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Back in the day, morticians at Greer’s Wood Mortuary took turns spending the night at the iconic Greer establishment so they could respond to death calls in the middle of the night. Now, for many of us the idea of sleeping at the funeral home is a contradiction in terms. Sleep would be difficult at best, knowing you’re the only person in the house with a pulse. But the professional staff at Wood’s took it all in stride and did their nightly duty for decades until finally, a few years back, the practice was abandoned.

Several years ago, I asked the late Jack Ammons, a longtime and much respected funeral director at Wood’s, if he had ever had any strange encounters during his many nights sleeping upstairs at the mortuary. He chuckled and told me an unforgettable tale.

It was sometime in the ‘60s or maybe the early ‘70s, and it was the middle of a particularly hot, humid and stormy summer. An evening visitation went long, and since it was Jack’s night to stay, he was responsible for closing the mortuary for the evening. He made sure everything was in order before he retired upstairs. Before he did, though, he stepped out onto the front porch to get a breath of fresh air. The air was heavy and humid. Fingers of lightning played across the evening sky. He locked up, turned out the lights, and made his way to the upstairs bedroom. 

Sometime during the night, a violent thunderstorm crashed into town. The booming thunder rattled the windows, awaking the sleeping undertaker. Then, a flash of brilliant lightning landed close by and shut down the power. All was pitch black. Jack rose from his bed. He began making his way downstairs in the crow-black darkness to check the fuse box. Without a flashlight, he had to trust his instincts. He began descending the stairs. His hand was on the stair rail, and as he neared the bottom of the steps, he recalled that suddenly, a cold hand enveloped his own hand. 

He confessed he didn’t know whether he should run or just go ahead and have a heart attack on the spot. He soon determined, though, that the cold hand belonged to someone who was very much alive and was just as shocked as he was. When Jack finally regained his composure, he realized that his unwelcome visitor was clearly drunk and, to escape the storm, had entered the one door Jack forgot to lock. 

The philosophical mortician then summed it all up by saying, “It only proves it’s not the dead ones you ought to be scared of, but those that are still living.”

Wise words, but I would still just as soon sleep anywhere but upstairs at the funeral home.