assistants has been selected for his efficiency and usefulness to our patrons.” When Willis died in 1952, one of those assistants, Paul H. Haizlip, purchased the firm.

Haizlip retained the company name and the business until his death. His wife, Edna, carried it on until her death in 1993. Today the brick building that housed the C.M.C. Willis & Son Mortuary still stands at 632 Martin Luther King Street, next to the Madame Walker Theatre, a location that was once in the heart of the African-American community surrounding Indiana Avenue’s business corridor. Following the fair housing laws of the 1950s, the African-American community dispersed. And the Willis Mortuary building is no longer in use. But it remains an important landmark of Indianapolis life and particularly of the African-American history of this city.

In 2010, the African-American Landmarks Committee of Indiana Landmarks is sponsoring a nomination of Willis Mortuary to the National Register of Historic Places. The building will be nominated for its intact architecture and its association with African-American history in Indianapolis.

Next time you drive by the Walker theater building, let your eyes linger for a second on the smaller edifice just north of it. Here a community-minded family created a landmark. n

Connie Zeigler is president and owner of C. Resources, Inc. Connie is a writer and a historic preservationist who consults on preservation and greening of historic buildings. She lives in Fountain Square and blogs at INArchitecture on cresourcesinc.blogspot. com.