Funeral home fire damages Port Arthur location, causes services to move
Published 12:23 am Thursday, July 16, 2020
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A small fire at Grammier-Oberle Funeral Home has led to at least two services being moved.
The Port Arthur Fire Department got a call at approximately 12:30 a.m. Wednesday and responded with four trucks plus the battalion chief’s vehicle. The fire occurred on the backside of the facility just inside of a door to a hallway, Fire Marshal Paul Washburn said.
The building has some smoke damage and most of the doors in the hallway were closed, which helped keep the smoke and heat from those other areas, he said.
Entergy Texas cut the power to the building.
Grammier-Oberle Funeral Home, located at 4841 39th St., is part of the Dignity Memorial network, according to its website.
On the funeral home’s Facebook page is a post saying one of their services was moved to a local church and they apologized for any inconvenience.
Several calls to the company were not returned.
The funeral home traces its beginnings to 1915 when J.E. Grammier came to the city as Port Arthur’s first mortician and started his own funeral home.
By 1943, T.W. Oberle, a part-time employee at the funeral home, and his wife were given a chance to buy into Grammier Funeral Home as partners. Two years later they became sole owners and changed the name to Grammier-Oberle Funeral Home, according to the website.
Through the years other family members joined and the business grew.