William James Ahearn, New York City, NY., then Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000




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William James Ahearn, funeral director and embalmer, has been a 

resident and business man of Shreveport since 1906. He is one of 

the prominent mat of that progressive city.



He was born in New York City, May 11, 1868, and received his primary 

educational advantages there.  When he was eleven years of age, in 

1880, his family moved west and southwest to Dallas, Texas, where Mr. 

Ahearn grew up and acquired his early business experiences.  In 1897 

Mr. Ahearn and family removed to New Orleans, but in the yellow fever 

scare of the following year he moved to Chicago and in 1898 entered 

the Chicago College of Embalming.  After completing his course he 

was assistant instructor under Carl M. Barnes, the dean and founder 

of the Chicago College of Embalming.



In March, 1901, Mr. Ahearn returned to Dallas, Texas, but in 1903 

again took his family back to Chicago.  On September 13, 1906, he 

located in Shreveport which has become his permanent home and 

permanent place of business.  Since then he has enjoyed many 

pleasant civic and social relationships with the community and has 

given the best of himself in public spirited co-operation with the 

movement looking toward the realization of the highest good fortune 

and prosperity of the city.  On January , 1920, he opened the Ahearn 

Funeral Home, a business service in which the younger members of his 

own family give him loyal aid and assistance.  This funeral home is 

located at 315 Crocket Street.  Mr. Ahearn married, April 15, 1891, 

at Dallas, Miss Lula Bish.  Mrs. Ahearn was born in Marion, Indiana, 

July 31, 1875, and was ten years of age when her family in 1885 moved 

to Dallas, where she Was reared and continued her education.  The 

first child of Mr. and Mrs. Ahearn was a son, Adolph, who was born 

April 7, 1892, and died May 7, 1893.  On March 19, 1894, a daughter 

was born, named Ila Fay.  On July 1, 1901, following his return to 

Dallas after completing his course in embalming at Chicago, another 

son was born, Ralph William Ahearn.  The son George LeRoy was born 

October 19, 1907, about a year after the family established their 

home in Shreveport.



Ralph William Ahearn enlisted June 15, 1918, at the age of seventeen, 

and on August 6, 1918, sailed on time transport U. S. S. Mongolia, 

landing in France August 18th, and saw service in two campaigns, St. 

Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne.  On April 11, 1919, he sailed to the United 

States, landing April 23rd, and received his honorable discharge 

May 24, 1919, before his eighteenth birthday.  He also served a year's 

enlistment in the Machine Gun Company H, with the One Hundred 

Fifty-sixth Infantry, Louisiana National Guard, holding the rank 

of sergeant.  Ralph William Ahearn graduated from the Louisiana 

School of Embalming at Tulane University, at New Orleans, in 1924, 

getting the second highest honors in his class, and being secretary 

and treasurer of the class.  He is now a skilled and proficient 

assistant in his father's business.  The other son, George, is a 

student in the Gulf Coast Military Academy at Gulfport, Mississippi.



A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 53, by Henry E. Chambers.  

Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.